All I can say about yesterday's tennis is wow. I felt like we had the top players in the conference coming at us all day long. In fact the day reminded me of one very long (11 hour) dual match. In the first round of matches we were lucky to have Whitman players on 5 out of 6 courts. One of the most entertaining matches of the day was freshman Andrew La Cava vs senior Etienne Moshevich. It was unfortunate these two teammates had to play against each other. Andrew ended up getting the better of his teammate 7-6 (11-9), 6-3. Besides the high level of play it was wonderful seeing how the competed against each other. Even though this was an important match they played it like true brothers -- complimenting each other, replaying points, and truly being supportive of each other. Etienne is such a blessing to have on the team. Besides being a warrior on the court he is supportive of his team and a true leader.
In the other morning matches we had our struggles. Quin Miller couldn't keep his tournament streak alive (he beat the #4 seed) but bowed out to Daniel Redfern (#1 from Willamette and #13 seed). Great tournament for Quin. He played spectator tennis on Saturday to reach the 2nd day. Freshman Steve Roston had his chances against the #5 seed before losing in 3 tough sets. I was pleased to see how Steve bounced back from losing the 1st set to stretch the match to the distance. The much improved Sam Sadeghi lost to the #8 seed Cody Ferguson 6-3, 6-1.
Conor Holton Burker won his first match 6-0, 6-4 setting up a show down against the #1 seed. Jeff Tolman came back from a break in the 1st set to win 7-5, 6-3. Match of the day goes to Chris Bailey (#9 seed) who had a big win over the #2 seed 7-6 (7-0), 3-6, 6-3 (I think that was the score). Was a great clash of styles. Chris was pounding balls trying dictating play during the match. His talented opponent is a born retriever who not only gets ever ball back but puts most every shot near the lines. Was fun to watch the contrasting styles.
The quarter finals saw more great tennis and interesting match ups:
Conor was playing the #1 seed and #1 player from Linfield
Chris was playing the #5 seed and #1 player from George Fox
Andrew was playing the #13 seed and #1 player from Whitworth
Jeff was playing the #8 seed and #3 player from Willamette
I felt like our team was playing an all-star team! In those matches we only had 1 hiccup. Jeff (#3 seed) lost to the much improved Willamette junior Cody Ferguson 7-5, 6-4. I know Jeff is disappointed in his results and hopefully he will become stronger by the experience. Conor had a very streaky match but ended up prevailing against the #1 seed (and top 20 in the nation) 6-0, 2-6, 6-3. Conor won the first 8 games of the matches only to lose the next 6 games. Conor showed great maturity calming his nerves and rallying back after dropping 6 straight games. Andrew served and volleyed his way to victory with a solid 6-4, 6-4 win. And Chris was against stretched to the limits defeating the #5 seed 7-6, 4-6, 6-3.
Great night of doubles for the Whitties. Conor/Andrew started the ball rolling with a 8-2 victory over the #3 seeds (#1 from Willamette). The continued their great play with a 8-6 victory over the #1 seeds (#1 from Linfield). The other side of the draw was just about all Whitman -- 3 of the 4 teams on that side of the draw were from Whitman! In the first match Jeff and ET won in convincing fashion against the #1 from UPS 8-3. In the other quarter final match Sam/Chris came from a break down to defeat teammates Quin Miller/Matt Tesmond 8-6. In the semi's Sam/Chris played unbelievable doubles defeating teammates (and #2 seeds) Jeff/ET 9-8.
We are just about ready to start the semi's of the tournament (I'm writing this post from the stands). Chris is incredibly sore after 8 hours of intense tennis -- 2 three-set singles matches (long matches) and 2 doubles matches that went down to the wire. It will be interesting to see how much Chris has left in the tank as he takes on the red hot Ferguson. The other semi's is an all-Whitman match up as doubles teammates Conor and Andrew play each other. After the semi's we will take an hour break and start the singles finals. Later this afternoon Conor/Andrew will play Sam/Chris for the doubles championship.
I apologize for mistakes, misspellings and/or grammar problems with this post. Matches are about to started and I don't have the opportunity to proof-read.
I'll update match results via twitter
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