Much like last night the doubles came down to the end. Bit of a topsy turvy affair. At #2 doubles (Quin and Christoph) we were close but never saw a break point and lost 8-6. At #3 doubles Jasper and Jake served well and were never broken. We had quite a few break points and at 7-8 had 2 matches points (15-40) but couldn't put a return in play. Was nice to see the seniors really rally in win 7-4 in the breaker.
Now #1 doubles was one interesting affair. At one point Matt and Jeffrey were down 2-5 (two breaks) and then somehow managed to real off 5 straight games to go up 7-5. I gotta hand it to Matt and Jeffrey they really hung in the match and turned the match around. We had a number of chances to win...I think we had match points in 3 different games! Just didn't up being our night as the Slugs took it a breaker making the team score 2-1.
Singles were all tight and I felt like we were in every match. The #1 match was an absolute heavy weight bout. Both players were hitting the ball a ton and pushing each other around the court. In the end Pybas played great and simply won the match. At #3 Jeffrey Tolman had a complete turn around from the previous night and played some great tennis. Actually one of my coaching highlights was watching the change in Jeffrey. He played with passion, energy and produced some stunning tennis. In the early stages of each set he was up a break .. hats of the Santa Cruz player who weather some unbelievable shot making from Jeffrey and ended winning 6-4, 6-4.
At this point we are down 1-4 and both Christoph and Chris had dropped the 1st set. However both of these young men showed incredible composure with the match on the line..neither gave an inch and really dictated play in the 2nd set. Chris ended up winning the 2nd set in his match and all eyes were focused on Christoph. I liked how Christoph stuck to his guns and kept going after his serve and approaching on every short ball. He forced a tiebreak and earned himself a set point (return). In the end he dropped the breaker 8-6 and the match 6-2, 7-6. That put Santa Cruz over the top 5-1.
We went into the match a bit more shorted handed that we wanted. Not only were we planning on having Etienne play (who couldn't go after an afternoon hit) but we also lost Nadeem (our #5) to a sore shoulder. This however did give Jake an opportunity to play 5 and put Conor Holton-Burke in at #6 (Conor was so excited I thought he might burst).
Very proud of how well our guys played and more importantly how they competed. One of the more fun matches I have been apart of ... great crowd energy, drama and fantastic tennis.
PS David Deming was keeping the twitter feed going. No way I could type that fast!
Whitman 1 UCSC 8
Doubles
1. Matt Solomon/Jeffrey Tolman lost Pybas/Vartabedin 9-8 (3)
2. Quin Miller/Christoph Fuchs lost Koening/Stanley 8-6
3. Jasper Follows/Jake Cappel def Ulrich/Larson 9-8 (4)
Singles
1. Solomon lost Pybas 6-4, 6-1
2. Bailey lost Vartabedin 6-4, 2-6, 6-3
3. Tolman lost Koening 6-4, 6-4
4. Fuchs lost Chiba 6-2, 7-6 (6)
5. Cappel lost Morrill 6-3, 6-3
6. Holton-Burke lost Halabi 2-6, 6-1, 10-8
2 comments:
I was impressed with the twittering yesterday - especially because I thought the coach was doing it. Still, it was great keeping us posted.
Tough loss, but hopefully you'll get 'em in March.
David was the twitter pro! Glad you followed the feed.
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