All-Minnesota Boys Tennis Player of the Year: Soren Swenson of Mounds View

Soren Swenson had lost a third-set tiebreaker in the semifinals of the team portion of the Class 2A boys tennis state tournament.

It was his first and only loss of the season. The Mustangs took third place as a team.

A few days later, Swenson faced the same opponent — Aaron Beduhn, a Wayzata senior and the 2024 individual singles bracket runner-up — and won in straight sets 6-2, 6-4 to capture his first individual state title.

“It feels so great,” Swenson said. “Best year by far. So happy for my team and me. This is just insane. Great season.”

Swenson, the Star Tribune’s All-Minnesota Boys Tennis Player of the Year, has a variety of tools to use in his game, according to his coach Scott Sundstrom. In the singles championship match, Sundstrom could see Swenson thinking about how to approach the points, with a return through the middle of the court instead of going for a big shot near the sideline.

“Having clarity is something I think that he’s gotten a lot better at in terms of ‘this is my game plan, this is how I want to play against top players,’ and so I think that’s the biggest piece that I’ve seen in his maturity,” Sundstrom said.

Swenson said he improved on a couple of things throughout the season. The first? Consistency.

“The second one is pretty specific,” Swenson said. “It’s a shorter forehand off slices or a forehand where I’m approaching the ball and coming to the net.”

Swenson is the third Mounds View player to win the singles title, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Bjorn, who was the Star Tribune Metro Boys’ Tennis Player of the Year twice, in 2019 and 2021, the same years he won the Class 2A singles state title.

Wyatt McCoy was the first Mustang to win it in 2007. Sundstrom also coached Bjorn, who recently finished his junior season playing tennis at the University of Michigan, when he was with the Mustangs.

“They’re both great competitors,” Sundstrom said. “But I would say their games are totally different.”

Soren, a lefty, varies his game with different spins, heavy shots and slices. Bjorn had more of a game plan he stuck to, dictating play from the baseline, Sundstrom said.

Bjorn was in the stands to witness Soren win the title and watch his other brother, Soren’s twin Anders, take fourth in the doubles bracket.

“He’s (Soren) put the hard work in, that’s the biggest thing,” Bjorn said. “I’ve seen him up every day early for the past year getting after it. The work’s been done. So, it was almost about just giving him some motivation and some good words before his matches. I knew he could do it.”

Anders said playing on the same team with Soren has been “so fun, because you can cheer for each other.”

“That makes everything better,” he said.

Bjorn missed his chance to win a singles title in 2020 due to COVID-19. Soren still has two more years of high school tennis left, and potential bragging rights on the line with more title chances.

“I’m going for three. I’m going for three,” Soren said.