Ward Melville's Gabe Bursztyn, Shashank Pennabadi claim Suffolk boys tennis doubles title
Shashank Pennabadi (left) and Gabe Bursztyn of Ward Melville win the Suffolk County boys doubles tennis championship in St. James on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Credit: Peter Frutkoff
One can’t call any team a ‘sure thing,’ but some come awfully close. The Ward Melville doubles pairing of Gabe Bursztyn and Shashank Pennabadi would be one. They are two great players that play great together.
The union of Bursztyn and Pennabadi in this week’s Suffolk County Individual Championships came with massive expectations and with good reason. Bursztyn won the doubles title as a freshman with Matt Kronenberg in 2021. And Pennabadi won the 2022 doubles crown with Bursztyn’s older brother, Aron, when he was a freshman.
Consider those expectations met. The Bursztyn-Pennabadi duo battled to win the first set and then streaked to a 7-5, 6-1 victory over Westhampton’s Bobby Stabile and Giancarlo Volpe in Tuesday’s championship match at Smithtown East.
“Because we’d both won, we felt we’d have a great shot,” Bursztyn said. “We were able to be calm under pressure because we’d been there before. We weren’t chasing the championship feeling.”
“They chose to play together early on and it made sense,” Patriots coach Erick Sussin said. “With their history of winning and the way they communicate so well, it’s a perfect fit.”
Commack junior Edward Laio won his third straight county singles championship by making quick work of the field. He lost just three games in winning five matches and ended the inspiring run of Half Hollow Hills West junior Bryan Volk with a 6-1, 6-0 win for the crown. Volk reached the final by winning quarterfinal and semifinal matches in three sets on Monday after dropping the opening set in each.
Commack coach Jimmy Delavante said of Liao “he’s so much better with his slice, at the net and with his serve — his arsenal has more variety this season.”
Liao likely earned one of the first four seeds for the state championships to be held June 2-4 at the National Tennis Center. The early-commit to Dartmouth was a 2022 quarterfinalist.
“Last year I felt pressure, but this year I’m having fun,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to ‘states’ all season because its always been my dream [to win].”
Liao, Volk, East Hampton’s Max Astilean and Ward Melville’s Harshith Pennabadi advance to the state tournament. Astilean took third place in a walkover against Harshith Pennabadi, who is rested a sore right patella tendon to prepare for their first singles match Wednesday when East Hampton meets the Patriots in a county semifinal. Whitman’s Samuel Lopez-Cardenas won the fifth place match 6-2, 6-4 over Mount Sinai’s Juan Perez.
Joining the Bursztyn-Pennabadi and Stabile-Volpe teams in the state tournament will be Half Hollow Hills East brothers Krithik and Lohit Madisetty, who took third place with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Commack’s James Yu and Joe Romito. The Madisettys avenged a straight-set loss to Yu and Romito in last week’s divisional tournament.
“Every point mattered to us,” Krithik Madisetty said. Added Lohit Madisetty: “We had to get our heads together and make it happen.”
Stabile and Volpe were a point away from forcing a first-set tiebreaker before Bursztyn and Pennabadi scored the last three points in the set. Pennabadi turned a ball at his ankles into a winner and each made a winning shot at the net.
“Winning that set was key,” Shashank Pennabadi said. “We got aggressive and went for more shots to finish it in the second set.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
