DERRY – He withstood a barrage in the semifinals that was pinpointed at him. He raised his game in the final and the team dominated. And on championship point he hit a solid return of serve, a smart lob and two ripped backhands to bring home the title.
That was the result Concord junior Aidan Connor wanted in the boys’ doubles tournament – a crown for the Crimson Tide – but it wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it to end.
“I was kind of hoping Justin was going to be able to hit the last winner, because he deserved it,” Connor said.
That would be Justin Toler, the Concord senior who also won the doubles title last year, won the 2016 boys’ single title last week and left no doubt as to who was the best high school tennis player in the state this season after he teamed with Connor for a 6-1, 6-3 win over Exeter’s Cam Maher and Tucker Guen in the doubles final Tuesday at Pinkerton Academy.
“Couldn’t have asked for a better way to end my high school tennis career,” Toler said. “It was a completely different experience from last year – a new partner, a new way to play, had to overcome a bunch of different obstacles. It was fun, and Aidan’s a great player, I’m sure he’ll do well next year.”
It was a different year, but there’s no doubt Toler’s experience helped. He calmed Connor between points, cracking jokes to ease the tension. And Toler’s championship doubles partner from last season, Thomas Bengtson, was on hand to cheer on his old team. He even shared some pizza with Toler and Connor between the semifinal and finals.
Connor and Toler, the No. 2 seed, put their mark on this title with a skill set crafted for doubles – heavy serves, delicate volleys, precise movement, devastating overheads. Toler used those tools to win his previous titles, and Connor followed his lead on Tuesday.
“This was a big step up for Aidan,” Toler said. “He came out there to play today. He knew what he had to do.”
His partner wasn’t too bad, either.
“I really think Justin played some of the best tennis of his four years in this final stretch, and Aidan was right there with him today,” Concord Coach Dave Page said. “We’ve been working with Aidan on wanting the ball, especially at the net, and I thought his net play today was excellent, really high quality, and he served well. And with Justin’s all-around game, that’s a tough combination.”
Maher and Guen found out just how tough in the first set of the final. After the two teams split the first two games, the Tide duo reeled off 15 straight points, and 20 of 22, to jump out to a 5-1 lead before Connor served out the tidy, 6-1 set.
“I was pretty much just hitting my serve as hard as I could, and that was working out pretty well,” Connor said.
The Blue Hawks picked up their game in the second set and things were on serve at 3-3. That’s when the pressure go to Guen, who double faulted twice as Concord broke him for a 4-3 lead.
That small crack was all the Tide needed. Connor held the next game at love and then he and Toler broke Maher to clinch the title.
“I think (in the final) they played as well as I’ve seen them play all year,” Page said of his team. “And I think part of it was, often times when you get through a really close match that could have gone either way, I think it makes you stronger in that next round. And I think the level that they had in the semifinal, they were kind of riding on that momentum in the first set of the final.”
The semifinal was, indeed, really close, and maybe even closer. Concord won the first set, 6-3, and had a 5-3 lead in the second set. But Bedford’s Zach Gould and Ian Horne, who were pounding shot after shot at Connor, clawed back to force a second set tiebreaker and pulled out a 7-4 win there to force the match-deciding 10-point tiebreaker (used in place of a third set).
“We got off to a pretty good start in the first set of the semifinal, went up 4-1, and we were both playing extremely well, no worries at all,” Toler said. “But I think after the first set Bedford started playing much better, they stepped it up. I think they got over their nerves and brought it to us.”
The tiebreaker went back and forth until things were squared at 6-6. Concord opened up a 9-6 lead from there, but squandered three match points as Bedford once again showed great resilience to make it 9-9. But Connor hit a pretty lob with the score tied that led to an easy put-away volley for Toler, who served out the semifinal when Gould hit a return into the net.
“Matches have their ebbs and flows, so it wouldn’t have been a match if it didn’t get to 9-9,” Toler smirked.
“I’m definitely happy, of course, but I’m still thinking in the back of my mind I wish the final was between us and Bedford,” Connor said. “But we played well against Exeter, so I don’t really have anything to complain about.”
On the girls’ side, the Bishop Brady duo of sophomore Sydney Herrington (who won the girls’ singles title last week) and junior Ravalika Damerla fell in the semifinals to Exeter’s Melissa Wood and Kate Lietz, 6-4, 1-6, 10-3.
“We were a little nervous in the first set, and playing against a team we hadn’t seen we had to figure out how to beat them, and we were struggling with that a little bit,” Damerla said. “But then in the second set we just had to play our game because we know that works.”
Brady came to net more in that second set, playing the kind of aggressive doubles that led the team to the semifinals in the first place. But nerves crept in during the tiebreaker as both players made errors that gave Exeter too many openings.
“It’s our first year as a doubles pair, so to get this far is pretty awesome,” Damerla said. “We’ll be back.”
Manchester Central’s Julia Chappell, who Herrington beat in the singles final, and Krysten Walker claimed the girls’ crown with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Exeter in the final.