The question is asked all the time, and the answers are usually as predictable as the sunset.

“What do you like to do in your spare time?” high school athletes hear, and 99% of the responses are some combination of “hang out with my friends and family, play video games, and watch movies or TV.”

But every once in a while, an answer knocks your socks off.

“I sing professionally at parties and weddings,” Herricks junior tennis star Samarth Deepudass said. “About once a month. And people pay me.”

Wait, what? A side hustle as a wedding singer, like Adam Sandler in the hit 1998 movie? Yep.

Deepudass has been belting out mostly Indian tunes at weddings, Sweet Sixteens and other parties for about five years now. He found he liked singing when he was 10, and at age 12 “I started to get better at.”

So Deepudass’ Mom, a former singer herself, took a couple of recordings that he’d made and started showing it to friends. And they showed their friends, who showed their friends, and now Samarth’s music is displayed on his father Deepu’s YouTube channel.

“It’s fun, something different,” Deepudass said. Asked if he ever sang in front of his teammates on the tennis team bus on road trips, and he practically recoils at the idea.

“Oh no, no no no,” he said with a laugh.

While he may not belt out music in front of his mates, he certainly has led them on the courts. An accomplished junior player who is rated by TennisRecruiting.net as the 19th best in his class in New York State, Deepudass decided to try high school tennis last season, with smashing results.

He went 14-0 in singles for the Highlanders, and lost in the quarterfinals of the county tournament.

This season, with Herricks stepping up to Division I play, Deepudass has gone 3-0 as Herricks has begun strongly, with a win over defending county champ Syosset. One opposing coach said Deepudass “might be the best player in the county.”

“He’s a kid who has gotten better and better and always gets better and better as matches go along,” said Herricks head coach Ray Cross. “He’s so consistent, and as matches go on you see (his opponent) backing up further and further.”

Deepudass began playing tennis around age 5, when he said he and his family all took up the sport together while living in Bellerose, Queens.

By age 7 he started taking lessons and began getting into the sport, going to the U.S. Open each year to watch Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal.

Deepudass remembers his first USTA tournament at age 8, when he lost a two-hour battle to a kid named Xavier (of course he remembers the other kid’s name) and cried afterward.

“I was so upset and basically said to myself, ‘you’ve got to get better, you have to win from now on,'” he recalled. “And then I started to take it more seriously.”

With athletic genes inherited from Deepu (who was once an Olympic-level track athlete for India), Samarth’s game grew.

Deepudass’s baseline game and excellent conditioning made the righthander an excellent tournament player, and as he got better he noticed more and more onlookers came to watch his matches.

“At first I liked it, people thinking of me as the marked man,” Deepudass said. “But then it got to be a lot of pressure and I was wishing people would stop watching me.”

Deepudass has gotten used to being watched, and as he continues to train at John McEnroe Tennis Academy in Syosset and Port Washington.

As college coaches start to come calling (he’s already had some Division I offers, but hopes to play at Binghamton or Boston University), Deepudass is laser-focused on winning the Nassau Co. singles title this year, with the tournament being held May 18-19, and qualifying for states.

In the meantime, he’s trying to improve his serve a bit and work on not beating himself up when he’s losing.

“I get really down on myself especially when I know I can beat the guy I’m losing to,” he said. “I just need to stay positive.”

Cross said Deepudass’ instincts carry him far (“He always knows where the ball is going before the opponent hits it,” he said) and that there’s still room for improvement.

“I just want to keep getting better, because I really love playing,” Deepudass said “Being on a team these last two years, it’s been so much fun, and so different than tournaments when you’re all by yourself.”