Season Preview: Boys Tennis Enters Year Six Under The Watchful Eye Of David Cheever

The varsity boys tennis team is preparing to enter its sixth season under the tutelage of head coach David Cheever, who led them to an upset victory over #15 Rockland in round one of the Division 4 MIAA state tournament last year as well as tournament wins in four straight seasons – including a state quarterfinal appearance in the spring of 2023.

This spring, Cheever will be working with a young team comprised of several eighth and ninth grade athletes – with senior captain and top singles player Nik Krastev leading the charge and assuming the role of being a mentor for the younger players in the program. Cheever is optimistic about the team’s outlook this season, and beyond.

"I'm looking forward to a year that should be a lot of fun building all of these kids up," Cheever said. "I sat the eighth and ninth graders down and I said, 'Guys, you guys stick together and keep playing and work on it all together and stick together and keep playing, you got a good chance at having a really good team your senior year, your junior year, and even next year.”

Cheever loves the game of tennis and wants his players to enjoy a sport he says they can play for the rest of their lives. He admitted losing junior Thomas Schroeder, who will be playing lacrosse this spring, is a big loss – but is optimistic about some of the other players on the team such as junior Fuller Holland and sophomore Knox Keating can step into roles as singles players if need be.

"Knox went into the weight room all winter and he's hitting the heck out of the ball," Cheever said. "Like scary strong. I think he's going to be really good and he'll be second (single), and then it'll depend upon whether Fuller wants to play singles or doubles. Last year we had him playing some doubles because he was feeling sore and whatnot, and I moved Knox up to third singles. So I had him and Alec (Anguelov) playing first doubles. I may do that again and resurrect Toni Todorov, or whoever comes out of that mix, Toni or Maxim (Iancu) play third singles, but I'm not sure yet.

“I may also keep Toni and Maxim together for doubles and let them fight against Fuller and Alec to see who is first doubles and then let (eighth grader) Dalton Frazier play third singles,” Cheever added.

Cheever said his goal, like every year, is to host a home match in the state tournament. He said he would like to play a home tournament game for the first time since 2023 and believes they can do it as long as they stay focused and two strong doubles pairings and a third singles player emerge as strengths of their lineup. He said his team didn’t earn a home match the previous two years because of "something stupid that bites us in the backside.”

The program will face a tall task replicating their success in previous years as they make the leap to Division 3 this spring. They open their season on Thursday, March 26^th on the road against Dennis-Yarmouth at 4 p.m.

You can view the full boys tennis schedule here. Below are some more boys tennis photos taken by Chris Tran.