2024 Boys Tennis State Tournament: Individual Recap
Posted: Friday, June 7, 2024 - 10:01 PM
Class A and Class AA Boys Tennis players concluded their state tournament on Friday, June 7, with singles and doubles championships.
Top-seeded Tej Bhagra, a sophomore at Rochester Mayo, proved worthy of his season-long No. 1 ranking with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 3 Aaron Beduhn, a senior from Wayzata, at the Baseline Tennis Center on the University of Minnesota campus. Bhagra did not lose a set this season.
Bhagra and Beduhn played one another on Wednesday during the Class AA team championship. While Bhagra won the match, Wayzata defeated Rochester Mayo 5-2 for the big-school crown in the team portion of the tournament. During the Class AA singles tournament, it was Bhagra’s third victory over Beduhn this season. In this third meeting, however, Beduihn built a 4-2 lead in the first set before Bhagra stormed back.
Wayzata’s duo of senior Tanay Panguluri and sophomore Jacob Salisbury, seeded No. 2, won the Class AA doubles championship with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Orono’s top-seeded tandem of Anthony Perrill, a sophomore, and junior Quinn Martini.
In Class A, St. Paul Academy and Summit School made it a clean sweep of titles.
On Wednesday, the Spartans won the Class A team crown for the third consecutive season. Two days later, individual championships were added.
Zahir Hassan, the No. 2 seed in the singles’ field, defeated teammate and top seed Winston Arvidson, 6-4, 6-1 at the Reed-Sweatt Family Tennis Center in South Minneapolis. In Wednesday’s 6-1 victory over Breck in the team championship, Arvidson lost at No. 1 singles after retiring. He won the first set and was leading in the second. Hassan played No. 2 singles and cruised to a victory in the team competition. may
Hassan is the first St. Paul Academy and Summit School player to win a Class A singles championship since 2010, when John Hill accomplished the feat.
In doubles, St. Paul Academy and Summit School’s Leo Benson and Maik Nguyen defeated Mound Westonka’s Carter Reinbold and Charlie Paul, 6-1, 6-2 for the championship.
The Class 1A final pitted teammates from St. Paul Academy and Summit School. Zahir Hassan, seeded second, defeated top-seeded teammate Winston Arvidson 6-4, 6-1. St. Paul Academy and Summit School, which dominated the team competition, also won doubles. Leo Benson and Maik Nguyen topped Carter Reinbold and Charlie Paul of Mound Westonka 6-1, 6-2. Benson and Nguyen also teamed to win the Class A doubles championship in 2023.
