No Separating Country Day, Greenhills as Division 3 Powers Share Finals Title
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
October 19, 2024
BLOOMFIELD HILLS — The slimmest of margins seem to separate Detroit Country Day, Ann Arbor Greenhills and Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood every year at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 Boys Tennis Finals.
That was again the case this weekend, with those slimmest of margins turning out to be an unfortunate injury and an incredible comeback.
The end result was Greenhills and Country Day sharing the team title with 32 points, while host Cranbrook was third with 30 and wondering what might have been after a critical injury.
In the third set of a semifinal match at No. 1 singles, Cranbrook senior Ryan Michaels — the top seed going into the tournament — started cramping up while trailing 2-0 against No. 4 seed Teddy Staebler of Ann Arbor Greenhills.
Michaels eventually couldn’t go on and had to retire from the match. Nobody will know if Michaels would have been able to come back to win, but regardless, Staebler continued his good play and took advantage of his championship opportunity.
Staebler went on to defeat Bhavesh Burramukku of St. Joseph in the final, storming back after losing the first set for a 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 win.
“I’ve played him a bunch of times,” Staebler said. “I haven’t had a ton of success, but I’ve seen a couple of things that work with him. In the past I usually win the first set and then struggle in the second set, but I lost the first set this time. I knew I was still in it in the second set. I was really able to play my game.”
The other big thing that skewed the end result was the unreal comeback by Greenhills’ No. 1 doubles team of William Pearce and Kabir Rajendra.
The second-seeded team in the flight, the tandem met up with top-seeded Charlie Khaghany and Achyut Reddy of Country Day in the final.
Khaghany and Reddy had downed Pearce and Rajendra at their Regional and held a 5-0 lead in the first set of the final. But Pearce and Rajendra put on a comeback for the ages, staving off a set point and ultimately rallying by winning seven games in a row to earn a 7-5 win.
“In tennis, one little shot or thing can change everything,” Rajendra said. “We started to gain some momentum, and next thing you know we are down 5-4 and we said we had a chance to pull out this set.”
Pearce and Rajendra then won the second set in a tiebreaker, winning the tiebreaker 7-5. In addition to the titles at No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles, Greenhills got flight championships out of the team of Ajay Purohit and Charlie Rich at No. 2 doubles, and the team of Richard Wu and Kirtan Palapattu at No. 3 doubles.
The team championship was Greenhills’ third straight, including last season’s in Division 4.
Greenhills head coach Eric Gajar said it was just a matter of his players giving themselves a chance by continuing to advance.
“You just sort of take care of what you can care of in your matches,” Gajar said. “We won nine of our 12 matches today. Our guys really stepped up against top-level competition.”
Country Day snapped an uncharacteristically long title drought by winning its first since 2014.
“I’ve been speaking about it to them for a long time,” Country Day head coach Nick Fiashchetti said.
Country Day got titles in three flights, with Ricky Jeong prevailing as the top seed at No. 3 singles, second-seeded Adam Mahmoud winning at No. 4, and the second-seeded tandem of Rick Nie and Preston Blum winning at No. 4 doubles.
“I felt like we did a good job of competing,” Fiashchetti said. “It seemed like our minds were locked in. That sometimes can lead to emotions spilling out. But that didn’t happen to us.”
Cranbrook’s title came courtesy of Kenneth Hu at No. 2 singles.
PHOTOS (Top) Ann Arbor Greenhills’ Kabir Rajendra, left, and William Pearce talk things over during their comeback to win the No. 1 doubles championship Saturday. (Middle) Country Day’s Ricky Jeong volleys during his No. 3 singles title match. (Below) The Gryphons’ Teddy Staebler gets to a backhand during his No. 1 singles final. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)
Anderson's Sad Ending Last Season Driving This Fall's Championship Pursuit
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
October 16, 2025
ROCHESTER – Normally, this would seem like an odd photo request – especially for a shot to become the wallpaper picture on one’s cell phone.
But Rochester High School senior Chad Anderson insisted he had a method to his madness after last year’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Boys Tennis Finals.
Following a loss to Pierce Shaya of Bloomfield Hills in the championship match at No. 1 singles, Anderson had his mother take a picture of him crying.
To this day, it still serves as the wallpaper screen on his cell phone.
“It’s been my motivation since,” Anderson said.
Anderson certainly has performed like a motivated player heading into this weekend’s Division 1 Finals in Midland.
He enters as the top seed at No. 1 singles and hasn’t dropped a set this fall as he pursues what’s been an elusive individual title for himself, his family and his school.
As a sophomore, Anderson lost in the championship match at No. 2 singles. His older brother Clayton advanced to the No. 1 singles championship match in Division 1 three consecutive years from 2021-23, but lost each time to Sachiv Kumar of Northville.
Rochester also has never had a Finals singles champion in boys tennis, so Chad Anderson has that to inspire him as well.
“I’ve seen it happen to me and my brother enough,” Anderson said.
In preparing for what’s been a stellar senior season so far, Anderson went to work on a few components of his game, including making his serve-and-return more precise.
More than anything though, his big emphasis was not on improving technical aspects of the game, but working on his body.
“I put on 20 pounds to be able to hit the ball bigger,” he said. “Last year, I lost in the Finals to a guy who hit the ball stronger than me and bigger than me. I didn’t want that to happen again this year where there was just some guy overpowering me and dominating me.”
Anderson said he started playing tennis when he was 4 years old after his father, a former player himself, introduced the game to he and Clayton – who is now playing in college at Marquette.
Needless to say, there have been countless hitting sessions between the two siblings over the years.
“We can’t play without arguing,” Chad Anderson quipped. “We bicker a lot, but we push each other a lot.”
Rochester head coach Jerry Murphy, who is in his 53rd year as coach, said while Clayton had a devastating backhand and serve, Chad stands out because he has more of an all-around game.
“If he needs to come to the net, he can come to the net and feels comfortable doing that,” Murphy said. “He loves to move the ball around the court, and he wears guys out. He’s focused and does what he has to do. If he needs to out-rally a guy, he can do that. If he needs to outhit him, he can do that. The fact that nobody has taken a set off of him this year is a testament to that, and we’ve played some pretty good players.”
In addition to technical ability, Murphy said Anderson has displayed a fire on the court this year that’s become an inferno.
“He wants to do what his older brother couldn’t do,” Murphy said. “I can see that in his eyes when he plays. He’s motivated. Whether he can seal the deal, we’ll see Friday and Saturday.”
Anderson said he doesn’t feel pressure being the top seed at his flight and actually welcomes the challenge, given it’s a spot he prepared to be in all offseason and throughout this fall.
In addition to himself and his family, providing a Finals champion for the first time to a coach who has been at the helm for more than five decades would be beyond meaningful.
“It would mean so much to win it,” he said. “I’ve wanted it so bad. It would be a good thing for the program.”
If Anderson does win this weekend, he’ll need his Mom to take a new phone wallpaper photo of him celebrating instead of crying.
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.