PREP TENNIS AT OJAI : Hansen-Dent Hits the Shots That Scare and Defeat Leach

It took almost three hours, but Brett Hansen-Dent finally defeated his practice partner, Jon Leach, to win the boys’ CIF singles championship Saturday at the Ojai Valley tennis tournament.

Hansen-Dent, a senior at Newport Harbor High School, beat Leach, a junior at Laguna Beach, 7-6, 5-7, 6-4.

The players live 10 minutes from each other and practice together once a week when Leach, who is a member of the U.S. National team, is not traveling.

After the match, Leach said he’d never seen some of the shots Hansen-Dent came up with, even in practice.

“I don’t know where some of those shots were coming from,” Leach said. “It was getting scary.”

Leach had a chance to take the first set, leading, 5-1, in the tiebreaker. But Hansen-Dent stormed back to win, 8-6, on the strength of some perfectly placed volleys.

Almost every time Hansen-Dent needed a key shot, he came up with one.

Leach won the second set and led, 4-2, in the third, but Hansen-Dent came back again and had triple match point with Leach serving.

Hansen-Dent said he “couldn’t have played any better on those three match points,” but he lost them all and the game was at deuce. Finally, Hansen-Dent hit a return that Leach dived for but could not reach.

Leach said his legs “were gone.”

“Going into the third (set) and up a break and I’m fresh, I’m not going to lose,” Leach said.

It was Hansen-Dent’s first victory at Ojai. Last season, he lost in the quarterfinals to Alejo Mancisidor of Palm Springs. Mancisidor, who was a senior exchange student from Spain, won the Southern Section singles title last year, beating Leach.