Spring returned to Chatham with a roar that was echoed by the Tiger Tennis squad as they met the Blue Ridge (Saint George, VA) Barons under the blossoms and buds overlooking the Landon Tennis Center.
At #1 Singles, Rankin Horsley was able to capitalize on some jitters from his opposite number on the Baron ladder to start his match by breaking and holding serve. He was able to maintain the momentum as both players showed their ability to construct points. Horsley continued on his streak as a Tiger to improve his record to 2-1 in VIC Singles play. At Second Singles, Turner Wall had trouble with the booming serve and solid baseline game of Blue Ridge’s Juan Porta. Throughout the Singles ladder, Frankie Chang (#3), Daniel Su (#4), WeiAn Chen (#5), and Zach Gjenasaj (#6) were involved in see-saw contests with no obvious superiority on one side or the other. Chang was in trouble at 4-5 when he needed a short medical break. Waving off the opportunity to concede the match, he was able to grind on through what became the longest match of the afternoon, surviving or drawing out off several deuce points to finally arrive at a 10-8 victory. Su was able to stay with a persistent George Bigar until 5-4 when the service game momentum changed and the result came up 6-10. Chen continued his recovery from a back injury with a slow starting contest that heated up to come to rest at 10-4. Gjenasaj continued to show grace under pressure to finish his contest at 10-8 despite the dogged efforts of Fei Jin.
Due to the length of Chang’s match and the need to move the team competition forward, doubles match play began with the Tigers up 3-2, but the outcome far from certain.
Horsley was once again joined by Dan Kim at #1 Doubles where they worked steadily against Blue Ridges 1-2 players to clock in an 8-2 victory and raise their season record to 2-1. At #3 Doubles, Chen and Walter Kasica matched up against Blue Ridge’s 5 and 6 players while the #2 doubles match was delayed awaiting the completion of the Chang-Zhau match. The Barons gave a doubles demonstration that allowed them to bring the match to 2-7. But Chen and Kasica were unwilling to call it a night, breaking or holding the next four games before succumbing 6-8. #2 Doubles saw an experiment that could have turned out to be lightning in a bottle or something else entirely: brothers Turner and Raines. Would their skills complement or cancel each other? Would a fresh Raines help spark Turner after a frustrating singles performance? The score tells the story: complementary skills made the duo stronger than the simple sum of the individuals as they were able to limit a spirited and resolute Baron duo to an 8-2 final score.
Doubles match play contributed 2 points to the Tigers team score. Coupled with Chang’s victory in the Singles ladder, the final team match score was 6-3.
In exhibition play, Tiger Alex Vogel matched up against Baron Harrison Gant.
The win brings the Tigers to 1-2 for the season. Our next match is away against the traditionally challenging squad of Virginia Episcopal School (Lynchburg, VA) on Wednesday, April 2. The JV team will open their season on Friday, April 4 at VES (Lynchburg, VA). The next home Varsity match will be against Carlisle on Tuesday, April 8.
Individual Match Scores:
Singles
#1 – Rankin Horsley v Matt Chan : 10-0
#2 – Turner Wall v Juan Porta : 2-10
#3 – Frankie Chang v Yibo Zhau : 10-8
#4 – Daniel Su v George Bigar : 6-10
#5 – WeiAn Chen v Hue Guo : 10-4
#6 – Zachariah Gjenasaj v Fei Jin : 10-8
Doubles
#1 – Horsley and Dan Kim v Chan and Porta : 8-1
#2 – WallT and Raines Wall v Zhau and Bigar : 8-2
#3 – Chen and Walter Kasica v Guo and Jin : 4-8
