Orange Belt Boys Tennis Player of the Year
Yalamanchili advanced to Area singles final
W hen the score is tied up and all eyes are on him, time after time Anish Yalamanchili has risen to the occasion and shined.
Representing Strathmore High School, the seventh-seeded Yalamanchili was the only local boys tennis player to receive a seeding in singles and advance to the finals of the CIF Central Section Central Area Individual Tournament. Add that along with his impressive overall record of 20-4 and an individual league title, Yalamanchili is The Recorder’s 2017-18 All-orange Belt Boys Tennis Player of the Year.
Several of Yalamanchili’s best wins came in tiebreaker situations, including his 6-1, 3-6, 10-5 win over Sierra Pacific’s Jackie Gong in the East Sequoia League individual championship match. The senior believes that when the pressure’s on, that’s when he plays his best.
“I definitely play better,” Yalamanchili said. “I like to play in highpressure scenarios, so I played a lot better because everyone was watching our [championship] match. I’m not one to get scared when there’s a lot of people watching, that tends to lift my spirits.”
Having been to Area in both his freshman and junior years, there was no question that Yalamanchili would get to Area, and possibly advance to Valley, but first he needed to accomplish one goal — win the ESL title and get seeded for Area.
So Yalamanchili went to work early.
“To take his game to the next level, he took zero-period weightlifting this year which I know improved his quickness and agility a little bit,” SHS head coach Ryan Mccusker said. “So he had already had the strokes, but his big weakness from his freshman year to his junior year was getting to balls.”
And when the weight room at school wasn’t enough, Yalamanchili went to the gym on his own time. He also got lots of support from Mccusker and his father. Yalamanchili said his father took him to outside tournaments to improve and also installed a ball machine at their family home so he could hit at any hour.
“I can hit as many balls as I like and I have my dad on the side coaching me,” Yalamanchili said. “Even though he’s never really played himself — he’s played a bit — but he’s watched a lot of my matches...he knows when I’m making errors. He’s just there to motivate and support me.”
Even with the workouts, ball machine and support, sometimes Yalamanchili needed more. More usually came in the form of hitting against someone at his level without having to make a long trip to Visalia or Fresno. So the Spartans No. 1 for the last four years made his way to Olive Street and hit against Porterville players with the assistance of his former trainer, PHS head coach Kurt Nielsen.
“I think it was sometimes a little discouraging for him since there was nobody above him than myself to play
against,” Mccusker said. “So he would go to Porterville High School on off days and try to hit with other players.”
But all that extra work paid off.
For the ESL tournament, Yalamanchili was the second seed and breezed through the tournament, despite a minor knee injury caused by a fall in the quarterfinals, and advanced to the final match. There he took down Gong of Sierra Pacific and earned the seventh seed at Area.
“The Area tournament went well,” Mccusker said. “He actually got seeded this year where last year he was going in like a lottery...winning the league tournament, he kind of had that confidence going into the Area tournament. So that like helped, just having a little more pep in his step. And having that [previous Area] experience.”
At Area, Yalamanchili started off with a challenge in Immanuel’s Karry Reinke, who he beat in three sets, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4, in another tiebreaker win. Riverdale’s Eddie Ramirez was up next and Yalamanchili finished him off 6-1, 6-4 in a semifinal match.
In the final, Yalamanchili met his match in a composed adversary — No. 2 Tony Kim of Redwood. Against Kim, both Yalamanchili and Mccusker admit that Yalamanchili didn’t play his best game in the 6-1, 6-2 loss to Kim.
“Tony in specific is a very grounded player,” Yalamanchili said. “He plays consistent and he plays well, too. And how I was playing, I’d say was very sporadically. Had very good rallies. But in the end, me making the mistakes there’s not very much I could do there except keep myself focused in the match.”
Even with the loss, Yalamanchili said playing against Kim was his favorite match because he likes to play the tougher opponents, something he hasn’t truly been able to do since he took lessons in Fresno.
“Even though I lost, I love playing against Tony because he’s just a tough opponent,” Yalamanchili said. “Like I haven’t played someone like that in years since like eighth grade. I remember because some of those kids that went on to Valley played at the academy in Fresno and Fresno is a tennis town.”
Yalamanchili added that he believes he played “really well” against Kim and if he were in the same position as Kim, with easy access to talent and training, he would be on the same level of Kim and possibly would’ve beaten him.
But Yalamanchili’s tennis career isn’t quite over with the loss in Area. The valedictorian of Harmony Magnet Academy’s graduating class, Yalamanchili plans to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York where he hopes to walk on to the NCAA Division III tennis team.
While at RPI, Yalamanchili will study medicine through a prestigious seven-year program partnered with Albany Medical College, known as the Physician-scientist Program, that allows him to bypass the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). His medical focus will be on the eyes, where the intensity of having another’s vision in his hand excites him.
“I like eyes, I think they’re fascinating,” Yalamanchili said. “I can watch surgeries without getting grossed out. I’ve been in normal operating rooms, but I just liked watching the eye surgeries because you have to be extremely precise with everything because it’s someone’s vision. Can’t really mess around with that.”