November Athlete of the Month: Goculdas establishes herself as one of South Jersey’s top tennis players
Goculdas made deep runs in multiple 2018 tournaments and helped Cherry Hill East to a South Jersey Group IV championship.
Each month from September through June, The Cherry Hill Sun features an athlete from Cherry Hill High School East or Cherry Hill High School West as its Athlete of the Month.
Cherry Hill High School East girls tennis player Pallavi Goculdas doesn’t try to beat her opponents with speed or strength.
Her game is all about using her brain.
“I like to outsmart my opponents rather than hit harder than them or outrun them,” she said.
Goculdas’ intelligence has been a big part in making her one of South Jersey’s best tennis players. As a junior in 2018, Goculdas was a finalist in the South Jersey Interscholastic Tennis Championships, one of the top-16 seeds in the NJSIAA Girls Tennis Singles Tournament and put together an almost perfect season at first singles for the South Jersey Group IV champion Cougars.
Goculdas has played tennis for most of her life. Both of her parents were athletes, and Goculdas said her dad was into racquet sports such as table tennis and squash. Goculdas grew up playing tennis, soccer and swimming, but quickly realized she liked tennis the most and played in her first tournament at the age of 9.
“It shows independence,” Goculdas said about tennis. “It shows good sportsmanship. You have to have confidence, resilience and perseverance.”
Goculdas plays tennis year-round, traveling to locations around the country to play in tournaments. According to rankings on the Tennis Recruiting Network, Goculdas is currently ranked as the 13th best college recruit for the Class of 2020 in New Jersey and is among the top-500 players in her class in the country.
“I play tournaments all around the country, as far as Florida,” Goculdas said. “I compete once or twice per month. In the summer, tournaments are almost every week. That’s where you do the most traveling.”
As much as Goculdas enjoys playing in tournaments, she looks forward to playing with Cherry Hill East each season. Goculdas earned a spot in the starting lineup as a freshman in 2016, playing mostly second singles. Goculdas has been the Cougars’ first singles player the last two seasons and has not lost a match to a South Jersey opponent in regular season play the last two years. Goculdas follows her brother, Rahul, a 2017 Cherry Hill East graduate who played first singles for all four years of his career with the Cougars.
“I really love the team aspect of high school tennis,” Goculdas said. “I love how you compete on a team because tournaments, it’s all individual.”
This past high school season was Goculdas’ first full year at first singles. In 2017, Goculdas dealt with severe tendinitis in her right wrist. The injury limited the amount of time she got on the court and caused her to miss significant time in the high school season.
“I had to go through several sessions of occupations therapy and physical therapy,” Goculdas said. “I was in a brace for a little bit, but I think I came back stronger.”
This year, Goculdas made up for lost time. She was dominant against most of her opponents in regular season action. She earned one of the top seeds in the South Jersey Interscholastic Championships and was seeded in the top-16 for the state singles tournament.
At the South Jersey championships, a tournament featuring 100 players from across the region, Goculdas advanced to the finals in dominating fashion. She won her first three matches, 6–0 6–0, and then defeated Bella Pescatore of Moorestown Friends School in the quarterfinals and Emily Manzo of Egg Harbor Township High School in the semifinals each in straight sets.
In the finals, Goculdas lost, 6–0 6–0, to Moorestown Friends’ Renna Mohsen-Breen, one of the top ranked players in the state. Goculdas was happy with her performance in the tournament and also glad to seen Mohsen-Breen win. The two are close friends and train together at High Performance Tennis Academy in Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
The weekend following the South Jersey Championships, Goculdas competed in the state tournament and advanced to the third round, defeating Ariella Shlugleyt of Indian Hills High School in round one and Rosemary Esquivel of Nottingham High School in round two. Competing in the high school tournaments is special for Goculdas.
“In the individual tournaments you’re not just playing for yourself, but you’re also representing your school,” Goculdas said.
The best moment of the season for Goculdas, however, was a team achievement. The Cougars won the South Jersey Group IV championship on Oct. 16, defeating Egg Harbor Township for the title. In her first singles match, Goculdas needed to rely on resilience and perseverance as she came back from losing the first set to edge out Manzo, 1–6 7–6 10–5.
“It was awesome,” Goculdas said. “We were all elated. It was awesome, especially because no one had an easy match.”
Goculdas plans to continue playing tournaments over the next year with the hope of landing an offer to play in college. Next fall, Goculdas will play one final season in high school, where she hopes to win a lot more matches and help the Cougars do something they haven’t done since 2004: win a state championship.
“I think we definitely have a good shot,” Goculdas said. “I always like to say anything can happen on any given day.”
