Carroll County Times 2024 boys tennis All-County: Liberty’s ‘dominant’ doubles team of Hayden Speace, Arjun Mistry named Players of the Year

After graduating from Liberty, Hayden Speace has a simple message he wants to leave behind for those following in his footsteps on the Lions’ tennis team: “Hard work takes you places.”

Speace raved about the work ethic of his doubles partner, Arjun Mistry, calling the junior “one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen.”

Fortunately, Speace had a work ethic to match, and as a result, the team went places. At Wilde Lake Tennis Club on Memorial Day weekend, Speace and Mistry punctuated a 23-0 season with a Class 1A state doubles championship.

They won their state championship match 6-0, 6-3, a fitting conclusion for a duo Liberty coach Tom Brecker labeled “the most dominant men’s doubles team I ever coached.”

The pair didn’t lose a set in 2024, and with their dominance, Speace and Mistry are the Carroll County Times 2024 boys tennis Players of the Year.

“What we’ve preached as a program is, the time you put in to practice and on the court is what helps you develop into a great player or players,” Brecker said. “Those guys were always out practicing. You can go out there in the middle of winter and they’ll be out there. They had such a desire to be successful, they put so much time in the court and it paid off for them.”

The two paired together in 2023, but their ride ended with a runner-up finish at the county tournament. They took different paths in the postseason but came back this year ready to finish what they started.

“Last year things didn’t really go our way, so we worked really hard in the offseason to make sure it would be different,” said Mistry, a junior. “Everything we achieved this season is a result of that hard work we put in.”

In the rare moments they faced adversity, their teamwork enabled them to work through it. It’s what Speace said made them such a great team.

“I think its the way we work together on the court,” he said. “If there was ever any time where we were messing up too much or something was going wrong, we worked so well together that were able to fix it really quickly.”

Both are talented players in their own right, but there’s more to making a great doubles team than just putting any two players on the court together.

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“I think it’s more about how people work together and their personalities,” Speace said. “You can have any sort of skills put with any sort of people, it’s more about how you work on the court together. In terms of our skills, I always kind of figure I was the Robin to Arjun’s Batman, because he normally set up a lot of shots that would win us points pretty easily. He was always the one grinding from the baseline and I’d be there to clean it up at the net for him.”

Although they both began playing tennis at different points in their lives, they both brought an affection for the game to the court, and it showed in how much they wanted to be successful and how much work they put in to get there.

Speace began playing his sophomore year of high school; Mistry began in sixth grade when he turned on the U.S. Open when he “didn’t have anything else to do that day.”

“I started getting drawn into the sport,” he said. “My dad had taken me to play tennis when I was 5, but I stopped shortly after. But once I got going again, I started loving the sport, the feeling you get when you hit the ball and playing with people you enjoy playing with, especially teammates, it’s indescribable.”

Mistry is now a two-time state doubles champion, winning his freshman year with Nikhil Andhavarapu. Brecker said it’ll be a decision closer to season to see whether Mistry finds a third partner to win a state title with or goes into singles.

Regardless, Mistry will have a message for his teammates when he enters next year as a senior leader.

“My teammates are everything that make the team,” he said. “I didn’t think it was possible, even back my freshman year. I felt like, ‘No, states, it’ll be impossible to make it far in.’ Yet, I was able to do it. I want all the guys on my team to know you can do it as well.”

All-County first team

Nikhil Andhavarapu, Liberty, senior

Andhavarapu went from second seed to county champion, capping off the run with a 6-3, 6-1 victory in the finals. He also won a region championship and finished as Class 1A state runner-up.

August Jones, Manchester Valley, senior

Jones, the Mavericks’ No. 1 singles player and fourth seed after the regular season, finished third at the county tournament, winning a three-set marathon over Century’s Kaushik Inguva, 6-4, 5-7, 12-10.

Louis Major, Liberty, junior

Major was unbeaten in county play as the Lions’ second singles player. He played mixed doubles with Grace Maerten in the postseason and the two claimed the county championship.

Michael Mooney, South Carroll, senior

Mooney was mostly a doubles player for the Cavaliers during the regular season and teamed with Sydney Mossman at mixed doubles for the postseason. The duo finished as the county runner-up before making a run to the 1A state championship.

Micah Ober, Winters Mill, senior

Ober was the top boys singles seed heading into the county tournament and finished as runner-up to Andhavarapu. Despite being seeded sixth at the 2A West Region I tournament, Ober won two matches and finished as runner-up.

Michael Fronheiser and Jarom Hawes, Westminster

The Owls’ top doubles pairing was only beaten by Speace and Mistry during this season and finished as county runner-up. They also advanced to the 3A South Region I semifinals.