SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KGTV) — This week the Barnes Tennis Center is playing host to the SoCal Pro Series. The field is filled with juniors, college players, and low-ranked professionals. They all have one goal, and that is to earn a wild card spot in next year's BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
One player who has his sights set on Indian Wells is former Santana Sultan Rohan Murali. The recent Santana grad says he first picked up a tennis racquet when he was 7-years-old, and knew a year later he was pretty good.
"A year or so after I picked up a racquet, I started playing competitively. My first tournaments were right here at Barnes, so it was pretty cool."
Murali, who is a regular at the Barnes Tennis Center, just picked up his first ATP Tour world rankings points, and looks at the SoCal Pro Series as a way to improve his game as he gets ready to head off to college.
"It's great to get some competitive matches, and it's huge to get some pro points as well. Just to have the option in the future for sure."
Now while Murali is an active juniors player, he did not play tennis at Santana High School until his senior year. He says his studies always come first.
"It was a little bit tough because we had a pretty good team my freshman year and then we had COVID, so that was a bummer. My sophomore and junior years were pretty tough academically, especially my junior year, so I didn't play."
As good as Murali is on the tennis court, he is even better in the classroom. His GPA is all the proof you need.
"Right now my GPA is around a 4.7 or 4.8. I study a lot and I work pretty hard in the classroom."
His 4.8 GPA has him heading to Harvard in the Fall, where he will also play tennis. So with that in hand, this year he decided to play for the Santana tennis team. This season turned out to be a historic one, as the Sultans won their first ever San Diego Section CIF championship
"I kind of wanted to be a bigger part of my high school, and kind of make a difference. Winning a Division 1 championship for the first time was huge for our school, so I'm glad I was able to be a part of that."
