Manhasset's Max Golubenko semifinal match carries into Sunday
Maxim Golobenko of Manhasset High in singles semi-final action against Osswald Janis of Olean High in the High School Boys Tennis State Championships on Saturday, June 7, 2025 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing New York. Golobenko won in strait sets 6-3, 6-2 Photo/ Louis Lanzano Credit: Louis Lanzano
A battle was being waged at the USTA National Tennis Center on Court P5 and time had become a factor on Saturday night.
The battle, a singles semifinal in the NYSPHSAA Individual Championships, was going between second-seeded Max Golubenko of Manhasset and third-seeded Sam Saeed of Scarsdale and it was truly a test of wills. The points were long, the mistakes were few and neither combatant was about to give in.
The match started at 8:35 p.m. because of an eight-hour rain delay and they needed 2:25 to split the first two sets. The third set would have begun at 11:08 p.m. if the Tennis Center was not closing 22 minutes later. The idea of finishing the match and getting the players rest before Sunday’s 8 a.m. title match was impossible.
Hard decisions got made. Golubenko and Saeed will begin their third set at 8:30 a.m. Sunday, the players will be given 30 minutes of rest and the championship match — against top-seeded Alexander Suhanitski of New Rochelle — will begin after that. The doubles championship and all the consolations matches that can be played will begin at 9 a.m.
And everything will be fine as long as the competition is over when the permit expires at 12:30 p.m.
“In 24 years doing this, I have never ever had a situation like this,” NYSPHSAA deputy director Joe Altieri said. “And to my knowledge, we’ve never had a championship go unfinished.”
Altieri didn’t want to even contemplate it, but wouldn’t rule out finishing the match — if necessary — at another venue.
Golubenko dispatched Janis Osswald with relative ease for a 6-3, 6-2 quarterfinal win and was beginning to roll. The Trinity College (Conn.) commit got a battle from Amherst Central’s Aiden Belle-Isle and pulled through for a 6-4, 7-5 triumph in the round of 32 before winning the next two matches while dropping only six games.
Suhanitski spent Saturday doing a number on a pair of Long Island entries. He beat Suffolk singles champion Sam Lopez-Cardenas of Whitman in the quarterfinals and Roslyn’s Ethan Solop, 7-5, 6-2, in the semifinals.
Solop, seeded fourth and the state’s 2024 fifth-place finisher, had hit the ground running. He lost two games in winning his first two matches Friday and defeated Justin Barrett of Liverpool in the quarters, 6-2, 6-4. Afterward, the Villanova commit said, “This is my last high school tournament ever, so I am going to put everything into it.”
For the rest of the Long Islanders, the second day of the championships wasn’t particularly kind as two of four singles players lost quarterfinals — Ward Melville’s Shashank Pennabadi lost in three sets to Saeed — and all three remaining doubles teams got wiped out.
The third-seeded Clarkstown South duo of Christopher Cho and Pratik Nayak eliminated Nassau champions CJ Bravo and Ben Wiese of Garden City, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2; Geneva brothers Drew and Tucker Fishback, the fourth seed, bested Syosset’s tandem of Nikhil Shah and Aayan Mehta, 6-0, 4-6, 6-3. No.<TH><MK0>2-seeded Eli Snyder and Charles Martin of Briarcliff beat Suffolk doubles champions Lohit Madisetty and Marcus Gonzales of Half Hollow Hills East, 6-4, 6-3.
One round of consolation play has produced some intriguing medal matches. In singles, the fifth-place match is a re-match of the Suffolk singles final. County champion Lopez-Cardenas bounced back from the straight-sets loss to Suhanitski and won a consolation match against Justin Barret of Liverpool, 6-2, 5-0 (ret.). Suffolk runner-up Pennabadi of Ward Melville lost his quarterfinal to Saeed but won his first consolation against Janis Osswald of Olean, 6-1, 6-3.
The doubles fifth-place match will be a rematch of the Nassau final. County champions Bravo and Wiese won their consolation against Madisetty and Gonzales, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (6), 6-0. County runners-up Shah and Mehta won theirs, 6-4, 6-2, over the Pittsford-Sutherland duo Charlie Thyroff and Dylan Bhatia.
Solop will meet the loser in the semifinal battle of wills for third place in singles.<NO1><NO>
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.
