While names like Will Coy, Alex Lopez, Ethan Martin and Pedro Lopez highlighted the varsity action in Wednesday’s 5-3 league match loss on the road against Hood River Valley, The Dalles boys’ tennis coach Shea MacNab was most impressed with one of his up-and-coming standouts,
Sanjay Ramanathan.
Ramanathan, who has not had the chance to play much this season, put on a dazzling display in his junior varsity match, taking a close 9-7 pro-set loss for his efforts.
“I did not expect to see the level of play I did out of Sanjay,” MacNab said. “His serves, returns, and overall play was exciting to watch. He hustled around the court and, balls that were seemingly out of reach, he would somehow track down. I am really looking forward to watching his next match after the show he put on last night.”
On the varsity side of the court, TD senior William Coy kept up his solid play of late with a two-set victory at No. 1 singles versus Will Ferrick.
Coy played close to the vest in the opening set, but managed to come away with a 7-5 win to go ahead, 1-0.
He then put Ferrick away in the second set by a 6-2 margin for the win.
At No. 3 singles, Alex Lopez squared off with HRV’s Alden Sova with the Riverhawk scoring a straight-sets win by final scores of 6-3, 6-3.
TD’s only other win came off the rackets of Martin and Pedro Lopez in a No. 3 matchup opposite Simon Harsanyi and Luke Harter.
Martin and Lopez won in two sets by final margins of 6-4, 6-4.
The Riverhawks nearly pulled off two other wins at No. 2 singles and No. 4 doubles, but came up short in third-set tiebreaker rounds.
Daniel Santillan hit the court in his No. 2 contest against Cole Shepherd, taking the opening set by a 6-4 tally.
Shepherd clinched the second set, 6-4, and then he secured a win in the third set with a 10-3 score for the win.
Caleb Turner and Paul Clark lost at No. 4 doubles in three sets, 6-4, 4-6, 5-10.
James Pashek lost 5-7, 1-6 in his No. 4 singles match, and the No. 1 doubles team of Omar Rodriguez and Luis Diaz lost their match, 4-6 and 3-6 to Hood River Valley’s Patrick Humann and Sawyer Bogard.
Hood River’s No. 2 doubles team of Hugo Sandoval and Arthur Finstad started strong and finished stronger for a 6-3, 6-2 win over The Dalles’ Jesus Barajas and Brandon Bustamante.
Although his doubles group won a match and lost another in three sets, and lost two others by an average of three set points, coach MacNab is still seeing a good progression.
“Our doubles teams are getting stronger and starting to work well together,” MacNab said. “We have been focusing on doubles strategy in practice over the past three weeks and the work the kids have put in is starting to show.”
Along with the doubles promise, Coy and Santillan continue to headline the singles side and both Alex Lopez and Pashek are holding down the bottom two slots on the roster, so there is hope the Hawks can turn it on even more by the time regional action begins on May 13-14 in Hermiston.
“The team need to continue to work on serves as well as ball placement,” MacNab said. “Too often, the boys are hitting the ball straight back to their opponent hoping their opponent will make a mistake, rather than placing the ball on the court where their opponent has to track it down to make a more difficult shot.”
TD travels to Madras High School for tournament action Saturday.
The Riverhawks then play another league contest on the road at 4 p.m. Tuesday in Pendleton.
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.