The Dublin Pleasanton Tennis Team takes 2nd place at the National Championships

The following is a press release from the Dublin Pleasanton Tennis Team.

Local tennis players from the Northern California United States Tennis Association took second place at the prestigious 2024 USTA Nationals Championship held October 18-20 in San Diego in the Adult 18 & OVER 3.0 Men’s Category and the 3.5 Men’s Team took 5th place at the National Championships in Orlando.

The Dublin Pleasanton Tennis Group is made up of players from Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon and surrounding areas and is based at the Pleasanton Tennis and Community Park. This year, her men’s 3.0 team placed second at the prestigious United States Tennis Association Nationals Championship in San Diego and her men’s 3.5 team placed 5th at the National Championship in Orlando. This is the seventh time since 2022 that a team from this group has made it to the National Championship, including winning the National Championship in 2022, giving more than 70 players the opportunity to compete at the highest level on the National stage. An achievement that is unmatched by any group from any region, even by national standards.

The 3.0 team led by Raghu Venna under the mentorship of Narayana Rao Surapaneni, who has led the teams to the National Championships seven times in the last three years, spent several hundred hours providing necessary guidance at all stages, built raised the team with pure, raw talent and transformed it into a team that competed at the highest level in the nation, all under one year. A feat few teams across the country with paid coaches and managers can dream of. After finding courts at the Pleasanton Tennis Park and committing to practicing at least four times a week, the group started winning! Raghu Venna himself is a first-time captain and in his first year in the USTA league, an extremely rare feat for someone new to captain and lead a team to the National Championship.

They first won a local USTA league championship, then NorCal sectionals, and finally made it to the national championships in San Diego, a feat achieved by only 0.5% of USTA league players in their lifetime.

“Our mantra at 18+ national teams was, ‘Play fearlessly, give it your all on the court, have fun and focus on one play at a time,'” Venna told Patch. They placed 3rd in the regular rounds of the national championship and then played the No. 2 team to advance to the finals. In the final they lost to No. 1 Southern and finished in second place.

This is a remarkable achievement as many players on his team are over 40 years old, but they competed with players half their age and finished as the second best team in the country. USTA brings together 50 states into 17 sections for competition at the national level, and at the 3.0 level over 1,200 teams from across the country competed in the championship.

“This is a very big and proud moment for all of NorCal, the Tri-Valley and especially for the residents and sports lovers in Pleasanton, Dublin and San Ramon,” he said in a statement. “Our journey to the championship, from no one a year ago to second place, all within a year, is truly inspiring to many around the league.”

The 3.5 team captained by Narayana Rao Surapaneni and co-captain Ravindra Samson finished fifth, missing out on a place in the semi-finals by one point. It was back-to-back nationals for Surapaneni’s 3.5 side and being within striking distance of winning the championship in 2024, a major step forward, Surapaneni said in a statement. At the 3.5 level, over 1500 teams from all over the country took part in the championship.

This press release was prepared by the Dublin Pleasanton Tennis Team. The views expressed are the author’s own.