Winning Doubles Title Fun for Villa Park’s DeVera, Becker

The way Faye DeVera sees it, she’d rather share a title with her best friend than win one by herself.

DeVera reached the Round of 16, quarterfinals and finals of the Southern Section girls’ tennis individual tournament her first three years at Villa Park, and lost in the finals. Friday, she and Katey Becker won the doubles championship with an odd 7-6 (6-4), 6-4, victory over Calabasas’ Debbie Pepkowitz and Shervin Saedinia in a match at the Racquet Club of Irvine that had 17 service breaks and only five held serve games.

“I just wanted to have fun,” DeVera said when asked why she chose to compete in doubles over singles this year. “You can’t have much fun playing singles by yourself.”

Becker, a junior who is Villa Park’s No. 2 singles player, said it was actually her idea for the two to team up before DeVera graduated and left for Arizona State.

“She’d played so much singles and had already been to the finals in singles, I thought it would be nice to play doubles,” Becker said. “We’d become such good friends and she’s leaving. This is one thing we wanted to do before she left. I’ll definitely miss her. I just wanted one last memory.”

Becker and DeVera, who had played together only once before this tournament, will remember their title, but they’ll also remember it wasn’t easily attained. After cruising past Dana Hills’ Margaux Pierog and Summer Tantee, 6-1, 6-0, in the semifinals, Becker and DeVera struggled with their serves--they were each broken four times--and they had trouble getting a read on Pepkowitz and Saedinia’s movements.

Becker and DeVera were broken in their first two service games and they quickly trailed, 3-0.

“Every time we thought they’d do one thing, they’d do another,” Becker said. “Once we figured out their styles, we were fine. We were down 3-0 but we’d both been there, done that in singles. There was no panic. That helped us come back.”

They came back to tie the first set, 4-4, by countering the Calabasas team’s poaches with low, crosscourt and down-the-line returns, and by holding their serves. The first set came down to a tiebreaker that DeVera dominated with sharp returns and volleys.

Every game in the second set featured a service break except the last one. DeVera held her serve for the second time with a service winner and an ace.

Afterward, DeVera was asked if her doubles title was as much of an accomplishment as a singles title would have been.

“In a way, doubles is harder,” she said. “You have to play together as a team in doubles.”

The singles tournament ended in the semifinals for Corona del Mar’s Nina Vaughan and Woodbridge’s Natalie Exon. Vaughan lost to top-seeded Zuzana Stunova of Oxnard Rio Mesa, 6-3, 6-4, in the semifinals for the second consecutive year. Exon fell to second-seeded Sanaz Ghazal of Temecula Valley, 6-4, 6-4.

Vaughan was off her game in the first set but came back from a 4-2 deficit in the second to tie the score at 4-4. After going up, 15-0, in the next game, she lost the game by serving two double faults and missing an easy forehand volley and backhand groundstroke. Stunova, who will play next semester for Washington, held her serve to finish the match.

A frustrated Exon said she lost because she was never able to solve Ghazal’s heavy topspin groundstrokes.

“It’s difficult to get into a rhythm against that,” Exon said.”

Notes

Top-seeded Zuzana Stunova of Oxnard Rio Mesa High successfully defended her singles title with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Sanaz Ghazal of Temecula Valley. Stunova is the first to repeat since Keri Phebus of Corona del Mar did so in 1988-89. Last year, Stunova defeated Villa Park’s Faye DeVera in the final in three sets. . . . Katey Becker and De Vera, who were top-seeded, became the first Orange County team to win a doubles title since 1988, when Michelle Foster and Page Bartelt of Capistrano Valley won.