No matter what sport it is, opening day is special. For tennis, Emmaus played its opening match – a 7-0 win over Bethlehem Catholic – on the eve of the season’s biggest snow storm and hasn’t been able to get back on the courts since.

The revamped lineup that saw Emmaus lose all of its starting singles players and some of its doubles players as well, had little trouble against the Golden Hawks.

No. 1 singles player Marco Maricic won 8-3, as did No. 2 Austin Long. Number-three player Aman Malik picked up an 8-2 win in his match.

The doubles pairings had David Boukengolts and Sirraj Sumar at one, Stefan Zarkov and Kevin Ge at two, with Evan Charlesworth and Grant Hafner playing number-three doubles. The fourth duo was comprised of Sumeet Singh and Sam Haus.

“It was freezing cold and some other teams canceled their matches because it was so cold, but we were fortunate,” said Emmaus head coach Dimitri Diamandopoulos, who comes into his 24th season as the coach of the boys tennis team.

Four matches have been postponed, with a key match against Liberty postponed until Saturday and a match against East Stroudsburg South pushed back to Monday. Matches against Allen and Southern Lehigh still need to be rescheduled.

Last season, the Emmaus boys team finished 12-2 in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and 14-3 overall and featured Matt FitzMaurice as a District 11 Champion. In doubles, FitzMaurice and Sanket Narayana teamed up to reach the semifinals of the doubles tournament. FitzMaurice, Narayana and Cam Widdoss formed the top three singles players and all three have graduated, leaving holes to fill.

“It’s going well,” said Diamandopoulos of reworking the lineup. “I wouldn’t say that we’re in a rebuilding period, but we have a lot of guys who just aren’t experienced in match play. Our singles are rounding into shape. It was good to at least get one match in to see where we’re at and what we need to work on.”

Last season, Diamandopoulos kept a lot of players on the roster, giving him the ability to mix and match on doubles if he felt the need to do that.

Another part of the roster was the high number of seniors that he had on the team, who he felt deserved positions on the roster. There was also the usual high turnout of young players looking to earn spots.

This season is a little different. The roster has just five seniors and there wasn’t the usual amount of newcomers looking to win spots on the team.

“We have some depth even though I only had 16 kids come out for the team, which is a low,” said Diamandopoulos.

“While we don’t have as many kids, we definitely have kids who are dedicated to the sport and they’ve worked hard, so there is some depth there. Last year we had a huge roster, but I held a lot of seniors. But 16 kids is a good number, so we’re OK there.”

With any luck, the tennis team will return to the court Thursday against Pocono Mountain West. Its next shot at playing would be Saturday against Liberty, a team that figures to be one of the best in the EPC again this season. Liberty and Emmaus both lost in the semifinals of team play in districts last season.

“Liberty is going to be good again this year and of course, Nazareth and Parkland are good,” said Diamandopoulos. “I think we can compete with those teams, it’s just a matter of our players learning how to compete in those matches, but the talent is there.”