Tennis Star Amanda Muliawan Shining On Own

Wyckoff resident Amanda Muliawan has always had to endure comparisons to her older brother on the tennis court, but she’s now starting to serve notice with her own accomplishments.

Her brother, James, was a three time All-American while competing on the Men’s tennis team at Carnegie Mellon University. However, once Muliawan won the state tennis championships as a sophomore at Ramapo High School and reached No. 9 in the country for the Girls 16-and-under division, the on-court attention finally began to shift directly to her.

“My brother would count the tennis articles about me that would mention him in some way, and it happened in almost every single once,” said Muliawan. “People still ask me if I’ve ever beaten him and I just tell them now that I did once in Monopoly. That’s it.”

Tired of watching her older brother play, she began to take up tennis herself at the age of 7. Just a year later, she was competing in local USTA tournament.

However, it wasn’t until a visit to the US Open tennis championships that Muliawan realized that she wanted to devote herself fully to the sport.

“I was watching Venus and Serena Williams practice and saw for the first time how high it could get in tennis as far as a performance level,” said Muliawan. “That’s when I started to take the sport more seriously.”

Since then, Muliawan has developed a schedule that would intimidate even the most seasoned of workaholics. In addition to several challenging AP courses at Ramapo High, where she is an almost straight-A student, she’s on the court for two to three hours almost every single day, either with friends or her coach, Vivek Submaranian, at the Garden State Tennis Academy in Edison.

When the school week ends, Muliawan spends around 25 weekends each year traveling around the east coast to compete in some of the biggest junior tournaments in the region, as well as playing in a handful of weeklong national events.

The hard work has been paying off though. In addition to being ranked among the top 2 for every age division in the east coast, she has also won three national open singles titles and two doubles titles.

“It’s tough to balance school with tennis because at this level, tennis really is more of a lifestyle than anything else. Everything that I do revolves around it in some capacity.”

Although wrist surgery kept her out this past season, Muliawan has been a regular competitor on the Girls tennis team at Ramapo High. She quickly established herself as one of the top players in the state as a freshman before winning state championships as a sophomore.

Despite the level of competition being lower than in USTA events, Muliawan said there is still a lot to be gained from playing high school tennis.

“At the USTA tournaments, everyone is on their own and you’re pretty much there to do a job,” said Muliawan. “To be able to hang out and practice with your teammates or have pasta parties with them is just a really nice change of pace. I didn’t get to do recreational soccer or anything like that growing up, so the team aspect is really enjoyable for me.”

Muliawan said she hopes to keep the team trend going by participating in college tennis after she graduates next year, where she will pursue a business major and a language minor. Although she doesn’t have a specific college in mind yet, she said that several coaches have expressed interest in recruiting her.

“I’m obviously hoping to narrow down the options in the coming months,” said Muliawan. “It’s been difficult because some schools I’ve looked at have a great academic program and an average tennis team, or vice-versa. I want to find the college where I’ll be able to excel in both areas.”