Boys’ tennis: Taft’s Tchan repeats as City Individual singles champ

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Josh Tchan couldn’t single-handedly win Taft the City Section team championship this spring, but he did his school proud by taking the Individual singles title for the second straight year at Balboa Sports Center in Encino.

Tchan beat Narbonne’s Ace Mattias, 7-6 (4), 6-1, in Monday’s final, taking control in the second set after surviving a tension-filled first set tiebreaker.

‘The way things were going whoever won the first set was going to win the match so I put everything I had into winning the tiebreaker,’ said Tchan, a senior bound for Harvard. ‘We got beat pretty bad [by Palisades] in the City [team] semifinals so this makes up for that somewhat. This means more than any junior tournament I’ve won.’

Taft teammate Alex Freeman, who lost to Tchan in the semifinals last week, was defeated by JR Sarmiento of Carson in the third-place match.

Palisades’ Che Borja and Kramer Waltke won the doubles crown, beating Dom Plata and Aaron Goodwein of Granada Hills, 6-4, 6-0, in Monday’s final. Palisades routed the Highlanders to win the team championship last month.

‘It’s different but it feels just as good,’ Borja said. ‘In the City finals you have to rely on your teammates to some extent but this was all about us two. I’m proud of the way we played better and better as the tournament progressed.’

In the third-place match another Dolphins duo, Spencer Pekar and Spencer Lewin, ousted the Granada Hills tandem of William Chung and Aaron Kim, 6-1, 6-4.

-- Steve Galluzzo