Mihailescu leads Naperville Central to DVC title
For Michael Mihailescu it was just a matter of staying healthy.
The Naperville Central senior, who suffered injuries that limited his success the past two years, won the DuPage Valley Conference second-singles championship Saturday and helped the Redhawks to their second straight conference tennis championship.
The Redhawks, who went into the tournament with a 6-point lead based on dual-match victories, expanded on that lead Saturday and finished with 63.5 points to second-place Naperville North’s 54. Wheaton North was third with 42.
Mihailescu defeated Naperville North’s Jiwoo Hwang 6-1, 6-2 to win one of the Redhawks’ four individual conference championships.
Other Naperville Central winners were: second singles Ian Braun, second doubles Chris Harrison and Wesley Lo and third doubles Charlie Ren and Eric Shen.
The Huskies won three individual titles led by first-singles and defending conference champion Gordon Zhang, as well as first doubles Kevin Huang and Steven Nguyen and fourth singles Terrence Chen.
Mihailescu missed a good portion of his sophomore year with a broken collarbone, and then he hurt his ankle before his junior year, joined the team late and went on to win the DVC title at fourth singles.
This year he was able to fulfill his potential at the higher position.
“I just got in better shape this year and I worked on my game,” Mihailescu said. “I trained hard, but I also ate right and got plenty of sleep.”
These factors helped him work through the anxiety of moving up to the higher position.
“I was a little scared at first,” Mihailescu said. “But I had confidence because of the hard work I did in the off-season. My backhand and serve have improved. My backhand is flatter and I hit it with more power.”
Mihailescu, or “Mi-hai” as his teammates call him, was thrilled to be part of a second championship run.
“It’s especially great for our team to win because we really root for each other,” Mihailescu said.
“We work together as a team. No one is selfish. I love this team.”
“Mi-hai was steady today as he has been all year long,” said Naperville Central coach Dan Brown. “He finished 10-0 in conference.”
Brown also praised the two doubles teams that brought home the gold.
“Wesley and Chris along with Charlie and Eric were also great all season and throughout the tournament,” Brown said. “Being able to count on these doubles teams has helped us in the conference’s scoring format. We needed every conference win.”
First singles Sid Swamy who finished third, fourth singles Matt Mason, who finished second, and first doubles Danny Albert and Gautham Bala, who lost a close three-set match to Huang and Nguyen, were also major players in the Redhawks’ conference title run.
“Winning conference was our No. 1 goal this year,” Brown said. “Winning close matches all year at every position allowed us to come into this tournament with the lead. Even though we had a comfortable margin in points this victory was anything but easy. Naperville North won three championships today and that’s a young team that will be great next year.”
Wheaton Warrenville South finished in fourth place with 36 points, followed by Glenbard North with 25.5, West Aurora was next with 17.5 ahead of Glenbard East and tournament host West Chicago.