Tennis BV

Tournament

Date/Time	Home/Away	Type	Field Location	Score
5/16/2009 5:30 AM		Game		2nd Place

Andover Boys Tennis Earns Two Big Wins in New England Tourney

Andover came into the NEITA Team Tournament on Saturday, May 16th hoping to atone for earlier losses to Deerfield and Milton and came away with victories in both matches,  4-1 vs. Deerfield in the morning and 4-3 against Milton in the afternoon. The new third doubles team of Tony Zou and upper Max Png were to have their ordeal by fire against Deerfield and were impeccable against the Green Team’s Griffis and Wieczorek, 8-3, with Tony showing great aggression at net and Max his trademark touch on drop volleys and deep lobs. When Hunter Schlacks and Myles O’Neil came back from a 7-2 deficit and took their doubles match 9-7, the Blue were elated;  Trey and Mark could then discontinue their match at one, up two break points at seven-all.  Singles went fairly quickly, Trey winning his 6-2, 6-1 against Andrew Siderides and Mark winning 6-4, 6-0 against the smooth lefty George Wheatley. Although Hunter lost at three, 6-1, 6-3 against Wieczorek, Myles O’Neil was dominant against Griffis, 6-1, 6-0, giving us a chance to rest up for the Milton match, since they had finished earlier than we did in their 4-0 victory over Groton.

Milton was undefeated in match play this season and seeded first in the tournament.  Against them during the season we had won only the third doubles, first singles and sixth singles matches.  We knew we had to take the doubles point if we were to have a chance and set to that task with a positive, aggressive approach, determined to move our pairs up and back together on both offense and defense. Schlacks and O’Neil lost to Bragg and the younger Lebovitz at second doubles 8-6, and Tony and Max had another great match at three, beating the somewhat dispirited David Bruce and Jeff Cohen 8-2. Earning the crucial doubles point, with a big win at number one, we needed three matches in the singles.  Normally we could count on getting a sixth singles win but Myles had some trouble with Anthony Blake, whose approach to the match proved distracting; the coaches needed to take turns monitoring and overseeing this match, along with the Cohen vs. Kontaxis match at number five. Michael pulled through here, winning 7-5, 6-0, while Trey beat Bragg again, 1 and 3.   With Tony’s loss to Matt Lebovitz and Hunter’s to Hunnewell, it all came down to Mark at number two against the excellent lefty co-captain, Andy Lebovitz, who had split with Mark. At the end of the second set, though, Mark had begun to cramp in both quads and both hamstrings, making remedial stretching rather painful and counterproductive.  It was almost enough to make a player throw in the towel, but Mark pressed on, with the encouragement of his captain, teammates and attending classmates. He kept hitting accurate approaches, closed to net and covered passes and lobs as well as his faltering legs allowed, working his way to a break.  His final angled volley winner stunned everyone there. It was an incredible, brave, determined, flawless achievement. Incapable of extending on his big serve or of banging his usual hard approaches, he had to be extraordinarily accurate and prudent with his shots.  It was a masterful demonstration of strategy and situational problem-solving as well as ignoring pain and maintaining self-belief. 4-3, Andover over Milton. 

Facing Loomis the next day at Loomis, the Andover boys had to deal with a very deep  opposing team and an unusually big home crowd, one that proved raucous and only selectively appreciative.  The crowd would erupt whenever a Loomis shot looked plausible, and the best Andover winners were met with absolute silence, producing an almost Davis-Cup atmosphere. The doubles point was a thriller, with Trey and Mark winning handily at number one against Arguimbau and Megas, and Tony and Max pulling out a 8-6 win, after being up 6-1.  The winning shot, after a brave Zou poach, was a patented Max Png high lob that drove the Pelicans back to the fence, bounced, caught some wind and cleared the fence, unreturnable. In singles, Trey made quick work of Andrew Arguimbau at number one and, after losses at number three and five, Andover had to win two of the remaining three matches to take the championship. Mark needed a third set to polish off Mantiklas, 6-1, and Tony was down in a third set against Brinkerhoff. It came down to ninth-grader Myles O’Neil at sixth singles, who had won his first set against the undefeated Keenum.  Andover was serving for the championship on two occasions in this second set, but it went to Loomis in a tiebreaker.  And then, before long, Keenum was ahead 5-2 in the third.  Myles fought back, however, and was serving at deuce in the ninth game when a Keenum drive landed close to the baseline.  Myles’ first call was out, and then he reversed his call in Keenum’s favor, and asked for a let. Although it was eventually granted by the gracious Loomis coach, Myles allowed Keenum to take the point he strenuously asked for, setting up match point, which Keenum won with a go-for-broke forehand. Andover had no trouble recognizing the worthiness of their vanquishers, whose third through sixth singles players offered the best opposition at those positions we had seen all year.  The score was 4-3, Loomis Chaffee.