Girls tennis: Naperville Central's Chen head back to semifinals
It can't be much fun to play Naperville Central senior Tiffany Chen in a girls tennis match.
“She played her game with tenacity and tracking everything down,” Redhawks coach Don Bonet said Friday at Buffalo Grove High School. “That's always been her game. Mentally strong. And that can wear on opponents.”
Chen wore down both of her opponents on Day 2 of the state tournament, beating Sycamore's Angelina Ye 6-1, 6-2, then defeating Glenbard East sophomore Kolie Allen 6-4, 6-1.
It's a familiar scene for undefeated Chen, who will play at Princeton next year.
“It definitely helps,” said Chen, now a four-time state semifinalist hoping to win a second championship. “Court 1 is very familiar to me. And so is Buffalo Grove. I always love coming back here every year. As a senior — Kolie's a great player; she's definitely going to do very well the next few years — I had to bring my best game out today.”
Allen looked strong from the start, taking a 4-2 lead.
“She hits the ball really, really hard. She's got a lot of power. I knew I had to deal with that and scrap it out,” Chen said.
“It wasn't so much a rough start (for Chen),” Bonet said. “Anyone who's left at this stage is good. Kolie, she gets on a run and you've got to just sort of outlast her, wait it out. And she was on a run.”
Then Chen went on a run. She won the next four games to win the first set.
“She was confident in her shots,” Glenbard East coach Bill Burt said of Allen's start to the quarterfinal. “She was keeping it deep, and believe it or not, the wind wasn't quite as bad in the beginning of the match, and that always helps her first serve. She gets a little more out of her serve on a calmer day. I think Tiffany figured out that she needed to just be basically defensive on the serve and got into longer and longer points, and that's of course one of Tiffany's strengths.”
Allen won the first game in the second set, then Chen won the next six to end the match.
Chen took a 4-1 lead in the second set by twice racing to the net to return Allen drop shots, winning both points in that game.
“I don't think people realize how much foot speed Tiffany has,” Burt said. “It makes it very frustrating when shots that you're counting on being a winner come back at you. And give her all the credit in the world, she tracked down a lot of really good shots by Kolie today and turned them around and kept the points going.”
Added Bonet: “You think you have the point and you don't. She tracks everything down. Sometimes it's nothing real flashy. Kolie has the power game and the flashy shots, and Tiffany just keeps plodding along. She's like that Eveready battery that just doesn't die.”
Wheaton Warrenville South freshman Samantha Choi lost in the fourth round to Alessandra Bianco of Latin School 6-3, 6-1. Choi then won her first consolation match by the same score over Joliet West's Eileen Carney.
Chen will meet Bianco in Saturday's semifinals. Hinsdale Central's Isabella Lorenzini plays Asuka Kawai of Palatine in the other singles semifinal.
In doubles both Hinsdale Central pairs moved to the semifinals but in different brackets. The Red Devils opened their lead in the team standings to 42-28 over second-place Stevenson.
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