Warren wins its own sectional
Mark Campanile passed up the chance to string rackets for pro tennis players at this month’s French Open.
Campanile, known as “The Racquet Man,” strings more than 7,000 rackets per year.
Had the father of Grayslake North’s No. 1 singles player, junior Nate Campanile, hopped on a plane to mend millionaires’ sticks in Paris, he would have missed three significant local events:
Nate’s matches at Saturday’s Warren sectional.
Daughter Gina’s graduation at Grayslake North.
Nate’s matches at state next weekend.
“Priorities, man,” Mark said on Saturday, after his son defeated Warren junior Wesley Stoller 6-1, 6-3 in the Warren sectional singles match for third place.
“I’m staying around here.”
The declaration thrilled Nate Campanile (22-6).
The Knight, after all, relies on his father to string his rackets so that they’re in tip-taut shape for big matches.
“He strings them at a tension of 56-58 pounds, every time,” said Nate, now a two-time state qualifier in singles. “Does a great job, every time.”
“He’s the best,” the son added.
The best singles player at the sectional on Saturday: Grayslake Central senior player Mitch Granger.
The best team: Warren, paced by senior doubles champions Nikola Trukov/Eric Seiler (37-5). All four of the team’s entrants (2 singles players, 2 doubles teams) advanced to state.
Warren’s Blue Devils netted 32 points to easily capture their seventh sectional title inside the Racquet Club of Lake Bluff (rain Saturday morning, at Warren’s Almond campus courts, forced the sectional’s final four matches indoors). Runner-up Grayslake Central tallied 20.
Warren’s No. 2 doubles team, senior Neel Desai and sophomore Matt Matheny, reached the final as a No. 3 seed after upsetting second-seeded senior Nick Battis/Dan Starkey of Grant in a 6-3, 6-0 semifinal Saturday morning. And Blue Devils sophomore Kristiyan Trukov (25-10) bowed 6-4, 6-0 to Granger (34-1) in the singles final.
“Kristiyan is a gamer, a thinker on the court,” said Granger, a state singles qualifier as a sophomore, in 2009, before living in Florida for a year. “Solid from the baseline. And he brought something new to the table on every point.”
Granger broke the Blue Devil’s serve to go up 5-3. Trukov broke right back. Granger earned another service break to secure the set, 6-4.
“I knew, as soon as I won that set, how important the first game of the second set would be,” said the Western Illinois-bound Granger, who helped Grayslake Central capture its first Fox Valley Conference championship in program history last weekend.
“I also knew I would have to come out with intensity.”
He did just that, holding serve at love. The Ram fell behind love-40 in the second game, before stringing together – without any help from Dad Campanile – crucial points to take a 2-0 advantage. The biggest was a deuce point: Granger whacked a crisp inside-out forehand for a winner, giving him another break point. Granger converted and proceeded to win four more games in a row.
The first set of the all-Warren doubles final was also highly competitive. Desai/Matheny played fearlessly against the team’s top duo, with Matheny cracking swift serves and Desai punching finishing volleys.
“They played well … very well,” said Nikola Trukov, following Trukov/Seiler’s 7-6 (3), 6-2 victory. “The rain delay (at 3-3 of the first set) helped. On the way to (Lake Bluff), I was able to listen to music, calm down.”
Added Seiler: “We like tie-breakers. It’s one of our strengths, the way we play them. Some doubles teams get tense in tie-breakers. Nervous. We don’t. We enter tie-breakers saying, ‘Let’s go; let’s play our game.’ ”
Grant’s Battis and Starkey each advanced to state for the first time after beating Lakes’ Joe Ruskin/Anthony Szuhay 6-1, 6-1 in a doubles quarterfinal on Friday. The pair of Bulldogs (18-6) fell 7-6 (1), 6-0 to McHenry’s Dave Robinson/Jake Romme in the match for third-place on Saturday.
Starkey likes to snap high kick serves.
Battis, from the net, likes to pounce on frail service returns.
“I encouraged them, right after our season last year, to play together in summer and winter tournaments,” said Grant coach Curt Sheets. “And they did that. They got to know the other’s game really well.”
Warren coach Greg Cohen got his Blue Devils together on Tuesday and, in lieu of a pep talk, reminded them of their schedule’s degree of difficulty this spring.
It was Rock-of-Gibraltar hard.
“I asked them to trust that they had faced some incredibly tough opponents all season,” said Cohen. “We, as coaches, did that on purpose to get our kids as ready as possible for the postseason. You have to play the best in order to get to that next level, and our kids did that.
“I’m proud, very proud. The kids worked hard, and they’re playing their best tennis when it really matters.”