In a rematch from last Friday, Freedom and Liberty’s boys’ tennis teams took to the courts on Monday at Liberty with the Patriots hoping to rebound from a 6-1 loss to the Hurricanes, but Liberty prevailed, 6-1.

“When you play a team like Freedom twice or any good team in the district, you never know what’s going to end up happening. You could have a match that goes 6-1, or a match that goes 4-3, and a lot of these matches can flip easily. So the difficulty is preparing a team that never has had to deal with playing twice in a row,” said Liberty coach Chris Conrad. “Things change... It can put a lot of thought in their heads, especially if they win the first match because I don’t want them to overthink something or underthink it.”

Following East Penn Conference/COVID guidelines, teams are divided into divisions by county, Northampton, Lehigh, and Monroe, and will play each team within their county twice, consecutively, this season.

“It’s interesting and in some ways I do like it,” said Freedom coach Matt Potts. “What’s interesting is we lost to Liberty three days ago so we have an opportunity to game plan against the exact same kids we’re going to play, which is an odd thing in tennis, so it’s a good challenge and it’s different, but it’s fine.”

Of greater concern to Coach Potts is getting his young but experienced players as much exposure to high school matches as possible.

“Even the kids who have played a lot are not totally used to this high school environment where it’s more animated,” Potts said. “We’re improving. Liberty’s good. They’ve won the last three years, so hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll be able to compete with these guys. I think we’ll be in the mix and that’s the goal. I’m much happier if we’re playing well in April than now.”

Noah Potts won for Freedom at first singles, 6-2, 7-6, against Anthony Ronca.

“Today, I was able to keep more pressure on him, hit through the ball a little bit better. My serve was much better today, got a lot of free points off. I felt I used it pretty effectively to get up in the match and hold my leads,” Potts said. “Overall, it was just solid point in, point out. He gets a lot of balls in play so I have to work a little harder and play longer points, but I knew at the start I had to put pressure on him and it worked.”

At two singles, Shayaan Farhad won for Liberty, 6-1, 6-2, against Arun Chhugani.

“My opponent was a lot more consistent and tried to frustrate me, I guess,” said Farhad. “He went to the backhand a lot and he wasn’t gonna’ make a move and wait for me to mess up, so I had to play a lot smarter and not go for crazy shots. My serve and volley worked for me today as well as coming out on short balls and attacking.”

Liberty also won at three singles with Wyatt Marshall defeating Advay Deshmukh, 6-3, 6-0.

“Instead of trying to hit the ball as hard as he could, he lobbed the ball to me, so it was mainly me having to hit winners and make him move a lot, get him closer to the net so I could pound it at him,” Marshall said. “It’s definitely different [playing the same team twice], and when you know who your opponent’s going to be you can set yourself up. It’s a different twist on it.”

Deshmukh is a senior, grateful to have a full season that was cut short last year.

“It’s unfortunate we have to wear these masks. It’s hard but better than not having a season,” Deshmukh said. “We’re hoping for a deep run in the district tournament, and we’re hoping for Noah to win district singles. Fortunately, we came out on top in both Nazareth matches, but these guys are all tough, we’ve known them a long time, and they’re good players.”

In doubles play, Liberty’s Jiaming Wang and Chris Giannaras de ated Tyler Malitzki and Carrson Chambers, 8-0, at first doubles, and Liberty’s Sid Tekumalla and Roman Farhad defeated Shivam Chand and ylan Sarkozy, 6-3, 6-1, at second doubles.

At third doubles, Liberty’s Luke Appleman and Gavin Evans Gartley defeated Tommy Potts and Fahim Paiker, 6-1, 6-2, and at fourth doubles, Liberty’s Tyler Markovich and Matt Bilger defeated Baptiste Boussageon and Brian Gerra, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.

“Baptiste is an exchange student,” Coach Potts said. “He’s a phenomenal athlete who’s played almost no tennis. He competes very hard, and it’s going to be very fun to see his progression because by the end of the year, I think he’s going to be very good.”