Carmel boys tennis takes domination to new level with record sixth-straight state title

As soon as Carmel senior Adrien Qi saw the ball bounce off the hard court, all he could do was yell.

Turning to his doubles partner, sophomore Braedon McIntyre, the pair let out a victorious roar, before Qi spiked his black baseball cap, relief flooding through his veins.

“A sixth in a row is history,” Qi said.

With Carmel leading Zionsville,  2-0, Qi and McIntyre only needed to win one final set against the Eagles’ pair of Emerson Holifield and Jonah Everson to clinch the Greyhounds a sixth consecutive boys tennis state championship. A short lob allowed Qi to charge the net and hit a drop-shot volley just out of his opponent's reach, securing a new state record for Carmel. 

“Before everyone even got off the court last year, everyone said six because we knew it was the state record,” Carmel coach Bryan Hanan said. “We’ve embraced the pressure we’ve been chasing honestly since last October when we walked off the court after five, so the guys really wanted this one. They really wanted it.”

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Carmel’s new record beats the previous standard set by North Central, who won five state titles between 1982-1986, and the state title caps a perfect season for the Greyhounds (24-0), who haven’t lost a match since the 2015 state quarterfinals, when they were beaten by North Central.  For Qi, a senior who’s been on the team for three years but only made the starting lineup for varsity this season, the experience was even more special. 

“I wasn’t always the best, but coming here, I got a lot better,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of great brothers here that played with me and made me better.” 

Playing on their home court after unexpected issues at North Central, the traditional location of the state finals, forced IHSAA to move the state finals to Carmel, the Greyhounds jumped out to an early lead. 

Senior Eli Mercer cruised to a 6-0, 6-2 win against Steven Narva, filling in for injured Eagles’ singles player Sebastian Lisiak, before Carmel’s No. 1 doubles pair — senior Srisanth Malpeddi and junior Jack Jentz — beat Zionville senior Ryan Betz and sophomore William Cramer. 

“These guys were so excited,” Hanan said. “Nobody’s ever won it on our courts, and we get a chance to win on our home courts and that may never happen again, so we may have made a little history on that part as well.”

Carmel picked up another point after Qi and McIntyre’s win when freshman Rocky Li beat Zionsville senior Peyton Guider 6-0, 6-4, but the consequential tennis was far from over. 

On court No. 3, Carmel senior Broc Fletcher and Zionsville senior Cole Chappell played out an intense duel with larger playoff ramifications. Still in the draw for the state singles tournament, Chappell needed a win to keep himself eligible for selection, winning the first set 6-3. He seemed to have the match wrapped up in the second too, as Fletcher went down with cramps while leading 4-3 in the second set, allowing Chappell to pull even at 4-4. 

Out of contention for the state singles tournament and playing in the final match of his high school career, Fletcher wasn’t going to go down without a fight, rallying to win the second set 6-4 despite his limited mobility to force a tiebreaker, which the Carmel senior won 7-5, more than an hour after the other matches had finished to finalize the Greyhounds sweep.

“He’s not going to walk off the court with a trainer, he always wants to finish,” Hanan said. “All of a sudden things turned and he forced a third set. He’s just got guts.”

On the other side of the result, Zionsville made some history of its own as well. The Eagles (19-4) made their first appearance in the final match since 2008, and just the fifth appearance in the finals in school history. Coach Earl Allen said Zionsville knew what they were up against in perennial champions Carmel, but he felt they were playing with house money just by being there. 

“It wasn’t necessarily the outcome we were looking for, but for us to make it here, I felt like everything was a win,” he said. “We’ve gotten to a place we weren’t supposed to be.” 

And though the season’s conclusion means some well earned time off for both teams, they’re undoubtedly already thinking about next season. 

“We’re trying to go for seven,” McIntyre said.

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