Boys tennis: Tournament takes its toll on DuPage athletes
Eventually, the grind of the three-day boys state tennis tournament took its toll.
The Benet doubles team of Patrick McGuigan and Jack Carroll, a 9-16 seed, overshot its seed for a berth in Friday afternoon's quarterfinals at Hersey High School in Arlington Heights. But a McGuigan leg cramp hindered the Redwings just enough to give the Highland Park pair of Brandon Lew and David Aizenberg the edge they needed. Highland Park advanced to the semifinals with a 6-1, 1-6, 7-5 victory after a back-and-forth third set.
The tournament concludes Saturday.
"If you think about it, even though he wasn't moving very well, after that we still had chances," Benet coach Michael Hand said. "We went up 4-3 with Patrick serving, and he was serving underhand (about half the time). We still had opportunities.
"Highland Park is a good team. We had opportunities, they had opportunities. We just didn't take advantage of all the ones we had."
That the Redwings advanced past their seed didn't surprise them.
"They fought," Hand said. "I know they're really disappointed because they thought that was a match they could have."
Neuqua Valley's Brett Meyers needed to rebound from a first-set loss to Joliet Catholic's Jack Geissler before advancing 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-0 in a three-hour match played primarily from the baseline and that featured many lengthy points. To take a 4-1 lead in the second set, Meyers had to survive six break points in that game against Geissler.
That effort under a hot sun seemed to wear him down for his quarterfinal against the talented Mark Wu of Glenbrook North. Wu won 6-3, 6-4 in a two-hour match.
The only DuPage County athletes to advance to the semifinals were Hinsdale Central doubles partners Michael Czlonka and Nick Calzolano, who have yet to go to a third set in the tournament.
It wasn't Naperville Central's day. In singles junior Bill Zhang lost his fourth-round match to Dunlap's Victor Spolidorio 6-0, 6-0. Sophomore Ryan Roegner fell to Wu 6-2, 6-3 in the Round of 16. Wu met Meyers in the quarterfinals.
"When you get to this point in the tournament there's just a heck of a lot of good players," Redhawks coach Dan Brown said. "In order for them to get to the next round - they were seeded 9-16 - so in order for them to get to the next round they were going to have to take away somebody's 5-8 seed, like Mark Wu or Victor Spolidorio. Both great players and they ended up playing a little better than we did today."
Zhang just didn't recover in time after Thursday's three-match day.
"Bill had a tougher day yesterday than Ryan did, and I think it showed this morning," Brown said. "Bill had a long day of tennis yesterday, a three-hour match in the third round, so he was still feeling a little bit of the effects of that. He came out this morning and didn't quite have it against Victor."
Glenbard West senior Nate Dell lost 6-2, 6-1 to Rockford Christian's Brandon Ancona in the Round of 16.
"There were a bunch of close games," Hilltoppers coach Tad Keely said. "A lot of deuce games. Whenever we could move Brandon side to side I felt we had a chance. But he just played on a whole different level. Today he didn't make many mistakes. In the first set I think he made two unforced errors total. It's tough to beat a kid when they're on fire like that. Nate battled, but now we've got to kind of grind in the back draw and keep him in the hunt."
Dell advanced to the back draw quarterfinals with a two-set win against Danilo Kovacevic
Naperville North doubles team Jared and Kirk Williams fell in the Round of 16 6-1, 6-3 to Austin Klapman and Nick Marino of Glenbrook North.
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