Boys varsity tennis fell to rival Choate 4-2 at home on Saturday, falling to 6-2 on the season with just 4 matches remaining.
Despite some close matchups, Deerfield dropped the doubles point for the first time all season. #2 Feng/Chen went down a break early and couldn’t recover; #3 Juhas/Berg were on serve until 6-5, when Choate made a final push to win three games in a row and clinch the point for the Boars. #1 Weldon/Kasumov had just broken back to level their match at 7-7 when the point was clinched; the boys got to play on, and their aggressive doubles earned a 9-7 win.
It’s a different feeling to head into singles down 0-1, but the team was determined to fight. Deerfield and Choate each took the first set on three courts; the match couldn’t be closer. Gunter Weldon secured the first point for Deerfield at #1, playing one of his cleanest matches ever and defeating a tough opponent while dropping only 1 game. With the match now evened at 1-1, Choate pulled ahead 3-1 with straight set victories on courts 3 and 5. That left #2 Feng, #4 Barry, and #6 Juhas left competing, and DA needed all three of those courts to win.
Juhas recovered after a slow second set and clinched his third set super tiebreaker in deciding fashion to keep DA alive; meanwhile Barry battled back from a 1-4 deficit in his second set to even his match at 4-4. While Tai Feng won his first set and was on serve in his second, everyone was rooting for the #4 freshman Mac Barry to keep his run going and close out the second set to force a third set breaker. Unfortunately, his opponent’s consistency proved too tricky, and Choate clinched the win. At that point, Feng’s match was stopped at 6-4, 3-4.
Both doubles and singles exhibition matches continued to be a place for Deerfield to shine. The Doors swept both doubles contests, and also won 4 out of 5 of the singles matches. Well done, team!
While it’s always disappointing to lose, the boys competed so well and left their hearts out on the court. After one day to rest, they will face Loomis Chaffee in part two of their previously-postponed competition: Loomis will drive to Deerfield to complete singles matches that were stopped due to rain in the teams’ contest from a few weeks ago.
RESULTS
Doubles order of finish: 2,3,1
#1. Weldon/Kasumov (DA) def. Guo/Watcharananan (C) 9-7
#2. Bock/Mobarak (C) def. Feng/Chen (DA) 8-4
#3. Barbie/Liu (C) def. Juhas/Berg (DA) 8-6
Exhibition #4. Barry/Webb (DA) def. Cohen/Zhang (C) 8-6
Exhibition #5. Trees/Fan (DA) def. Yan/Zhuo (C) 8-4
Singles order of finish: 1,3,5,6,4
#1. Weldon (DA) def. Bock (C) 6-1, 6-0
#2. Feng (DA) led Guo (C) 6-4, 3-4
#3. Mobarak (C) def. Kasumov (DA) 6-1, 6-2
#4. Watcharananan (C) def. Barry (DA) 6-2, 6-4
#5. Liu (C) def. Chen (DA) 6-0, 6-4
#6. Juhas (DA) def. Zhang (C) 6-1, 1-6, 10-3
Exhibition #7. Barbie (C) def. Trees (DA) 6-2, 6-3
Exhibition #8. Webb (DA) def. Cohen (C) 8-4
Exhibition #9. Berg (DA) def. Yan (C) 8-2
Exhibition #10. Fan (DA) def. Zhuo (C) 6-1, 6-1
Exhibition #11. Rousou (DA) def. Shamsi (C) 8-0