Boys tennis: Naperville North edges Oak Park to win NaperValley invite
A trio of local athletes came up short in the championship round at Saturday’s NaperValley Invitational, but not before showing off plenty of fight and determination in the semifinals of the 15-team, four-site tennis tournament.
Waubonsie Valley senior Revanth Kothapalli came up short in his No. 1 singles final with Loyola Academy’s PJ Barry, and the Naperville North first doubles duo of Noah Eun and Aayush PuntamBecker also finished as runners-up after dropping their match against Edwardsville titlists Schaefer Bates and Isaac Chleboun.
If not for a lot of gutsy play Saturday morning, the second-place finishers at first singles and first doubles would not even have made it to the final round and, in the case of the Huskies, every team point scored mattered as they edged Oak Park-River Forest 42-41 in the final team standings.
Warriors senior Kothapalli dropped a 6-0 first set in the semis before battling back to defeat OPRF’s Alek Rekuchki 6-4 in the second set, and then outlasting him 10-8 in the tiebreaker.
It was an impressive turnaround indeed, but it may have left his gas tank a little low heading into the finals — his fourth match in two days.
“Today in the first match I played a solid player who just doesn’t miss,” Kothapalli said of Rekuchki. “I had to fight against him. I lost the first set 6-0. There was some scrappy tennis the first set and even more scrappy in the second set. I just fought it out, won 6-4 and then the tiebreaker was pretty tight. That kind of took a lot out of me.”
When asked about his thought process after getting blanked in the first set, he responded: “I just don’t want to give up. I’ve just got to keep fighting.”
The march to the finals included straight-set wins in the first two rounds while Kothapalli dropped just one game. He has played doubles most of this season before the Warriors’ top singles player left the squad, making Kothapalli’s achievement even more impressive.
“I feel like that gave me good singles matches because I hadn’t played singles in awhile,” he said of his Friday victories. “Before the season I played a lot of singles and I was comfortable with that, but once the season starts, doubles is just a different game.”
Barry claimed the singles crown for Loyola after besting his Waubonsie counterpart 6-1, 6-1.
“He’s a great player. If you give him anything short he’s just going to pounce on it,” Kothapalli said of the talented Ramblers leader. “I felt like my spacing was off in this tournament. I feel like if I have that I would be able to put a little more pressure on my opponents.”
Naperville North’s team of Eun and PuntamBecker won both matches on Friday in straight sets but fell behind in their semifinal battle as Downers Grove South’s Ryan Roumenov and Koko Dimitrakakos dominated the opening set 6-1. But the Huskies regrouped to take the second set 6-2 and then the tiebreaker 10-6.
“We actually lost the first set 1-6, however, we adapted and beat them,” Eun said of the turnaround. “We just had to maintain our mental and then adapt to what they were doing — figure out what was working for us on that day.”
The Huskies pair played together last season and helped the Huskies win the DuPage Valley Conference team title recently after placing third at first doubles. That win along with this week’s NaperValley title should give the Huskies a boost as they prepare for the upcoming sectional at Waubonsie Valley.
“This tournament had a bit of a shaky start but then we kind of found our rhythm in the second and third matches,” Eun said. “And then in the championship we had a bit of a groove but then I’d say we got a little tired.”
The Lincoln-Way East duo of TJ Stoiber and Nate Pangallo prevailed in that championship 6-4, 6-3. Downers Grove South narrowly beat Edwardsville 7-6(3), 6-4 to finish third.
At second singles, Waubonsie Valley’s Gautam Mani finished third, while Oak Park-River Forest’s Jackson Baker and George Barkidijija claimed the second doubles crown.
The Naperville North team of Luke Domark and Kiran Uruzua (16-4) came away with top honors at third doubles, and they too needed to recover from a tough first-set loss. The Huskies breezed to the finals with 6-0, 6-0 wins on Friday followed by a 6-1, 6-1 defeat of Quincy in the semifinals Saturday morning.
But in the championship, the Huskies lost a 6-1 first set to Edwardsville before drawing even with a hard-fought 7-6(4) tiebreaker in the second set. A 10-8 tiebreaker win then gave Naperville North the third doubles title and valuable points in their 1-point victory in the team standings.
“It really feels great, I am really proud of what we were able to do,” said Domark. “We had some exciting matches throughout this entire meet. I’m so glad we were able to come out on top.”
Uruzua said the Huskies had difficulty with the Edwardsville serves at the onset of the final, but made adjustments and were able to turn things into their favor.
“They were a tough match. I think we struggled at the beginning adjusting to their serves,” Uruzua said. “We dropped the first set 6-1, but we were able to crawl back and I feel like when the points got tight, we were more confident than them in the end.
“After we fell 6-1, we just had to throw the kitchen sink at them. I remember telling Luke, ‘just play with confidence and go from there.’ ”
Edwardsville was a close third in the team standings at 38 points, followed by Loyola and Quincy at 34, with Waubonsie Valley sixth with a score of 32. Wheaton Warrenville South tallied 18 points, while Metea Valley and Downers Grove South each had 17, and Benet Academy and Oswego East each scored 16 points in the invite.