After a one-year hiatus, the city tennis tournament was back on Friday, and the junior players had the day almost all to themselves.
A total of 60 juniors ages 16-and-under took to the courts at Columbus North and Donner Park. The tournament became a USTA-sanctioned Level 7 event in 2019, and is again this year after last year’s tournament was canceled because of the COVID 19 pandemic.
Nine junior city championships were decided on Friday, and five were won by Columbus residents. Columbus swept the 16U and 14U boys and girls divisions.
Fourteen-year-old Annabelle Sun, who will be a freshman at Columbus North, won the girls 16U division.
“I’m turning 15 in October, so I was thinking maybe if I hit with the older people since I’m going into high school, it could get me ready for the (high school) girls season,” Sun said. “I wanted to get some match experience before the season starts.”
Sun beat Madelyn Santner of Bloomington 8-2, Rachel Panko of Florence, Kentucky, 8-1 and Avery Musgrave of Seymour 8-0 in the round-robin event for her first tournament victory.
“I think I was doing pretty good, considering my right ankle hurt a little,” Sun said. “I was playing better, compared to other days, because I didn’t have a lot of unforced errors, and I didn’t have a lot of double faults. I wasn’t really expecting to win,” Sun said. “I was just hoping that if I did well, I could win.”
Austin Clark won the boys 16U division, which also was a round-robin. Clark beat Parth Gupta 602, Sid Jain 6-3, Henry Ulrich 6-0 and Darren Li 6-2.
“I think it was really competitive,” Clark said. “I just tried to be kind of aggressive. Obviously, it’s a really hot day outside, so I tried to stay hydrated, and overall, I think I did really well today. I came in pretty confident, and I’m really confident with what I accomplished today. Everybody played great today, and I think we all had a lot of fun.”
This also was the first tournament championship for Clark, who will be a sophomore at North.
“I’ve played in my fair share of tournaments, and I’m just really happy to finally get that victory,” Clark said. “I think I can really take a shot at making varsity this year, so I think this was good for me.”
Lucy Bergman of Columbus beat Ella Dreyer of Sellersburg 6-0 in the final to win the girls 14U division.
Parth Shah, who will be a freshman at North, dropped only two games in three matches in rolling to the boys 14U title. Shah beat Samuel Song of Columbus 6-0 in the final.
“I think I played well,” Shah said. “I played very consistent. It felt good. I had confidence in myself, and I’m proud of myself.”
Ledger Cissell of Sellersburg won the boys 12U A division with a 6-1 victory against Luca Devidze of Columbus in the final. Soham Gugale of Columbus topped Jax Burt of Nashville, Indiana, 6-3 in the boys 12U B final.
Shunshue Takeuchi of Seymour beat Cohen Cissell of Corydon 6-2 in boys 14U B final. Aryan Tatineni of Columbus, Ohio, topped Shoho Sato of Columbus, Indiana, 6-1 for the coed 10U championship.
For the adults, two divisions will be decided on Monday and seven more on Tuesday at North. Monday’s finals will be in women’s open doubles and men’s 2.5 singles.
The men’s open singles and women’s open singles finals will be at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Also Tuesday will be finals in men’s open doubles, mixed open doubles, men’s 40-and-over doubles, men’s 4.0 singles and men’s 4.0 doubles.
