SCHENECTADY – Ultimately, the hopes for all of Section III girls tennis in 2022 rode on the capable shoulders of the Jamesville-DeWitt doubles team of Mona Farah and Tara Pollock.
Each of the other doubles and singles players from the section suffered early defeats during last week’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championshipos at Schenectady.
That didn’t happen to Farah and Pollock, though, as in the opening round in a bracket of 32 they were dominant against the Section V Victor duo of Natalie Pipes and Meghan Abbott, winning a 6-1, 6-1 decision.
In the second round, now facing Section VI’s Ava Casell and Sofia Banifatemi (Clarence), the sets were longer, but Farah and Pollock again won by scores of 6-3 and 6-4.
This put the J-D duo into Friday’s quarterfinals, where they met Great Neck’s Kira Diaz and Madison Lee. The first set went to a tie-breaker, but Diaz and Lee claimed it 7-5, and then went on to take a hard-fought second set 6-4 to end Farah and Pollock’s state championship hopes.
Back in the first round, the Fayetteville-Manlius team of Katya Quinn and Lina Limam met Westhampton Beach’s Julia Stabile and Matilda Buchen, and lost 6-0, 6-0. Stabile and Buchen would eventually reach the quarterfinals.
In the NYSPHSAA singles tournament, the expectations for Christian Brothers Academy senior Giselle Vlassis were high, especially after she won the first round of her opening-round match against Bronxville’s Victoria McEnroe.
Yet that lead did not hold and Vlassis, by a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 margin, advanced, ultimately reaching the championship match where she would beat Arlington’s Victoria Matos 6-4, 7-5. McEnroe is the daughter of tennis great Patrick McEnroe,and the niece of John McEnroe.
Elsewhere in the bracket, Manlius Pebble Hill sophomore Amitees Fazeli made her state tournament debut, taking on Garden City’s Nina Wiese, who prevailed 6-0, 6-1.
