Pennabadi Brothers From Ward Melville Capture New York State Doubles Title
Three years ago, Harshith and Shashank Pennabadi came up with a plan. For Harshith’s senior season, the brothers from Ward Melville would pair up and play doubles together in the county tournament with the goal of competing for a state title.
That plan was put into action and came to fruition on Sunday morning at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, as the Pennabadis defeated Jack Reis & Sam Saeed of Scarsdale 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 to win the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) Doubles Title.
“It’s the best way to end my high school career and play my last high school match,” Harshith said. “It means a lot playing with my brother, and we’ve been wanting to play doubles together. Three years ago I told him that my senior year we’ll play doubles together and try to win states, and I am glad it happened. We’ve been looking forward to this for awhile.”
The road to the state title wasn’t one without any speed bumps. The pairing lost in the finals of the Suffolk County Individual Championships and therefore earned the seventh seed in the New York State tournament, making their path to the finals a bit more difficult.
“We had to win every match no matter what, so we knew what to expect and we got through it,” Harshith added.
And on Sunday, the Pennabadis started slow as Reis & Saeed were able to break for a 3-1 lead in the opening set, and then broke one more time late to take the first set 6-2.
Despite being down a set, Harshith and Shashank were able to reset in between sets, putting the first one behind them and focusing on the task at hand.
“It’s a new match, we start with new balls. And the score is 0-0, love-all,” Shashank said of their mentality. “We just focused on the next point.”
Using that mindset, the duo climbed their way back into the match, breaking for a 2-1 lead in the second set and then once more for a 5-2 advantage. A couple of games later, the Pennabadis wrapped up the set to force the decider.
They carried the momentum into the final set to push ahead to a 3-0 lead. But Reis & Saeed would not go quietly, rattling off the next three games to even things up and bring the set back on serve.
At 4-3, the Pennabadis went ahead 40-0 on Reis’ serve but were unable to secure the break. But Harshith would win a crucial service game right after to go ahead 5-4 and bring them within one game of the state title.
As Saeed tried to serve to keep his team in the match, Harshith and Shashank dialed up their returns to break one final time, closing out the final set 6-4.
“I feel like I’m good at grinding from the baseline and Shashank is really good up at net,” Harshith said of their strategy in those final two sets. “After the first set, we knew I would have to play from the baseline more and he would have to poach at the net when he could. We played solid doubles tennis in those second and third sets.”
Ward Melville head coach Erick Sussin added:
“These guys deserve it, they have been playing some great tennis the last couple of years, and with Harshith being a senior, this is a great way to culminate his high school career. They showed they were the best team here, and this match had some of the best tennis you’ll see. It was top-notch.”
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Below are the final doubles results from the 2024 NYSPHSAA Individual Doubles Championships:
Champions: Harshith Pennabadi/Shashank Pennabadi (Ward Melville)
Runners Up: Jack Reis/Sam Saeed (Scarsdale)
Third Place: Jinyang Li/Owen Zerbib (Mamaronek)
Fourth Place: Eric Benderly/James Yu (Commack)
Fifth Place: Adam Fink/Benjamin Singer (Horace Greeley)
Sixth Place: Dylan Bhatia/Charles Thyroff (Pittsford Sutherland)
Seventh Place: Bryan Bin/Russell Notaris (Friends Academy)
Eighth Place: Devan Melandro/Nikhil Shah (Syosset)
