The West Genesee boys tennis duo of Matt Mannara and James Plunkett had to play four matches over two days – but it was worth all that work to earn a berth in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
By finishing third in the Section III state qualifier, Mannara and Plunkett would get to travel to New York City’s USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center this weekend as part of a strong local squad.
Play in the sectional state qualifying tournament began Thursday at Utica Parkway. There, Mannara and Plunkett got off to a near-perfect start, defeating Hamilton’s Quinn Robertson and Kevin Schult 6-1, 6-1.
In the quarterfinals, Mannara and Plunkett again won in straight sets, topping Fayetteville-Manlius’ Joel Farella and Jeremy Zhang 7-6, 7-4, and if they could beat Jamesville-DeWitt’s Essex Glowaki and Dhruv Nanavati in the semifinals, they would reach the state tournament since the top three finishers in the qualifier advanced.
Glowaki and Nanavati proved too tough, though, winning 6-3, 6-1, meaning that a state tournament berth rode on the third-place match Friday at Syracuse University’s Skytop Courts against Oneida’s Aidan and Ajay Hicks.
The first set went to a tie-breaker, but when Mannara and Plunkett pulled it out 7-6, it had momentum that carried over into the second set and a 6-3 victory that secured a state tournament berth.
Earlier in that same tournament, Westhill’s duo of Tom Chaddock and Ryan Rolince had prevailed, 6-0, 6-2, over Hamilton’s Aidan Helfant and Brice Sharp-Ballinger in the round of 16, only to lose in the quarterfinals to the Hicks brothers 6-3, 6-2.
WG also had the duo of Stefan Atanasov and John Northrop in the field, but they could not get past the round of 16, falling to Chittenango’s Sean Austin and Ben Cyr 7-5, 6-4.
Fayetteville-Manlius stars Taran Judge and Riley Ma beat Glowaki and Nanavati 6-1, 6-2 in the final and will be one of the favorites in the state tournament. Section III’s singles players are Dean Vlassis (CBA), Nate Romig (Cazenovia) and Peter Hatton (J-D).
