West Valley Teams Learn to Share

The West Valley League boys’ tennis championship hasn’t been decided.

Granada Hills High defeated El Camino Real, 5-2, nine days ago, putting them on track to share a league title -- again.

If Granada Hills (11-1, 8-1 in league play) and El Camino Real (11-1, 8-1) win their final regular-season matches Tuesday, they will be league co-champions for the second consecutive season. They split two regular-season matches--and the Northwest Valley Conference title last year.

El Camino Real won the Northwest Valley Conference title in 1998, Granada Hills won it in 1997.

“They were our target,” Coach Ron Wood of Granada Hills said of the Conquistadores. “The last three years has been a war.”

Granada Hills is hoping for another rerun from last season. Granada Hills beat El Camino Real, 15-14 1/2, in the semifinals of the City Championship playoffs. The victory avenged a loss the Conquistadores handed the Highlanders in the 1998 playoff semifinals.

“That was probably one of the biggest wins of my career,” said Wood, who has guided the Highlanders to the City final three of the last four seasons.

Sophomore Nima Roshan, the Highlanders’ No. 1 player, enjoyed what Wood called “two of the biggest wins of his career” against El Camino Real this season. He beat James Magsino, ranked No. 29 in Southern California by the U.S. Tennis Assn., in the teams’ first meeting on March 28, and defeated No. 49-ranked Matt Jones, who played No. 1 singles in Magsino’s absence, April 13.

“He’s a real talent,” Wood said of Roshan, who gives opponents fits with his tennis and the coach fits with his temper, which the player has been known to lose after bad shots and poorly played points.

“He’s a work in progress,” Wood. “He’s very immature, but he’s young and he’s getting better. If you get the emotional maturity over the next couple of years to go along with the maturity of his game, he could be something else.”

Roshan, who was born in the U.S. but lived most of his life in Australia before returning almost two years ago, admits he needs to improve his self-control.

“With me personally, the coach tells me never to lose my focus or lose sight of my goals,” he said. “He’s tough at times, but I think it’s good that he stays on us.”

Roshan, who played No. 1 singles at Cleveland High last season, leads a singles lineup that features junior No. 2 player Vlad Kinevsky, No. 3 Brad Steinberg and No. 4 Yury Tsirulsky.

Roshan is 9-2, with his only losses to Josh Nguyen, Chatsworth’s No. 1 player.

Steve Choi, a junior transfer from El Camino Real, is 9-0 at No. 3 doubles with Anand Murthy.

Murthy and Choi have helped the Highlanders maintain strength and depth in a lineup that is not ranked, nor especially recognizable.

“We don’t have four guys ranked, like El Camino, but what we have is just real solid through the lineup, and our doubles is a strength for us,” Wood said.

Senior co-captains Brian Mintz and Eric Weiss are 10-1 playing No. 1 doubles. The No. 2 team of Ananya Sreepathi and senior Mike Edelson is 12-0.

Mintz and Steinberg advanced to the final of the City Section doubles tournament last season. They were paired together for the first time this season and recorded a key victory when the Highlanders defeated El Camino Real recently.

“That was huge,” Steinberg said. “It was like a reunion. Brian and Eric are great together, but I think Brian and I will always have this chemistry.”

It is a chemistry built up over years. Mintz, Steinberg and Weiss live within a few houses of each other in Northridge.

“All of us are like, best friends,” Mintz said. “We’re friends around school and outside it, not just on the tennis courts. The whole team is really into it.”

Looking for ways to keep busy, Paul Chun of Van Nuys has taken to the course and the courts this spring.

Chun, a senior, is the No. 1 player on the golf team and plays No. 2 doubles with junior Jesse Yang on the tennis team.

He carries a nine-hole stroke average of 39.7 and he and Yang are 6-0.

The golf team is 1-8, but the tennis team is 12-0, 9-0 in Valley Mission League play.

“It keeps me pretty busy,” Chun said. “I don’t have much time to hang out with friends. But it’s been fun. I wanted to keep myself focused.”

His focus has rarely strayed. Chun, a math and sciences magnet student at Van Nuys, has accepted an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“I’ve talked to people there and they encouraged me to keep active and busy because that’s how it’s going to be there,” he said. “I know it’s going to be tough.”

Chun usually plays in one golf match and two tennis matches each week.

Van Nuys, runner-up to Hamilton in the 1999 City Division playoffs, appears poised for another deep postseason run.

The Wolves lost Sammy Chu and Alex Mangu to graduation, but might be even better than last season.

“We have a lot more depth this year,” Coach Randy Chew of Van Nuys said.

The singles lineup is young but strong with sophomore Eugene Han as the top player, junior Scott Kim at No. 2, much-improved Sam Siegal at No. 3, and freshman Danny Kim (no relation to Scott) at No. 4.

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The Top 10

Rankings of boys’ tennis teams from the region

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RK LW School (League) Rec. 1 1 Harvard-Westlake (Mission) 17-3 2 2 Westlake (Marmonte) 14-0 3 3 Burbank (Foothill) 13-1 4 5 Rio Mesa (Pacific View) 12-1 5 4 Thousand Oaks (Marmonte) 11-5 6 6 Crespi (Mission) 13-4 7 7 Granada Hills (West Valley) 11-1 8 8 El Camino Real (West Vly) 11-1 9 9 Glendale (Pacific) 10-4 10 10 Camarillo (Pacific View) 9-4

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