Cuba, Chong double up with NCAA titles
Lubomir Cuba and Eudice Chong won singles and doubles championships Saturday in the NCAA Division III tennis national tournament at the Champions Club.
Cuba also delivered an emphatic payback for missing a chance for another title earlier in the week. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps freshman Nikolai Parodi had edged the Middlebury sophomore 6-7, 6-4, 7-5 as CMS rallied from a 3-0 doubles deficit to win a men’s team semifinal 5-4.
In the individual championship match Saturday, Cuba beat Parodi 6-1, 6-1 in about 45 minutes.
“I definitely wanted my revenge,” Cuba said later. “He took me out of the team championship (match).”
Asked if the rematch outcome was a matter of his improved play or his opponent’s decline from Tuesday, Cuba said, “A little of both. I did play better.”
“Lubo played a lot better,” interjected Middlebury junior William de Quant, who with Cuba beat Carthage’s Herman Abban and Pawel Jaworski 6-3, 6-4 and then topped Williams’ No. 1-seeded Brian Grodecki and Alex Taylor 6-4, 6-2 for the doubles championship.
Grodecki and Taylor defeated Chicago’s Erik Kerrigan and Ninan Kumar 6-3, 7-5 in the semifinals.
“I never thought I’d be in this position,” said de Quant, whose parents came from their home in France to watch the tournament in Chattanooga. “A lot of it is (due to) playing with Lubo. He’s a great doubles player, a great teammate and great friend. All the pieces fell together this year.”
After taking a break following his three-year prep career in Bradenton, Fla., de Quant “visited all the (New England Small College Athletic Conference) schools,” he said, but was most impressed by veteran coach Bob Hansen and his program in Vermont.
“I knew if I wanted to go as far as I could go, he was the one who could get me there. He’s an inspiring leader,” de Quant said. “The team was amazing. They really welcomed me. And it’s a great school. I knew all the pieces were there for me to grow as a person and a player.”
And now he’s an NCAA champion, along with Cuba, who transferred from Michigan after his freshman year to the school where he originally committed.
Cuba still can become a three-time singles champion like Wesleyan junior Chong, but she can get a fourth next year in a fourth city. And after her first really tough test of the tournament — a 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 win over Rebecca Ho from Washington (St. Louis) in the singles final — the Hong Kong resident got her first NCAA doubles title as she and Victoria Yu beat Redlands’ Sarah Ikioka and Elizabeth Johnson 6-2, 6-2 and then downed CMS’s Nicole Tan and Lindsay Brown 6-2, 6-3.
Tan and Brown won 6-4, 7-5 over Emory’s Bridget Harding and Katarina Su in the semifinals.
“One step better every year,” said Chong, who had reached the doubles quarterfinals in 2015 and the semis in 2016.
“We make a very good team. We complement each other very well,” she added.
“We set each other up and finish at the net,” said Yu, who’s from Texas. “She hits a big ball and I can step in and be aggressive.”
About being extended in her singles final, Chong said, “I really didn’t get focused till the third set, and Rebecca played well the whole time.”
Chattanooga and host school Sewanee were big winners for the week, according to NCAA representatives at the tournament. Championships coordinators Angellica Rospond and Alaina Keller praised not only the Champions Club and private school facilities used for the tournament but also the city itself and the people involved.
“This is a great facility and a great set-up, and John (Shackelford of Sewanee) has run the tournament very well,” said Keller, who played tennis at Butler and has been with the NCAA for three years.
Rospond, a five-year NCAA employee who played basketball at NAIA member Marian in Indianapolis, said McCallie and Baylor were a “huge help” in making their courts available during the rainy team part of the competition, “and I can’t say enough about the whole Sewanee staff and Brant (Donlon) and the Chattanooga Sports Commission and all the volunteers.
She also lauded the banquets at the Hunter Museum and the Tennessee Aquarium as great pluses for the athletes’ experience, and she enjoyed the Riverwalk and her visit with Keller to Lookout Mountain, among other activities in their limited spare time.
“We’ve seen true Southern hospitality,” Keller added. “This is a great city. There’s great food and lots of activities. It’s a lot of fun.”