Top teams are playing the waiting game
Prior to the school year, the WPIAL made a severe alteration to its annual postseason boys and girls tennis formats.
Instead of traditionally vying for the individual singles and doubles championships first before concluding with the team championships a week before the PIAA team finals were set to begin, things were switched up. For the first time, the team championships came first followed by a one-week singles tournament and then this week’s doubles finals.
It might not seem like much, but because of the switch, teams that qualified for the state playoffs won’t take the court as a whole for 19 days between qualifying and the PIAA preliminary round, which begins May 16.
“I don’t like it because, what I liked about the old system was you built forward and you had the WPIAL team final and then you go into the state playoffs and the goal was always the team,” Sewickley Academy coach Whitney Snyder said. “Now, it’s a matter of keeping kids interested for 19 days before their next match and that’s hard to do.”
Sewickley Academy, which won its 14th consecutive WPIAL Class 2A championship this year with a 5-0 victory against Indiana, will take on District 5 champion Bedford in the preliminary round at a site and time to be determined. The defending state champion Panthers would then move on to the quarterfinals, which will be played May 19 at Hershey Racquet Club with the semifinals and finals for both classes slated for May 20.
Indiana, which is playing in the state tournament for the second consecutive year, has an even bigger problem. Because of the distance the school has between teams it can potentially scrimmage with, the Little Indians are for the most part relegated to in-house training while various select players competed in the singles and doubles tournaments.
Indiana got a taste of it during the fall as the team sent two doubles teams to the state finals, but the team as a whole didnot qualify.
“With the girls it kind of worked out because we had girls that were involved all the way into the state tournament and we did make it and kept practicing with a smaller group,” Indiana coach Phil Palko said. “I don’t know how this is going to work out with the whole group trying to keep sharp because the guys going to the individual tournaments will be fine, but it’s the rest of the team that’s not going to play any matches.”
Fox Chapel is the only WPIAL school to send individuals and teams in both the girls and boys state championships this year. The Foxes were the state runners-up last season against two-time champion Lower Merion and will start their run to the finals against City League champion Perry.
“It’s OK with me but I would prefer to have it consecutive, but I was also never crazy about stopping in the middle of the season for singles and doubles,” Fox Chapel coach Dave Prevost said. “Maybe this is a better format and the teams that are out of it are out of it and I don’t know if that’s selfish or not.”
Peters Township will be making its first appearance in the state tournament since the PIAA first recognized team tennis as an official sport in 2001. But that doesn’t mean the Indians, who will open against Cathedral Prep, don’t have an opinion on the new format.
“I like the way they used to do it,” Peters Township coach Brandt Bowman said. “The thing for me is that the team aspect is so quick and, when you had bad weather at the beginning of the season, it’s tough.”
Despite the negative feedback, the format will not change for at least one more year. The WPIAL has already released its 2018 schedule and has the same format for next season.
“I would prefer they had section and WPIAL singles and doubles like they did before,” Snyder said. “This way then you’re playing but you’re still building toward what the goal is, which is the team event.”