Top seeds advance to section tournament
It was a day of few surprises, as top seeds reigned supreme at the South Area Singles and Doubles Tennis Championships held at Garces on Saturday morning.
There was very little drama in either singles or doubles, as none of Saturday’s matches went three sets. And with four slots available for next week’s Valley Individual Championships, the top four seeds all advanced in both boys and girls singles play.
Garces freshman Kelsey Abraham, fresh off her win at last week’s Southwest Yosemite League Championships, continued her dominant stretch with a 6-0, 6-0 win over Liberty’s Kiana Lua in the qualifying match Saturday.
Abraham, who didn’t drop a single game in Areas, says coaching and a spike in confidence have led to her hot streak, as she’s becoming more assured in her abilities as her first year of varsity action wears on.
“At the beginning of the season I was super nervous,” she said. “I’m a freshman, this is my first time actually playing league. Now that we’re in this tournament, I’ve gotten used to it. I really like it.”
Other winners were Liberty’s Brooke Erickson, who topped Natalie Tun of Centennial 6-3, 6-2; Lauren Li of Stockdale, who earned a 6-0, 6-1 win over Mailee Francisco of Chaves and Jacqueline Benshoof of
Bakersfield Christian, who took down Jordan Losa of Frontier 6-0, 6-1.
It was a breezy day for the top seeds in the boys singles bracket as well, as
Centennial’s Brett Yackovich and Liberty’s Sage Nguyen both advanced with 6-0, 6-0 wins.
Yackovich defeated Nguyen 6-1, 7-5 at last week’s SWYL Championships, giving him a headto-head edge advantage Nguyen hopes to erase at Valley.
“The score is (2-1 him) right now and I need to get that back,” Nguyen said. “( Valley) is another tournament for me to try to get back at him.”
Nguyen’s Patriot teammate Thomas Lehman advanced with a 6-0, 6-4 win against CJ Gimena of Centennial, while BCHS’ Ryan Bashirtash moved on with a 6-2, 7-6 win against Stockdale’s Sunny Choi.
The top four seeds all advanced in boys doubles as well, with Liberty’s Heman Wahi and Bradley Campoy (6-1, 6-1), Centennial’s Derek Klopstein and Max Geissel (6-0, 6-1), Garces’ Patrick Blaine and Nico Fanucchi (6-1, 7-5) and Stockdale’s Avya Shukla and Sanat Sharma (7-5, 6-4) all winning in straight sets.
And while girls doubles was the one final that saw someone advance from outside the top four, final-round matches weren’t exactly pulse-pounding.
Teams from Garces (Kylee Limpias and Jocie Sala), BCHS (Hannah Kratt and Bri Hiebert) and Stockdale ( Jasmine Flores and Gabi Guijarro) all won 6-0, 6-0, while the 12th-seeded Liberty team of Naomi Pavletich and Paige Melton advanced via injury forfeit.