Boys tennis: WW South's Sirinit has all the shoelaces he needs

Phasu Sirinit thought he'd be able to make it through the day cleanly.

No, he wasn't worried about letting his opponents score on him during the final rounds of Saturday's Class 2A sectional at Lake Park.

The Wheaton Warrenville South sophomore thought he could make it through the day with his shoelaces intact.

"I love sliding, and that's just kind of all I do," Sirinit said. "I wear (shoelaces) out really, really fast."

But during the championship match against his "good friend" Glenbard West's Alex Kernagis, Sirinit slid across the court to return a rally and burned his shoelaces. He took a timeout and went over to his bag to replace them.

"I'm used to it," Sirinit said. "I have a giant pack of them."

Sirinit recovered from his shoelace snafu and beat Kernagis 6-1, 3-0 as Kernagis withdrew with a quad injury. Glenbard West won the team title with 26 points over Conant (19) and Wheaton Warrenville South (18).

"I've been having back issues," Kernagis said. "Towards the end, my quad started cramping. Honestly, if I finished it out, the last (three) games would've gone a lot like the first three games in the second set. It's OK. We're really close friends. It's always a fun match."

Sirinit learned the hard way to be more prepared. When he was younger, Sirnit played in a tournament and slid for a rally, tearing up his shoelaces for the first time.

He had to ask his dad, Vasu, for his shoelaces to finish out the tournament.

"My dad was kind of mad," Sirinit said with a laugh. "I started to break my shoelaces like twice a day, I started to realize like, 'Yeah, I need to bring a bunch more.'"

Luckily, Sirinit only needed to replace his shoelaces once over the two days of the sectional. And, with a pair of black shoelaces on one shoe and gray shoelaces on the other, Sirinit advanced to the state tournament for the second straight year after advancing to the fifth round of the consolation bracket last year.

"Last year I realized state is a constant grind," Sirinit said. "They don't give you a lot of breaks, so you always got to get ready. So I'll know this time, I'll definitely pack a lot of water, drink a lot of water, make sure I'm hydrated and just eat up, get the energy so that I'll be able to get for each match."

And he'll pack plenty of shoelaces.

Glenbard West's doubles team of Griffin Foster and Christo Maltby took home the doubles title over Wheaton Warrenville South's Jack Lillig and Paul Choi 6-0, 6-4.

"It felt really good," Foster said. "We were pretty confident going in and they gave us a good run for a money at the end and I'm glad we fought through it."

Foster qualified as a doubles partner with Kernagis last year and Maltby qualified as an individual. They'll be joined by freshman teammate Andrew Immink, who finished fourth in singles to qualify.

"In my four years that's the most we've had (qualify)," Glenbard West coach Tad Keely said. "I think (Immink) is one of the top freshmen in the state. As a freshman to go, it's pretty special. Not many can say that.

"It's kind of like a big brother thing because (Kernagis, Foster and Maltby) are taking care of Andrew because he's the only freshman we've got up."

Lillig, a senior, and Choi, a freshman, will join Sirinit next week at the state tournament.

"I'm really excited for them," Wheaton Warrenville South coach Patti Clousing said. "It's really fun to have two positions qualify. For the doubles team, it's great that they went one higher than what they were seeded."

Wheaton North's Kevin Li knocked off Immink in the third-place match 6-4, 6-2 and earned his third straight trip to the state tournament.

"It's a relief," Li said. "One thing I want to do is I want to qualify for state all four years. So I was admittedly a little nervous before my qualifying match, so when I won it was pretty relieving. Of course I feel happy, but I think relief is the right word."