Naperville Central's Chen keeps repeat bid on track

Naperville Central junior Tiffany Chen has a way of luring her girls tennis opponents into a false sense of security.

Chen's bid to repeat as the state singles champion almost ended before the quarterfinals Friday, and she didn't start her quarterfinal match well either. But Chen completed surprising comebacks in both to advance to Saturday morning's semifinals at Buffalo Grove High School.

"Eh, it's an every day thing," Chen said. "With my kind of game you get used to that."

Chen, the tournament's top seed, outlasted Lyons Twp. sophomore Jelly Bosovic 6-7 (4), 6-2, 6-4 in the fourth round, coming back to win that third set after trailing 3-0 and 4-1. With the set even at 4-4, 30-30, Bosovic (a 9-16 seed) launched three straight smashes. Chen somehow reached and returned all three, with the last lobbed over Bosovic's head and landing just before the baseline for a Chen winner.

"They were new balls, and I knew she was going to come out swinging, so I had to stick through it, close my eyes, swing and hope for the best," Chen said.

Chen topped that comeback in her next set just an hour later. Stevenson senior Kendall Kirsch (a 5-8 seed) led their quarterfinal 5-1, but Chen stormed back to even the set at 5-5, eventually winning 7-6 (8-6). Chen then won the second set relatively easily 6-2.

"The first set here was remarkable. I mean, down 1-5," Bonet said, shaking his head while considering the quarterfinal. "She does such a good job of focusing on the game at hand, point by point and not looking too far ahead. And that's what you have to do, because when you're in a hole 1-5 and you look too far ahead, you're out of it."

"That was a slow start," Chen said. "I got down pretty fast, in, like, 10 minutes, and I was like, I should really start to come back now. And then I started playing smarter tennis."

Chen didn't try to match the hard-hitting Kirsch winner for winner. Instead she turned it into a match of attrition.

"She has big shots and she was hitting the lines on every shot," Chen said. "Obviously, I can't compete with trying to hit my big shots against her big shots, so I worked the point more and tried to figure that out."

"She just kept the ball in play, keep the ball in play and slowly put a little more pressure on Kendall," Bonet added. "And Kendall played a fantastic first set. She was hitting winners. She had Tiffany going all over the place."

Chen will meet Hinsdale Central sophomore Isabella Lorenzini (a 3-4 seed) at 9 a.m. Saturday in the semifinals. Chen defeated Lorenzini in last year's championship match 6-3, 7-6 (5).

Hinsdale Central enters the final day of the three-day tournament leading with 44 team points. Lyons Twp. and Stevenson are tied for second at 33.

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