The Ohio high school boys tennis season has come down to its final two weeks, with state tournament qualifiers being determined this week during district play.
Eighteen central Ohio singles and doubles players will qualify for state May 28 and 29 at Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason.
Ten area players were featured in a poll to determine the central Ohio high school boys tennis regular-season player of the year. All of the votes are in, and the winner is New Albany’s Tyler Thomas.
Thomas went 10-2 at first singles during the regular season, with his only losses coming by 7-6, 6-1 scores to Olentangy’s Gavin Cheung and Olentangy Liberty’s Shane Hand. Thomas also is the only player to defeat Bexley’s Amiya Bowles in high school play, 6-1, 6-2 on April 13.
Thomas, an Otterbein signee, is playing doubles this postseason with freshman Brady Kattan.
“The amount of work he put in over the summer, over the winter – he has been out there constantly,” said New Albany coach Erin Thomas, Tyler’s mother. “Sometimes in the summer he would play a two-hour clinic in the 90-degree heat, then drive up to play a best-of-five [sets match] against Shailen [Patel of Olentangy Orange]. He has worked on the physical game but also put the effort into his mental game, keeping calm on changeovers and between points.”
Otterbein is coached by Marc Thomas, Tyler’s father, who was New Albany’s coach for 14 years before leaving for the college level last summer.
Tyler Thomas received 57.43% of the vote, ahead of Centennial junior Malcolm Reynolds (36.08%).
Thomas is the second consecutive New Albany player to win the poll, after graduated teammate and eventual doubles state championJackson Clements in 2025.
Upper Arlington’s Owen Hawley was third (2.35%), followed by Cheung (2.14%), Hand (0.67%), Worthington Christian’s Luke Stone (0.56%), Pickerington Central’s Austin Bruey (0.35%), Bexley’s Henry Lessard (0.2%) and Harrison Lessard (0.09%) and Olentangy Orange’s Shailen Patel (0.12%).
All of these players are candidates to make our All-Metro boys tennis team, which will be revealed as part of the Central Ohio High School Sports Awards. The live show is June 22 at Upper Arlington High School.
High school sports reporter Dave Purpura can be reached at dpurpura@dispatch.com and at @dp_dispatch on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Tyler Thomas named Dispatch regular-season boys tennis player of year