The Hargrave Tennis Tigers were collapsed in a team circle outside the Chatmoss Country Club’s Tennis Center in Martinsville. At the beginning of the match at 4:30, they had set out with confidence against the Chiefs. The wind and cold temperatures were long gone to be replaced by a picture-perfect sunny afternoon and comfortable court conditions. The novelty of the clay surface was either mildly exciting or discounted. Lastly, they had matched up a short 3 weeks ago against the Chief squad in the season opener for both teams back in Chatham. But it’s one thing to know in your head that a season is moving train. It’s another to truly understand that when players pour their hearts into the game, improvement can come by leaps and bounds. Additionally, clay isn’t just a novelty… the surface minimizes power and speed advantages between players. Playing on clay rewards point construction (set-up) points well since it is not as easy to hit winners compared to the hard court surface. At the higher levels of play, it takes a combination of good shots to get the opponent in enough trouble to finish the points.
Now at 6:15 (a typical VIC Singles match lasts less than 45 minutes!), the Tigers were staring at a 2-4 deficit. Two days earlier the squad had faced the same opportunity and come up short. In VIC competition, it only takes 5 wins in singles or doubles to take the team match. Said another way, the doubles teams as a group had to be perfect to pull out the team victory. At least one member of each doubles team had lost their singles match or not even played on the singles ladder. What followed was a gritty display of determination.
At #1 Doubles, Freshman Tyler Morris (New Bern, NC) had just finished up a marathon match that never had a clear result with Ikagami and Morris each holding and breaking each other’s serves throughout the match. 4 broken sets of strings later, Morris came up short 9-11. Senior Tyler Aichinger (Berlin, MD) was once again paired with Morris, but also licking his wounds from a 6-10 loss that seen Aichinger climb back from 4-7 to 6-7 before Yang slammed the door shut on the match. Morris and Aichinger began rough, falling to 1-2 before the gears meshed. As play smoothed out, the first cycle of serves ended with the score 2-2. From there on out, the bumps in play changed to fist bumps as Nigam and Zhang were unable to break the Tiger momentum.
At #2 Doubles, Freshman Kiesnowski (Appleton, WI) and Junior Youssef Abouzied (Giza, Egypt) found themselves in a chemistry battle. The question is whether or not the sum of the parts is greater than whole. A doubles team with good chemistry should theoretically beat another team with higher ranked individuals. The Tiger #2 and #5 singles players found themselves matching up against the Carlisle #1 and #3. Again after the first cycle of serves, the score of 2-2, indicating that neither doubles team was clearly superior out of the box. Kiesnowski and Abouzied poured on the gas to jump out to a 6-3 lead. But, the Chiefs rallied to bring it back to 6-5 with a hold and break. The Tigers got back into it, inching toward the match’s end by exchanging games to move to 7-6. In a flurry of dusty serves and snapshot returns, the second Doubles team logged in a victory at 8-6 and the tension on the courts electrified with the team score now tied at 4-4 and only #3 Doubles in play.
At #3 Doubles, both teams had relative newcomers filling out the roster. Junior Duc Nguyen and (Hai Phong, Vietnam) paired up with 8th grader Walter Thompson (Chatham, VA) to take on an equally enthusiastic Smith and Liu. Nguyen and Thompson were eager to on the court for the first time in the afternoon, while Smith and Liu were excited about making up for their singles ladder losses. The Tigers jumped on top, 4-1, but then the Chiefs settled down after some coaching adjustments. While the Tigers were making progress, the Chiefs roared back to take four games to the Tigers’ two, bringing the score to 6-5. With the crowd gathering and knowledge that the team match was in their hands, Nguyen and Thompson re-grouped. With Nguyen covering the baseline and Thompson jumping on everything short, the Tigers pushed across the line to finish out the match 8-6 with the clock showing that a little more than 3 hours had passed since that competitive play had begun.
The Men of the Match recognition undoubtedly needs to go to the doubles team in spite of some solid singles-side play. Morris/Aichinger, Kiesnowski/Abouzied, and Nguyen/Thompson were thrown into the pressure cooker. With the team match result on a knife edge, they stepped up to play with aplomb.
Hargrave Tennis’ record is now 2-3.
Individual Match Scores:
Singles
#1 – Tyler Morris v Shawn Ikegami 9-11
#3 – David Kiesnowski v Krutik Nigam 1-10
#2 – Tyler Aichinger v John Yang 6-10
#4 – Armel Ngabo v Shaco Zhang 6-10
#5 – Youssef Abouzied v Cody Smith 10-1
#6 – Sebastian Richardson v Henry Liu 10-5
Doubles
#1 – Morris and Aichinger v Ikegami and Zhang 8-2
#2 – Kiesnowski and Abouzied v Nigam and Yang 8-6
#3 – Nguyen and Walter Thompson v Smith and Liu 8-6
