University High School Tennis Team Wins 5th Straight CIF Title

On Friday, May 23rd, the Uni tennis players made their 9th straight appearance in the Division 1 CIF final at the Claremont Tennis Club. Having lost its three biggest stars this year, University had to focus a lot more on doubles play and overall teamwork during the season. The road to the finals proved relatively straightforward. Uni defeated Marina High School 15-3, Santa Barbara 15-3, Westlake 15-3, and Los Alamitos 14-4. The guys expected to face the second-seeded Palos Verdes in the final, but the third-seeded Harvard-Westlake pulled off a 9-9 upset, winning the match on games. University and Harvard-Westlake would play for the second time this season, after Uni defeated HW 12-6 earlier in the season.

Both tennis teams knew that the final would be a much closer battle, with Harvard regaining its few key players that were out during the first meeting between the two teams. Uni also had an addition to its lineup; Garrett Kurtz recovered from his injury and joined the doubles roster right as playoffs were starting.

The first round showed that both teams were ready to claim the championship. As five of the six matches ended, all eyes were on the number one doubles teams. The match climaxed in an epic tiebreak, one that turned the momentum in favor of University.

Let me now shift the narrative. My partner and I have had our share of intense tiebreaks. In the very first match of the season, Tommy and Rohan Lageweg won the tiebreak that evened the score against San Marino to 9-9 and gave us the win based on total games. I wasn’t as fortunate. Unable to convert on match point at 6-5 in the tiebreak, Josh Piatos and I lost 8-6 in the final of the All-American tennis tournament. Uni would then go on to lose 5-4 to Beacon High School from New York; that lost tiebreak being the difference.

This tiebreak was bigger than the other two combined. The crowd was bigger, the stakes were higher. At the time, I did not know that my team was down 2-3, and that my loss could have given Harvard the early 4-2 lead. A few thoughts were on my mind. I didn’t want a repeat of All-American, that’s for sure. I didn’t want to stand there as a loser in front of a hundred Uni students who cheered us on. Tommy and I took an early 3-0 lead in the tiebreak, but we quickly gave it away, and the tiebreak remained pretty even. Then the match points started. Down 5-6, Tommy was serving. He missed the first serve. On the other side, Jed Kronenberg was edging forward, almost standing at the service line, ready to take Tommy’s second serve early and go right at me, just as he has successfully done previously in the match. Tommy made his serve; I breathed a sigh of relief. The opponent slapped the return at me. He hit the net. Phew. The score was even once again at 6-6. As it would turn out, that was only half of the tiebreak. We would face three more match points, and every time we did, I thought the match was over. I kept encouraging Tommy, but I don’t think I really believed we’d win. I was ready for the Harvard-Westlake crowd to erupt and for us to lose. Somehow, however, we stayed in the match. Every point was crucial, so every point that we won, I cheered “let’s go” as loud as I could with the Uni crowd supporting us. I didn’t focus too much on the crowd, but whenever I looked over in any direction, it was packed. I think the whole club was watching us. We had two match points also, but we couldn’t convert either. On the third, something magical happened and we won 13-11. A happy moment.

So after the first round, the match was tied at 3-3. None of the matches had the intensity of that tiebreak, but each one of them was just as important. Down 3-4, Konrad Kozlowski and Garrett Kurtz made a huge comeback to win 6-4 against the team I faced in the first round. Once again, the score was tied at 6-6.

Victory was within our reach now. We were ahead on games by a comfortable margin, so in the case that third round is once again split at 3-3, University would win the title. We knew that Eric Tseng and Arash Hafezi would give us two of the three singles wins that we needed. All that was left was to win one of the three doubles. Tommy and I had to play a team undefeated so far in the final, but I knew we had a chance to win. We went up 3-1 and had multiple break points to go up a double break, but we could not convert. Tommy then got broken, and we were back to where we started at 3-3. We knew, however, that our match needed to be the one to seal the deal. The team was beatable. We broke right back, I held my serve, and we were one game away from the championship. Down 15-40, I feared that Tommy might need to serve out the match, but we battled back and broke their serve once again. Tommy hit a put-away volley that looked to be going out, but it landed just in. Right after the match, one of our tennis coaches informed us that we clinched it. Konrad and Garrett also won their doubles, so we got the 10th point. It was unnecessary to count the games now. Winning 10-8 was much sweeter.

Final score: University 10, Harvard-Westlake 8

Drew Dawson (U) d. George Noonan (HW) 6-1
Drew Dawson (U) d. Adam Sraberg (HW) 6-2
Michael Genender (HW) d. Drew Dawson (U) 6-2

Michael Genender (HW) d. Arash Hafezi (U) 6-4
Arash Hafezi (U) d. George Noonan (HW) 6-1
Arash Hafezi (U) d. Adam Sraberg (HW) 6-1

Eric Tseng (U) d. Adam Sraberg (HW) 6-0
Michael Genender (HW) d. Eric Tseng (U) 6-3
Eric Tseng (U) d. George Noonan (HW) 6-1

Arseni Yalouskikh/Tommy Wang (U) d. Parker Chusid/Jed Kronenberg (HW) 7-6 (13-11)

Max Rothman/Sam Hummel (HW) d. Arseni Yalouskikh/Tommy Wang (U) 6-2

Arseni Yalouskikh/Tommy Wang (U) d. Jason Vronek/Jaird Meyer (HW) 6-3

 Max Rothman/Sam Hummel (HW) d. Hudson Graf/Josh Piatos (U) 6-4

Jason Vronek/Jaird Meyer (HW) d. Hudson Graf/Josh Piatos (U) 6-4

Parker Chusid/Jed Kronenberg (HW) d. Hudson Graf/Josh Piatos (U) 6-1

 Jason Vronek/Jaird Meyer (HW) d. Garrett Kurtz/Ardi Safi (U) 7-5

Garrett Kurtz/Konrad Kozlowski (U) d. Parker Chusid/Jed Kronenberg (HW) 6-4

Garrett Kurtz/Konrad Kozlowski (U) d. Max Rothman/Sam Hummel (HW) 6-4

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