Miramonte hosted Acalanes today, and it was another rough day at the office for the Dons.  Though several of the matches were very close, it felt like the wins were slipping through our fingers.  The boys put up a valiant fight and both teams were pretty vocal from the sidelines, but we did fall short in the end.

The Dons Squad is still a little banged up, but we are getting closer to full strength.  The Hoeberechts brothers have returned to the line up and are slowly playing back into form.  We are still missing #4 Sze You Chen, but we are hoping to have him back next week closer to 100%.

Today, we kicked off the match with the six singles lines.  #4 Foster and #5 Shah finished at almost the same time.  Both ran into opponents who were on their game today, and our boys fell in straight sets.  The other four singles matches could have gone either way, but unfortunately, they went the other way.  #2 Owens struggled in the first set but cleaned up the unforced errors and showed more patience in the second set.  He pushed Dille into a second set tiebreaker.  Credit to Gavin who played a better tiebreaker making no errors and keeping the pressure to make great shots on Nick.  Gavin took the tiebreaker 7-1.  Miramonte 3, Acalanes 0.

#6 Bora Hoeberechts finished next.  He jumped in front early but Alexander Chen came back to steal the first set 7-5.  Bora fought hard in the second set but started running out of steam.  He has been under the weather and has missed some practice and it was starting to show.  Overall, it was a good showing, but he went down 6-3 in the second.  #1 Sze Ting Chen was off next and had an incredible battle with Miramonte’s #1 Lucca Zamani.  This was another closely contested match.  Sze Ting shot out of the gate quickly playing an almost-flawless first set.  Zamani found his game in the second and put a lot of pressure on Sze Ting’s serve and resiliency.  The points seemed to get longer and longer with both players running each other all over the court.   It was Zamani who won the second 7-5 and then pulled away to a 10-4 win in the super tiebreaker.  At this point, the overall match was lost as we were down 5-0.  The three doubles matches were now in progress.

#3 Eagens was the last singles match to finish – why am I not surprised?  Agarwal came out swinging early on and won the first set 6-1.  Peyton then shifted into a stubborn and stingy mode with the points.  He made great decisions on when to stay back and when to attack and he played a solid and long second set winning 7-5 in a tiebreaker.  Agarwal was in lockdown mode in the super tiebreaker and gave up almost nothing.  He ran off with a 10-3 win.  All focus now shifted to the doubles matches.

#3 Goldwyn/Zheng was a last-minute pairing as Goldwyn’s regular partner Ristow was injured during the warmup.  There were a lot of great points in this match, however, Danny and Andrew fell in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.  Our one win came from who else but the #2 duo Rocca/Marshall – but they sure had to earn it today.  Dylan and Blake lost the first set 4-6 and knew it was from unforced errors and bad decisions on where to hit the ball.  They came back to win the second set 6-4 and Dylan told me he didn’t think the set would be that close.  If that was the case, he must have really been surprised by the super tiebreaker score.  The nail biting started at the beginning and stopped when Rocca/Marshall finally won 13-11 to log the only win in the Acalanes column on the day.  Last off was #2 Kaya Hoeberechts/Shin.  After the first set, I thought Kaya and Kyle were going to pull off the win as first-time partners but Uriarte/Richtenburg turned up the heat in the second set forcing yet another third-set super tiebreaker.  Gunther and Charles took an early lead and never looked back winning 10-5.  Final score: Miramonte 8, Acalanes 1.

The loss today brought our overall season record to 10-8 with only one league match left to play.  As a reminder, that last home match is Thursday against Northgate.  It is also our senior celebration night.  The match will start at 3:30 and the senior festivities will kick off immediately following the match.  It is supposed to be chilly, so please remember to dress warmly.  Some post-season dates to be aware of include the DAL singles/doubles tournament on May 1 and 2. May 1 (Thursday-early rounds) will start at 10AM at Northgate.  May 2 (Friday-semis/finals) will be at Acalanes and starts at 2PM. 

To all of our family fans who drove out to Miramonte, I sure wish the team could have pulled out a win today.  We thank you for coming out to support us.  Hope to see you all on Thursday.  Go Dons!  Coach Rick

Results – Miramonte defeated Acalanes 8-1

Singles

Lucca Zamani (M) defeated #1 Sze Ting Chen (A) 1-6, 7-5, 10-4

Gavin Dille (M) defeated #2 Nick Owens (A) 6-2, 7-6 (1)

Raunav Agarwal (M) defeated #3 Peyton Eagens (A) 6-1, 6-7 (5), 10-3

Jonah Elias (M) defeated #4 Sammy Foster (A) 6-0, 6-3

Shane Watters (M) defeated #5 Saaj Shah (A) 6-1, 6-2

Alexander Chen (M) defeated #6 Bora Hoeberechts (A) 7-5, 6-3

 

Doubles

Gunther Uriarte/Charles Richtenburg (M) defeated #1 Kaya Hoeberechts/Kyle Shin (A) 6-7 (5), 6-2, 10-5

#2 Dylan Rocca/Blake Marshall (A) defeated Henry Silveira/Blake Park (M) 4-6, 6-4, 13-11

Cole Krimmel/Jack Whitaker (M) defeated #3 Danny Goldwyn/Andrew Zheng (A) 6-2, 6-3