Though nine area boys tennis players from three different schools would appear in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships last weekend, it was the Jamesville-DeWitt doubles team of Robert Dotterer and Peter Hatton that made the biggest push.
From the time they took the court at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, Dotterer and Hatton had high expectations, and the fact that they held the no. 2 seed, and earned a first-round bye, reflected that point.
Dotterer and Hatton only had to play once on Thursday, in the round of 16, and fell behind Saratoga Springs’ David Romano and Nick Grosso before dominating the last two sets of a 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 decision.
A day later, in the quarterfinals, Dotterer and Hatton faced Spencer Lowitz and Kenta Togo (Horace Greeley), the no. 8 seed. Despite the seeding advantage, Dotterer and Hatton never got going until the second set, and by then Lowitz and Togo were on their way to a 6-2, 6-4 victory, ultimately reaching the finals on Saturday before losing to their own Greeley teammates, James Wei and Dylan Glickman, in a 6-4, 6-4 decision.
Meanwhile, J-D’s other pair in the state tournament, Ishan Gajra and Tyler Glowaki, would play in the opening round and prevail, taking out Jason Berkun and Jerry Xiao (Williamsville East) 6-2, 6-4. But against no. 7 seed Tyler Nierman and Cameron Klepper (Half Hollow Hills West), Gajra and Glowaki took a 6-1, 6-0 loss.
As for the Fayetteville-Manlius duo of Taran Judge and Chris Lansing, they lost their first-round match to Pittsford Mendon’s Patrick O’Brien and Josh Weiss, dropping a close first set 7-5 before falling 6-2 in the second set.
Moved to the consolation bracket, Judge and Lansing beat David Salazar and Troy Steiner (Newburgh Free Academy) 6-3, 6-0, and then took on Nicholas Gajda and Alexander Amadio (Smithtown West), where they won again, 6-4, 6-2, before a semifinal where they took out Zach Price and Colin Gordon (Monroe-Woodbury) 6-2, 6-2.
With a chance to win the consolation bracket, Judge and Lansing met Westhampton’s Riley Smith and Daniel Tocco in the finals. It turned into an epic, with Judge and Lansing taking the first set 6-4 and one game from winnng it before Smith and Tocco took the second-set tie-breaker, 7-3, and then won a long third set 10-8.
Moving to the singles portion of the state tournament, F-M’s Riley Ma, an overwhelming champion in both the Class A tournament and the state qualifier, won his opening-round match over David Maher (Mohanasen) 6-4, 6-2, only to fall in the next round to Peter Siozios (Half Hollow Hills West) 6-3, 6-1.
Christian Brothers Academy singles player Dean Vlassis, who had to beat his own brother, Ben, to earn the last state qualifying spot, lost his first-round match to Scarsdale’s Luke Smith 6-0, 6-0. In the consolation bracket, Vlassis took a 6-3, 7-5 defeat to Half Hollow Hills East’s Abbinav Srivastava.
The other Section III singles player, Cazenovia’s Nate Romig, beat Kyle Gorman (Peru) 6-0, 6-0 in the first round, but like Ma, he fell in the round of 16, beaten by North Shore’s Rajan Vohra in a 6-2, 6-0 decision.
