Doubles drama on Day 2 of Mid-Suburban League tourney
It was anything but smooth sailing for the top doubles teams on the second day of the Mid-Suburban League boys tennis tournament.
When action resumes at 8:30 a.m. Saturday at host Rolling Meadows, the championship draw will be without three of the top four seeds, who were sent into the consolation bracket by the end of Friday's matches.
The biggest surprise occurred in one of the final matches of the day when No. 2 seed Jayaram Yeluri/Eugene Yakubovich of Wheeling were upset by an unseeded tandem from Prospect, Joe Hafertepe/Nick Macina, in a marathon three-setter, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (3).
Facing the Knights in the semifinals will be a No. 6 seed from Palatine, Mark Scovic/Alex Ruthe. The Pirates advanced after Conant's No. 3 duo of Matt Meyers/Glenn Huang was forced to default when Meyers suffered a hand injury chasing down a long ball into the back fence when the match was even at 3-3.
"This was a great win for us," said Hafertepe, who along with Macina was a three-year starter on the junior varsity before coach Tom Kujawa installed the pair as his varsity No. 1."It's always great to beat one of the top seeds, and to know we'll be top four in the conference after tomorrow."
The Knights started the third and final set trailing the once-beaten Wildcats (17-2) but staged a furious comeback to get back even. That started a see-saw stretch run in which both clubs held serve before Macina held to send this second-rounder in a tie-breaker.
The Knights went ahead for good at 4-2 with a marvelous winner at the net from Macina before Hafertepe closed out their opponents on serve.
"It was a lot of back and forth in that match, and in the end I think we kept our errors to a minimum and maybe wore them down a little bit," said Macina.
The No. 1 doubles seed from Barrington, Scott Apmann/Matt Mulligan (15-3), survived a scare from Fremd's Jon Lee/James Feng. They forced the Broncos to survive a 7-5 first-set victory before Apmann/Mulligan prevailed 6-1 in the second set.
"We were not at our best today," said Apmann.
"We just didn't play very well, and were a little flat at the start," Mulligan said.
The Broncos will face No. 5 seed Tejo Nutalapati/Neil Krzeski of Rolling Meadows, who surprised No. 4 Owen Connor/Patryk Kot of Hersey 6-2, 7-6 (3).
"We lost to them the first time we faced them, so it felt good to come out today and beat them, especially since they were a top-four seed," said Krzeski.
"Our serves from the start were very good," said Nutalapati, "and we felt really good going into the tiebreaker, which obviously was the turning point for us in that match."
There was no drama in the singles field, as No. 1 Mack Galvin was the first one off his home courts after a 6-0, 6-1 win over Jinesh Shah of Schaumburg. The Mustangs junior will face Markos Christoforou of Elk Grove in the semis Saturday morning; Palatine's David Chon (13-4) will face Barrington's Ishaan Jaglan (19-5) in the other semifinal.
"It was all about getting in a good, quick match today, get home and rest, then try to get myself in the final against either David or Ishaan tomorrow afternoon," said the two-time MSL champion.
The Chon/Jaglan semi shapes up as a beauty.
"We played at the Pitchford three weeks ago," said Chon, "and even though Ishaan won in two sets (6-3, 6-4), I felt it was a quality match, so I am looking forward to meeting him once again."
"David is a great player, but my goal coming into the weekend was to reach the final, and probably face Mack, so that's my only focus in the morning," said Jaglan.
Weather permitting, the finals are set to begin at all seven flights at about 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Rolling Meadows, with backdraw matches taking place at Prospect and Palatine.