Conditions Are Trouble for Players
It wasn’t abnormally warm or humid at Costa Mesa Tennis Center for the Southern Section individual preliminaries Saturday, but players were cramping and taking dives as if it were July in south Florida.
“Bad shape, bad cross-training,” said Laguna Beach’s Aaron Talarico, one of four singles players remaining from Saturday’s survival of the fittest.
Talarico’s third-round opponent, Dana Hills junior Javier Carrillo, had to retire with leg cramps in the third set, trailing 5-7, 6-3, 3-0. Carillo was playing his seventh set of the day, having won his previous two matches in straight sets.
“I knew he was tired,” Talarico said. “He was struggling. I started running him late in the second set and he just kind of died.”
But Talarico suffered a meltdown early in the second set. Frustrated by his erratic groundstrokes and Carillo’s steady play from the backcourt, Talarico tossed his racket against the fence and screamed.
“I almost broke down mentally,” he said. “I acted like a little baby. I’ve got to stop doing that.”
Talarico pulled himself together long enough to regain the momentum and force a third set.
About the time Carillo was retiring on one court, La Quinta sophomore Robert Chu’s body was giving out on another court after his 6-4, 6-2 loss to Los Alamitos’ Cody Jackson.
“I was cramping everywhere, my right leg, my right arm, my stomach,” Chu said. “I couldn’t do much. I was just in pain every time I hit a shot.”
Many of the shots Chu hit were picked off by Jackson, 6 feet 3, at the net.
“I blew a couple easy ones early,” Jackson said, “but as the match went on, I realized I didn’t need to do much with the ball because he wasn’t moving.”
Chu also wasn’t serving with any authority because of a pulled stomach muscle. He suffered the injury two months ago while training for the Easter Bowl. He has been serving underhanded ever since.
Chu was able to come back from being down, 5-1, 40-15, in the third set, to beat University junior Greg Biorkman, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6.
“That just drained everything out of me,” Chu said.
Jackson wasn’t all that fresh either after outlasting Dana Hills’ Brian Kent, 3-6, 7-6, 6-2 in the second round. Jackson saved two match points in the second-set tiebreaker.
Jackson said he was surprised to see a player of Kent’s quality so early in the prelims.
“I don’t know about the other [prelim sites], but it seemed a lot easier last year,” he said. “I’ll take it though.”
Top-seeded Ryan Moore of Servite lost only two games in advancing to next Friday’s round of 16 at SeaCliff Racquet Club. He took less than an hour to beat Troy’s Francisco Villaroman, 6-1, 6-1, in the third round.
Big-serving Marcin Kosakowski of Downey Warren advanced by defeating Esperanza’s Tom Lloyd, 6-2, 7-6 (8-6). Lloyd had a sitting volley at 6-6 in the tiebreaker, but he flicked it wide.
Notes
Ed Huang and a flu-stricken Samir Vora of Los Alamitos advanced with three-set victories over Robin and Joseph Lee of Magnolia and Tyler Strateman and Felipe Ortiz of Laguna Beach. Dana Hills’ John Lippert and Blake Wilson-Hayden advanced with two straight-set victories. Palos Verdes Peninsula’s doubles teams of David Glieberman and Maurice Yu and Seamus and Tiege Sullivan reached the round of 16 without dropping a set. . . . Corona del Mar’s Parker Collins advanced to the round of 16 at Redlands, as did the Sea Kings’ doubles team of Sameer Chopra and Curtis Ellmore. Collins, seeded fourth, defeated Claremont’s Daniel Clemens, 6-3, 6-0 in the third round. The top-seeded team of Chopra and Ellmore defeated Redlands’ Angel Gede and Jordan Bailey, 6-2, 6-3, in the third round.