Ursuline juniors Josh Khavari and Gavin Blacksher do that quite well. The pair made it to the Division II state quarterfinals a year ago.

“Josh has some of the hardest ground strokes and serve in the area,” said Kent Blacksher, Ursuline’s boys tennis coach and Gavin’s father. “Gavin’s net play is up there with about anybody. They both see the game very clinically, very strategically. They try to not let emotion override their decision making. They play within themselves and play smart tennis. Sometimes that’s hard to do for a doubles team.

“To see them do that successfully for a couple of seasons and pay off like they did last year, means the future is bright.”

The Irish doubles team lost to eventual the state champions from Gahanna Columbus Academy, Suriya Sundaram, who has since graduated, and current senior Rhian Seneviratne.

Staff file photos / John Vargo Ursuline’s boys tennis doubles team of Josh Khavari and Gavin Blacksher, pictured, hope they get a chance to return to the Division II state tournament.

Gavin Blacksher said he and Khavari had a reality check of sorts after that match. They realized they had a lot of work to do to get back to the state level and succeed there.

“We want to be that good come next year, senior year,” Blacksher said. “It definitely lit another fire underneath us, trying to work a lot harder and get to that level, especially with the rest of the team, too.

“It’s definitely a little extra motivation.”

Khavari was able to get a couple of hours hitting every week before mostly everything closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, he’s doing some cardio workouts at home and working with a foot ladder to improve his game.

“We did very well last year, especially for a team coming out of northeast Ohio, especially our area not known for tennis,” Khavari said. “We have a lot of expectations not only from other people, but ourselves this year.

“We both have been putting in a lot of work given all the issues we have going on right now with COVID-19. We have a chance to work from home, work out, and keep up the work. If we do get the season going, we can jump right into it and pick up where we left off from last year.”

The pair had to get acclimated with one another when they started playing as Ursuline freshmen. Now, they’ve become good friends on and off the court.

“Through that, that affected the way we played tennis together,” Khavari said. “We had this mutual understanding where someone was going to move on the court, what the other person was going to do and how they were going to react to that, which culminated in a great thing that enabled us to go as far as we did last year.”

If school begins on May 4 and the season starts May 9, as outlined in a preliminary plan released by the OHSAA, boys tennis players have until May 30 at the earliest for sectional play. This year’s state tournament is tentatively set for June 18-20 at Hillard Davidson High School.

Khavari said if he and Blacksher can make it back to the court this year, they would be aiming behond just making it to state. Getting to the state semifinals or finals is the aim for this year, if the season happens.

“It would mean so much,” Khavari said. “We’ve been putting in the work that we’d be really looking forward to it, take every chance that we got and make it through where we want to be.”