A member of the Point Loma High School tennis team joined a longtime friend to win a national doubles championship.
Ivan Thamma, who will begin his junior year next month, teamed with another California player to capture the United States Tennis Association’s 16’s Doubles Championship Aug. 8 at the Markin Center in Kalamazoo, Mich.
Thamma played with Bryce Pereira, also entering his junior year at San Marino High School, near Pasadena, to score a 2-6, 6-1, 6-1 victory in the finals.
Despite being seeded number eight in the tournament, Thamma and Pereira took the title, but not without a brief case of nervousness that peaked during the first set of the finals.
“I was definitely nervous in the final,” said Thamma. “After the first (set), the nerves just went away and we started playing our game, relaxed and focused. We’d never been in such a big place, but after the first set losses, got ourselves back together and started playing.”
The two teens have played together since the age of 12.
After an injury forced Thamma to withdraw from a recent doubles tournament with Pereira, Thamma said “I had to make it up to Bryce in Kalamazoo.” 
As a freshman at PLHS, Thamma teamed with fellow ninth grader Keegan Smith to win the San Diego CIF section doubles title.