Lenape’s Milan Karajovic enjoying a dominant junior tennis season

Lenape has one of the best boys’ tennis teams in South Jersey, led by arguably the best player. That would be junior Milan Karajovic, who began the week 17-0 at first singles.

Karajovic was born in Serbia, and moved first to Ohio, then California, before coming to Mount Laurel in 2020.

He has been playing the sport 10 years.

Karajovic remembers when he first began making a commitment to tennis.

“I was at Novak Djokovic’s club in Serbia and eating at his restaurant in Serbia and told my dad I wanted to play tennis,” Karajovic recalled. “He said go find a coach and I went down in my sandals and went on the court and played.”

He has been playing ever since.

He had the misfortune of coming to South Jersey in March of 2020, just as the world was shutting down with COVID.

“It was tough at first here because I moved right before the pandemic,” Karajovic said. “The world was shutting down and it was hard meeting people but last year I met a bunch of new people by being on the team and this year it has been great as we are slowly getting back to normal.”

A year ago, Karajovic was seeded in the state tournament and exceeded that seed, reaching the round of 16 before losing what was a close match that would have landed him in the quarterfinals.

Karajovic, who says he wants to compete at the Division I level, is well on his way to that goal, according to veteran Lenape coach Tony Guerrera.

“He is a Division I player,” Guerrera said. “And he is a great young man, who gets great grades.”

What Guerrera likes is that Karajovic never gets too high or too low during a match.

“You see no change in his demeanor whether he wins a set easily or loses a set,” Guerrera said.

Of course, he hasn’t lost many sets this season.

Karajovic is 6-foot-3 and he can be intimidating when rushing the net, but he also shows great poise and is patient, sizing up his foe and waiting to hit the right shot.

Lenape is among the top teams in South Jersey. The Indians began the week 12-2, with both losses to Olympic Conference American Division foe Cherry Hill East.

These could be the top teams in the South Jersey Group 4 tournament, with East being the clear favorite.

Besides that, Karajovic figures to be a factor in the state individual tourney. He should definitely benefit from last year’s experience.

“There were a lot of South Jersey names that were well known,” Karajovic said. “It was good to go out there last year and represent South Jersey as a whole,”

No doubt he will be representing South Jersey well in this year’s individual tournament, where he will be looking for an even longer stay this year.

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Author: Marc Narducci