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Elgin Academy's Kaufman on target

Elgin Academy senior David Kaufman feels pretty good about his tennis game as the season winds down.

Performances like Wednesday certainly will help his confidence.

Kaufman rolled through the No. 1 singles competition at the Elgin Invitational to claim the No. 1 singles title.

"I had a couple of tough matches the past couple of weeks, but played well the last four," Kaufman said. "It's nice to be on the upswing."

Kaufman lost only four games in three matches. Larkin's Nick Schlegel won those four games, but lost 6-2, 6-2.

Elgin Academy's Charlie Vogel won the No. 2 singles competition also going 3-0.

Larkin won the No. 1 doubles and finished second in the other four brackets to claim the team title. Elgin took second. Elgin Academy was third and St. Edward fourth.

The Royals' No. 1 doubles team of Selwyn Hansana and Eddie Senesombath beat the Maroons' Tyler Altieri and Dan Hegel, 6-4, 7-6 (5) to finish 3-0 and win the title. Altieri and Hegel went 2-1 to finish second.

"We've been working all year toward playing our best tennis at the end of the season," Larkin coach Bob Young said. "That's been our goal from the beginning of the year."

Elgin won the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles. Hiep Du and Mikel Canavas teamed at No. 2 doubles, while Sakda Kethdy and Eric Chai was the No. 3 doubles team.

"We're trying to take each of these meets and teach as hard as we can and have these guys identify what they need to do in match play," Maroons coach Larry DeHaan said.

The meet, which was rained out a week and a half ago, was a round-robin competition and provided plenty of head-to-head play for future seeding meetings. All four teams will be in the Elgin sectional in a couple of weeks.

St. Edwards' Anthony Abbate returns a backhand against Elgin's Danny Keunavongsa in their #1 Singles match Wednesday at the all Elgin quad meet. John Starks | Staff Photographer