Again, County’s Top Singles Player to Miss Ojai

For the second consecutive year, the top-ranked senior boys’ tennis player in Orange County will not be participating in the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, which begins Thursday at various sites in Ojai.

Ocean View’s Jakub Pietrowski, who lost in the semifinals of last year’s Southern Section individual tournament and would have been seeded first or second in this year’s boys’ interscholastic singles draw at Ojai, will not play because of obligations he made to his school. Ocean View will be hosting a model United Nations Conference this weekend. Pietrowski will hold the fourth highest office within the conference.

“I’ve always enjoyed playing Ojai, but hopefully I’ll be able to play CIF to complete my senior year,” he said.

Last year, Canyon senior Eric Lin could not play Ojai because of an injury and Loara senior Cameran Lindee had to default his first-round match when his high school coach did not show up. Lin and Lindee were seeded Nos. 1 and 2 in the interscholastic division.

Geoff Abrams of Newport Harbor High is top-seeded in the boys’ interscholastic singles division. Other highly seeded players include North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake’s Phillip Tseng, Santa Barbara’s Nathan Jackmon, El Toro senior Johnny France, University senior Jason Meyers and Sunny Hills sophomore Kevin Kim, the nation’s top-ranked 16-year-old.

One of the top-seeded doubles teams in the boys’ interscholastic division should be Corona del Mar’s Jed Weinstein and Tyler Stonebreaker. San Clemente’s tandem of Daniel Roditi and Jeff Shoemaker will be highly seeded, but their chances of winning will depend on the health of Shoemaker, who is nursing a sore pelvis.

Other county players who figure to be highly seeded are Joseph Gilbert of Sunny Hills in boys’ 16, Laura Ruben of Mater Dei and Sarah Hawkins of Newport Harbor in the girls’ 18 and Faye DeVera of Villa Park in the girls’ 16. Noticeably absent from the girls’ 18 draw for singles are El Modena’s Brandi Freudenberg, Valencia’s Jenny Gonzalez and Newport Harbor’s Mara Colaizzi, all top-ranked players in Southern California. However, Freudenberg and Gonzalez will compete in doubles on different teams.

The finals of the high school and age-group events will be Saturday at Libbey Park.

UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton are competing in the Big West championships that run through Sunday.