St. Xavier's Dwyer, Sycamore doubles team win OHSAA boys tennis state titles

Entering the second and final day of the Ohio High School Athletic Association's boys tennis state tournament, eight Greater Cincinnati competitors were still in the running for state championships. At the end of the competition, two state titles found homes at Sycamore and St. Xavier.

Sycamore's duo of Nicholas Choo and Chase Klugo won the Division I doubles match with a guaranteed Cincinnati-area champion while St. Xavier's Carson Dwyer snagged the second championship of his career.

In Division II, locals were shut out from the state finals but did take home third-place finishes.

St. Xavier sophomore Carson Dwyer claims second-career state title

After winning a doubles state championship for the Bombers as a freshman last season, sophomore Carson Dwyer collected his second-career state title with a Division I singles championship.

Dwyer met with Sycamore's Nicholas Meyers in the semifinals, beating the Aviator 6-4, 6-3 to advance to the finals against New Albany junior Abhinav Dandu. With the loss, Meyers matched up in the third-place match with Olentangy Liberty sophomore Shane Hand.

Dwyer took home the Division I singles title with a 6-2, 6-2 victory in the finals having gone through the state tournament without dropping a set. With the victory, the sophomore became the first St. Xavier qualifier to win the singles state championship and was the first finalist for the Bombers since Ronit Hiryur in 2019.

In the third-place match, Meyers got the better of Hand 6-3, 6-2, finishing as the third-place finisher in the tournament for the second-consecutive season. Meyers also finishes his career as a doubles state finalist in 2022 and a qualifier in 2021.

Sycamore's Choo, Klugo get better of St. Xavier in doubles final

A comeback victory in the semifinals for St. Xavier's Chase Homan and Nihal Narisetty set up the chance for the Bombers to sweep the Division I state championships. With Sycamore's Nicholas Choo and Chase Klugo on the other side of the court, their quest for a sweep ended.

Choo, a four-time state qualifier who finished fourth in singles the last two seasons, teamed with Klugo, a freshman first-timer, for a 7-5, 6-2 semifinal win, setting up the all-Cincinnati final. Homan and Narisetty reached the state finals by beating a second Sycamore duo, seniors Arjun Rajagopala and Andrew Wittenbaum, in three sets.

Choo and Klugo took the championship victory, 6-2, 6-2. Sycamore has placed at least one doubles team in every state tournament since 2012. Choo and Klugo are the first Aviators to win the doubles trophy since Alex Taylor and Nakul Narendran in 2015.

Wittenbaum and Rajagopala, last season's state runner-up, fell in the third-place match 6-3, 6-4 to Westlake's Rohit Jain and Xander Jhaveri.

Cincinnati DII tennis players, duos fall short in 2024 championships

In the 2022 Division II state finals, then-sophomore R.J. Poffenberger and senior Tejas Pisati clinched the doubles championship for Indian Hill. No Cincinnati representative has won an OHSAA title in Division II since.

Now a senior, Poffenberger was still in the running on the 2024 tournament's final day, teaming with freshman Neelan Gandhi. The duo fell in the semifinals to the team from Orange that finished as the Division II runner-up. In the third-place match, Poffenberger and Gandhi beat Columbus Academy's Lucas Xue and Rowen Lo after dropping the first set, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

That match marked the end of Poffenberger's career, making him a three-time doubles placer, one-time state doubles champion and a one-time singles qualifier.

In Division II singles, a chance at an all-Seven Hills state final turned into an all-Seven Hills third-place match. In the semifinals against Bexley freshman Henry Lessard, Avi Mahajan dropped a close 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 match to the eventual state champion.

On the other side of the bracket, Seven Hills sophomore Adi Nayak fell 6-2, 6-0 in the semifinals, but was called the third-place finisher with an injury walkover over Mahajan.

Mahajan's career ended as a four-time singles qualifier, placing three times overall in second, third and fourth places.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: St. Xavier, Sycamore win OHSAA boys tennis state championships