Dev Patel is a senior at FHN and started playing tennis on the team in his freshman year, working his way up to captain the varsity team with fellow senior Brendan Schmidt. Looking back, Patel has enjoyed his time with the team, made new friends, found a passion in tennis and learned to be a leader. With his partner for double matches, Brendan Schmidt, the two reached their goal of being undefeated this season.

Q: How did you get involved in tennis?

A: All my friends played tennis, so I thought I would join. I had just quit baseball a couple years before so I wanted to pick up a new sport.

Q: What makes tennis unique for you?

A: It was a completely new sport to me, but now pretty much it takes my whole life. I’m either playing tennis or thinking about tennis.

Q: When did you start playing and why did you continue?

A: All my friends were playing it and I thought it was fun, so I decided to play for them next year.

Q: What would you say, over the years the team has been together, has changed?

A: My freshman year, we had a player that was number three in the state and now plays division one, so losing him [was a change] and our number two player was also really good, so that affected our team a little bit. We are undefeated this season, and in my sophomore season we did a little bit worse, and then we lost six players. That hurt our team a lot because we had a completely new varsity lineup.

Q: When you look back what is your favorite memory you can think of?

A: Just my freshman year getting to play, and getting to hang out with the whole team, because that was the year the team was most as a unit, nobody worried about who is on JV or varsity.  Everyone was a team.