Pittsburgh, Pa. – The Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) held its first championships of the 2025 spring season last Wednesday and Friday at the WPIAL/UPMC Sports Medicine Boys’ Tennis Singles Championships. The week’s forecast adjusted the original Tuesday-Wednesday schedule, with Friday’s championship and consolation matches held at Bethel Park High School, and Wednesday’s opening rounds split between Bethel Park and North Allegheny High School. At the end of the day, Gateway senior Adam Memije won the Class 3A title, while Belle Vernon junior Max Henson became the Class 2A champion.
 
Memije is Gateway’s first WPIAL boys’ tennis singles champion since Jason Mayer did so in 1997, and the Gators’ third overall with Alfredo Sararo bringing home the school’s first in 1988. With three singles champions, Gateway is now the 16th different school to have that number, joining Butler, Beaver, Fox Chapel, McKeesport, and Winchester Thurston in a tie for 11th overall.
 
Henson gives Belle Vernon a sweep of the WPIAL singles championships, with Gabriella Dusi duplicating the feat on the girls’ side last September. He is Belle Vernon’s first winner on the boys’ side, making the Leopards the 37th different school to capture gold in WPIAL boys’ tennis singles competition.
 
The top two finishers in Class 3A and top three finishers in Class 2A have qualified for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) Boys’ Tennis Singles Championships, which will be held on May 23-24 at Hershey Racquet Club.
 
CLASS 3A RECAP
In a rematch of the 2024 Class 3A championship final, it took more than three and a half hours and a total of 34 games before Gateway senior Adam Memije emerged as the champion with a 5-7, 7-5, 6-4 victory over North Allegheny sophomore Advaita Sircar. Memije, the two seed, opened the tournament with wins over Thomas Jefferson junior Rylan Barr (10-0) and Mt. Lebanon sophomore Luca Ritivoi (10-3) before topping Franklin Regional sophomore Colin Stalnaker (6-4, 6-0) to reach the final.
 
Sircar, the top seed and defending champion, won his first two matches by identical 10-1 scorelines against Franklin Regional junior Sanshiro Ogawa and Upper St. Clair senior Shawn Khurana, then defeated Gateway senior Zidaan Hassan in three sets (6-0, 3-6, 6-1) to set up a rematch of 2024.
 
In the third-place consolation match, fourth-seeded Hassan bested sixth-seeded Stalnaker, 7-6(4), 6-0. The bronze medal is the third of Hassan’s career in WPIAL singles competition.
 
Memije and Sircar’s final is the longest WPIAL boys’ tennis singles championship match by games since 2002, with the 34 games just two shy of the 2002 Class 3A decider between Pine-Richland’s Greg Warren and Thomas Jefferson’s Scott Kahler. Warren outlasted Kahler in that match, 6-4, 6-7(5), 7-6(2) in the final at North Park Tennis Courts.
 
The championship match also marked the first time since 2018 that the previous year’s runner-up took gold over the reigning champion. In 2017, Peters Township’s Connor Bruce bested Fox Chapel’s Robby Shymansky for the WPIAL title, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(6), with Shymansky avenging his loss to Bruce the following season in the final by a 6-4, 6-3 scoreline.
 
Memije previously claimed silver at last year’s WPIAL Boys’ Tennis Singles Championships and went 1-1 in 2023. Sircar now has a gold and a silver to his name in two appearances at the WPIAL singles tournament.
 
CLASS 2A RECAP
Belle Vernon junior Max Henson dropped a total of three games throughout the entirety of the WPIAL Boys’ Tennis Singles Championships, capturing the Class 2A crown with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over North Catholic junior Justin Garvey. Henson, the one seed, won his first two matches by 10-0 scores over Blackhawk sophomore Mike Lanigan and Indiana senior Gabe Nettleton, then topped Montour senior John Rohrkaste in straight sets (6-1, 6-0) to make the championship match.
 
Garvey, the second seed, opened the tournament with narrow wins over Greensburg Salem junior Silas Morris (11-9) and South Park junior Steven Duing (10-8), then outlasted Duing’s classmate Jonah Jasek in three sets (4-6, 6-1, 7-6(6)) to qualify for the final.
 
Rohrkaste took bronze in a walkover due to injury.
 
Rohrkaste made the WPIAL Boys’ Tennis Singles Championships in each of his four varsity seasons, with this year’s third-place match besting a fourth in 2023 and a pair of 1-1 efforts in 2022 and 2024. Garvey went 1-1 in his WPIAL singles debut last year, while this was Henson’s first time competing in the WPIAL tournament.
 
PIAA PREVIEW
Dates & Location: May 23-24 at Hershey Racquet Club
Number of Champions from WPIAL: 19 (15 in Class 3A, 4 in Class 2A)
Class 3A Qualifiers: Adam Memije (12), Gateway; Advaita Sircar (10), North Allegheny
          - Appearances: Memije – 2nd (4th in 2024); Sircar – 2nd (1-1 in 2024)
Class 2A Qualifiers: Max Henson (11), Belle Vernon; Justin Garvey (11), North Catholic; John Rohrkaste (12), Montour
          - Appearances: Rohrkaste – 2nd (0-1 in 2023); Henson – 1st; Garvey – 1st
Last Class 3A PIAA Champion from WPIAL: Robby Shymansky, Fox Chapel (2019)
Last Class 2A PIAA Champion from WPIAL: Nicholas Scheller, North Catholic (2022)
 
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