Cuomo repeats title win
Standout takes fourth crown despite long sets, finishes fifth in state
Loren Cuomo said before playing in the Section II girls’ tennis final there was added pressure being the top seed in her final go-around in area competition. The senior, representing Mohonasen/schenectady, handled her final Section II Tournament in fine fashion last week at Sportime.
Cuomo defeated third-seeded Katrina Setchenkov from Guilderland 6-3, 6-0 to claim her fourth consecutive sectional singles title. The event was not held in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Cuomo, who also won the championship in 2017, 2018 and 2019, battled through a difficult stretch to finally win the opening set.
“It is always hard to be up in a big match. It is kind of scary,” Cuomo said of completing the victory. “Everyone is watching you and you just want to close. Tennis is such a ‘head’ sport. It is all mental. I was trying to tell myself to stay calm.”
Not only did Cuomo capture another sectional title, but the senior standout also went on later in the week to capture four of five matches at the state tournament.
For her efforts, Cuomo has been selected as the Times Union’s Girls’ Athlete of the Week for the period of Oct. 25-31.
The win over Setchenkov was a rematch of the 2019 final. Even though Cuomo swept all six games in the second set, Setchenkov prolonged several of the points. Cuomo claimed 26 of 39 points contested in the set, twice winning games that went to deuce.
“I definitely think it was a good finals match. You never want to have an easy match in the finals because you just don’t feel as good winning,” Cuomo
said. “You want to be pushed, so you feel like you deserved the win more if you had to work for it. She pushed me a little bit. We had some long rallies.”
Two days after winning the Section II title, Cuomo posted wins in straight sets against Nicolette Loeffler (Cold Spring Harbor) and Olivia Medrano (Pelham). In the state quarterfinals against Byram Hills’ Alyssa Margolin, Cuomo won the first set and dropped the next two.
Saturday, the senior worked her way back and claimed the fifth-place match.