RANCHO CUCAMOMGA — Los Osos girls tennis coach Gilbert Delgadillo was in a vulnerable moment last fall, immediately after the Grizzlies lost the CIF-SS Division 1 championship match to Tesoro in heartbreaking fashion, 10-8.
He wasn’t demonstrably upset, but rather lost in his thoughts about how he could’ve employed a different strategy that might have produced a different result.
His star singles player, Shukan Parikh, approached him.
“It was a very pure moment and it totally caught me off guard,” Delgadillo said. “She said, ‘I’m just grateful you’re my coach.’ It lends to her character. It goes back to life being bigger than tennis.”
Delgadillo immediately felt better. The interaction shows how Parikh’s impact at Los Osos goes far beyond her impressive won-loss record.
Now a senior, Parikh is going for her fourth consecutive Baseline League singles title this week, which would complete a high school career in which she goes undefeated in league play. In addition, the Grizzlies will be in the Open Division or one of the top seeds in Division 1 when the team playoffs begin next week.
Parikh began playing tennis at the age of 6. She said her relatives excelled in sports in India: her father was a national champion in roller skating, others excelled in badminton and in cricket.
Since those sports are not as popular in the US, she tried other sports like soccer and figure skating.
“Tennis just stuck with me,” she said. “When I tried playing with the city sessions in Rancho, I didn’t really like it, but I got lessons from one of the coaches in Fontana. He helped me get into the swing and I found it fun.”
She started playing tournaments at 8. She lost in the first round of her first tournament to a friend by a 6-0, 6-0 score but that did not dissuade her.
“I don’t like to just quit on something I worked so hard for. I thought I gave it my all. I knew it was just the beginning. It’s just going to take time and practice,” she said.
WIth more time and more practice, she started winning. She started playing higher and higher level USTA tournaments as she would win.
Her freshman year was the COVID year, which pushed the season from the fall of 2020 to the spring of 2021, combined with the boys.
Parikh was used to playing individually but had no idea what to expect with a team tennis format.
“My freshman year I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know what the format was or who the players were,” Parikh said. “Tennis is an individual sport. The most you have is your family, maybe a couple of friends at matches. As a team it was a completely different experience. It was super-duper fun.”
Winning wasn’t everything, but it didn’t hurt.
Last year, Parikh went 28-0 in league in the regular season, losing only one game in any of those sets. This year, she is 23-0 in league, having lost only three games.
“She’s a constant team player, so completely selfless,” Delgadillo said. “She shies away from any accolade. And she doesn’t like to lord it over other people. She’s so humble and selfless. She’s very vocal and cheering on her teammates.”
Despite the success, Parikh is not pursuing a tennis scholarship in college. Although she hasn’t settled on which school to attend, she wants to be in a pre-med or pre-dentistry program, and juggling the high-level academics and high-level athletics is too much.
Her father, Sujal Parikh, is a dentist in Victorville. One of her possible career paths would be to become an oral surgeon where she would not work in the same practice as her father, but rather have her own practice where her father could refer patients to her.
Clearly her work ethic extends to tennis and academics.
She has no intentions of completely giving up tennis.
“Tennis is my thing. Right now, it’s never going to go away. It’s always going to be with me. I’ll still be on court; I’ll still be playing,” she said.
Quiet as a freshman, she became more of a leader by her junior year. She gives pointers to her Los Osos teammates and mentors younger players if they ask for it.
She also tries to help her younger brother Satvik, who is in seventh grade and plays tennis. Shukan said he plans to play at Los Osos.
“I’ll talk to him separately (from other people). I want him to improve. It’s a brother-sister bond,” Shukan said. “He wants to be the second Parikh of Los Osos.”
His sister has certainly set a high standard for the Parikh name at Los Osos.