Double whammy for Stevenson at Deerfield

How's this for a boys tennis semifinal field: Dennis Bogatov (Warren), Blake Bazarnik (Stevenson), Michael Moore (Glenbrook South) and Eric Spector (Glenbrook North).

On a day when this quartet of star power at No. 1 singles shone brightly, it was the doubles competition which attracted more attention than the likely Final Four singles players for the state tournament later this month.

After Stevenson's No. 2 doubles team of Allen Pukshansky and Nick Stephan stunned No. 4 Deerfield (Kyle Schwartz-Matt Lieberman) in the opening round of the Deerfield Invite on Friday afternoon, the Patriots' faithful had to watch their top team, No. 2 seed David Packowitz-Ross Putterman, get hauled down in the quarterfinals by No. 5 James Ong-Kevin Porter of New Trier in 3 sets to end the day on a sour note.

Semifinal play and all back-draw matches begins at 8:30 a.m. today when host Deerfield welcomes the field at doubles, and singles in the championship round, after a day at Lake Forest's West campus.

After coming close to putting away New Trier for good in a third and deciding set, Packowitz and Putterman were forced to scurry off the courts along with their opponents when rain and lightning sent the final doubles match of the day played outdoors -- to the nearby indoor courts of College Park in Bannockburn.

Once there, however, it was all New Trier.

"(New Trier) came ready to play when we got indoors, and we just didn't respond," said Stevenson assistant coach Tom Stanhope, who in the season opener saw the Pats duo defeat this same Trevian team 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. "Credit (New Trier) because they hit some great shots and quickly put us away in the tie-breaker."

As both Packowitz and Putterman have shown all year long during their rookie season, they are resilient. And in their match with New Trier, the freshmen failed to wilt in a first-set which was 4-3 New Trier at one time.

Packowitz held before the Pats broke Porter to win the set.

The second set was all New Trier (6-1) to set-up a see-saw third set which Stevenson led 5-4 but couldn't close out despite coming back from 40-love.

Pukshansky and Stephan needed 3 sets themselves to upset Deerfield 1-6, 6-1, 6-4) but later fell in straight sets to No. 6 Ben Woldenberg-Sam Barnett (Highland Park), who were put together for the first time as coach Steve Rudman tweaked the Giants' line-up.

"We didn't play well at the start, but after that we kept the ball in play, held serve and we began to see (Deerfield) struggle, especially in that third set with their second serve which led to several double faults," said Pukshansky, a state qualifier last season at doubles.

Next up for Woldenberg-Barnett will be top seed Brantner Jones-Robert Stineman of New Trier, who last week were doubles champs at the Pitchford 32.

"Those two will be a target of every doubles team from here on out, but they really don't have any weaknesses and put a lot of pressure on their opponents because of it," said New Trier assistant coach and 1997 state doubles champion Peter Rose.

Warren's top team of Igor Federov and Konrad Ciszek cruised in their first-round match with Deerfield (Kolof-Sylvan) 6-1, 6-1, but lost a third-set tiebreaker to Highland Park (Berman-Manci), who will face Ong-Porter of New Trier.

At singles, top-seeded Bogatov will meet his North Suburban Conference rival Bazarnik, while Pitchford 32 champion Spector takes on Moore, who earlier in the season defeated Spector 6-1, 6-2.

Bogatov, who dropped a straight-set match in the Pitchford finals against Spector, spent this week scaling down his training and workout schedule in anticipation of the final four weeks of the season and a serious run at a state title.

"The last 4-5 games against (Spector) in the final was my best tennis of that match and despite losing the match, I can build off of finishing on a high note," said Bogatov, who defeated Joo Ho Yu (Glenbrook North) 6-4, 6-4 in his quarterfinal.

The same goes for Bazarnik, who finished fifth overall last weekend.

"It was great to contribute to our team championship, the first ever in school history," said Bazarnik, who got past Ben Mirkin of New Trier before the rains came.