Great Valley’s Gangoli falls one set shy of repeating as state singles champ
HERSHEY >> Twelve months ago, Great Valley’s Sameer Gangoli, then a sophomore, took the podium at Hershey Racquet Club with a gold medal draped around his neck, the spoils of the winning the PIAA Class 3A singles championship over Dallastown’s Holden Koons.
Gangoli fell short of a repeat on Saturday, dropping a 7-6(0), 4-6, 6-3 decision to Fox Chapel’s Robby Shymansky in the Class 3A championship match. Shymansky garnered bronze a year ago.
“I’m disappointed, but I had my chances as well,” Gangoli said. “(Shymansky) deserved it as much as I did. I’m happy for him. He played an incredible match. I guess it was revenge for him — I beat him to help win state title for teams and then he beats me to win the finals here.”
Gangoli’s title defense was on life support during the second set. The Great Valley junior was in a 1-4 hole and eight lost points from silver. But he somehow managed to rip off five in row against the WPIAL return machine and extend the match to a third and deciding set.
“He was playing really well and the only thing I could do was to keeping fighting and try to get every ball back,” Gangoli said. “When I went down 1-4, I knew I wasn’t executing my game plan. I tried to get attack his backhand, because his forehand is a cannon. I had to dig deep. I don’t know how I got it to a third set.”
Once there, however, Gangoli fell in a quick 0-3 hole and never fully recovered. He got to within 4-2, passing the 4-1 milestone of the previous set, but a second full run was not in the cards. Shymansky closed it out on serve.
“(It drained me) a little bit, yeah,” Gangoli conceded, about his effort just to get it to three sets. “He also came out firing and got a couple key points which got him the win. I had chances down 4-2, but he really played excellent at the end.”
It was Shymansky’s last shot at individual scholastic glory and he played with requisite desperation. After seeing through an elongated first set with a tiebreak wipeout of his opponent, Shymansky recovered from that blown second-set lead to finish on top, for the first time, in what has been a stellar high school career.
“For sure, I was thinking about 1-4, but Coach (Alex) Slezak helped me a lot,” Shymansky said of the third set. “He said I had to keep playing offensively because (Gangoli) was not going to give me anything.
“This win really means a lot to me, to leave a legacy for my school. I only have probably four more years of tennis left and I want to make the most of every match. This is unbelievable and it feels great. I couldn’t be happier.”
Shymansky is headed to Yale and Gangoli is pegged for Penn, so this budding rivalry may very well carry over the Ivy League.
To reach the final, Gangoli had to dispatch the four-time District 3 champion, Koons, 6-3, 6-2, earlier Saturday in the semifinals, in a 2018 finals rematch. Shymansky took out Unionville’s Tristan Bradley 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 in the other semifinal.
