Although much of last week was a rainy washout, by Friday the tennis courts at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy had dried just enough for the Blue Devils to host Germantown Academy in the Inter-Ac League opener for both teams.

 The Devils won the second and fourth doubles matches, but the visiting Patriots prevailed in the other two doubles bouts and all three singles flights, departing with a 5-2 victory.

SCH was missing two regular varsity players for the contest; seniors Arjun Goswami and Stone Xin usually play in two different doubles flights. The hosts had one advantage in that GA had not been able to play any interscholastic matches at all up to that point, while SCH had faced three non-league opponents, defeating La Salle High School and Shipley, and losing to Germantown Friends.

Formerly an assistant coach at Springside Chestnut Hill, Andrew Silverman is now in his second season as varsity head coach for the Blue Devils. Guadalupe Prince is back for her eighth season in charge of the Germantown Academy squad. In the fall, when the girls' teams play, she is the varsity head coach at Gwynedd Mercy Academy.

In last Friday's match in Chestnut Hill, neither team had any seniors in the singles flights. Nevertheless, a number of the players had several years of varsity experience, including GA junior Max Baer. He won his third singles contest over SCH sophomore Jimmy Talbot, 6-1, 6-0. There was an identical final score at second singles, where Patriots sophomore Alex Katzer overcame a Blue Devils junior, Drew Sharon.

Juniors Armon Meinstein of GA and Andrew Blum of SCH squared off in the number one spot, and while the outcome here was also decided in straight sets (6-2, 6-4), there were many extended points in what would prove to be one of the longest battles of the afternoon.

Germantown also put up 6-2, 6-4 scores at first doubles, where Blue Devil juniors Josh Miller and Ethan Eckert fell to Patriot freshmen Vincent Zhou and Justin Huang. Just before this match ended, SCH had picked up its first win of the day, as senior David Xin teamed up with freshman Jason Blum to top GA juniors Chase Goldoor and Liam Kelly, 6-3, 7-5.

Junior Dylan Kaplan and senior Will Kollmar produced a second victory for the home team, wresting a 6-4, 7-5 decision from GA freshman Alex Wang and sophomore Gabe Meinstein.

Although the team victory had already been clinched by the Patriots, the third doubles duos kept playing at an energetic pace after all of the other bouts had been completed. Germantown's sophomore tandem of Ben Getson and Yash Kandanuru began with a 6-4 win, but SCH freshmen Cade Stone and Asher Hawkins emerged on top in the second set, 7-5.

Because of the lateness of the hour, a 10-point tiebreaker was played instead of a full third set. Here the Patriots prevailed, with match point coming on a ball hit into the net by the Blue Devils.