Titans reign supreme with sweeps at Rio Hondo Tournament

TEMPLE CITY — There aren’t too many surprises in Rio Hondo League tennis, but the San Marino High girls’ squad got one in the league individual tournament, which was held at Live Oak Park in Temple City Wednesday and Thursday.

The Titans wrapped up the top three spots in both singles and doubles Thursday with the top two finishers earning bids to the CIF Southern Section Individual Tournament and third place serving as alternates.

Tournament coordinator and Temple City Coach Savey Lieu said it’s the first time in “10 to 15 years” a team has placed first through third in singles and doubles with San Marino being the last to do so.

“I didn’t expect one, two, three; one, two, three — to be honest,” said San Marino Coach Melwin Pereira, who shuffled his No. 2 and 3 doubles teams for the tournament. “I expected us to get to the finals. I got the seedings I wanted and it’s just luck and it’s God.”

There were no surprises at the top, though, as Dorothy Tang took the league’s singles title as expected for the third time in her career after seeing it slip through her fingers in 2011, but she seemed more excited about the accomplishment of the team than her own.

“I didn’t think that would happen, but it’s really a lot of pride for our school and it’s just awesome to say we did it,” said the Princeton University-bound Tang, who fell to former teammate Sarah Gealer (6-3, 1-6, 10-7) in the title round last year. “We placed in all singles and doubles, that’s an amazing thing considering it’s the entire league.”

The top-seeded doubles team from San Marino, Larissa Phillips and Madeline Gandawidjaja, also proved victorious with Phillips winning her second doubles title in as many years.

“It feels really good to win once again and it’s fun having a new partner so she can experience it, too,” said Phillips, who won the crown with Vivian Le in 2011.

Fun was the theme of the tournament for San Marino, as it was an all blue and black championship round.

Tang knocked off freshman teammate Devon Jack, 6-0, 6-3, and Phillips and Gandawidjaja defeated friends, teammates and even sister in the case of the Gandawidjaja family, Lauren Chang and Monique Gandawidjaja, 6-2, 6-2.

“It was really fun [playing my sister] and we were teasing each other,” said Monique, a freshman. “It was just really fun and there was no pressure, I know how she plays.”

The San Marino champions took great interest in the third-place matches, despite them occurring during their own, to see if the Titans could sweep the top three spots in singles and doubles.

The answer was a convincing yes, as Le defeated Temple City’s Joy Huang, 6-3, 6-2, in the third-place singles match and the Titans’ Andrea Klein and Aliki Kvitne breezed through the second-seeded Rams pair of Serena Lin and Melody Wang, 6-1, 6-0, in doubles action.

Tang, who defeated Monrovia’s Victoria Rose (8-0) Wednesday, got into a little trouble in the second set of her match with Jack because she was paying too much attention to her teammates’ progress. Jack took advantage and won consecutive games to go up, 3-2, but saw Tang focus and win the next four for the title.

“It’s such a great opportunity to be playing varsity in general, make it to the championship round and to get to play a player like Dorothy is incredible,” said Jack, who defeated Le in the semifinals (6-0, 6-4) and Monrovia’s Audrey Lilyquist (8-0) the Spartans’ Sharon Kim (8-0) in the first two rounds. “It’s a great experience and it will help prepare me for other tournaments and the upcoming years in high school tennis.”

Le advanced to the semifinals with 8-0 victories over Temple City’s Kim Ho and La Cañada’s Sawa Keymeulen Wednesday.

Chang and Monique Gandawidjaja advanced to the final round with the tightest victory of the day over Lin and Wang in the semifinals, 6-3, 6-2. They defeated South Pasadena’s Katherine Shinno and Jennifer Orr (8-0) and the Spartans’ Emily Swanson and Serena Zheng (8-2) in the first two rounds Wednesday.

Melanie and Phillips defeated Klein and Kvitne in the semifinals, 6-0, 6-1, and La Cañada’s Lynn Gilmour and Ana Dewar (8-0) in the second round Wednesday.

Klein and Kvitne knocked off South Pasadena’s An Le and Sarah Cho (8-0) in the first round and only dropped three games to La Cañada’s Alison Chang and Sharyse Watanabe in the second (8-3).

Symona Stans was the only South Pasadena player to advance to the second round Wednesday, as she posted an 8-1 win over Temple City’s Tiffany Yeh before falling to Huang, 8-1.

While the future may be bright for a young Tigers squad, they didn’t have much success in the league tournament.

South Pasadena’s Elyse Yim and Jennifer Wu fell in the first round of singles action to Keymeulen (8-0) and Huang (8-0).

In doubles, the Tigers’ revamped No. 1 squad of Karinna Loo, who was moved from singles from the tournament, and Rebecca Bu fell to the Rams’ Britni Tran and Andria Chek, 8-2, with Le and Cho and Shinno and Orr both falling to San Marino in the first round on scores of 8-0.

“You fall behind in the beginning and it’s so tough because you don’t have a second set to catch up,” South Pasadena Coach Jim Asher of the eight-game pro set style of play in the preliminary rounds of the league tournament. “You’re just digging yourself a hole and your opponent is that much closer to the end. In a two-out-of-three-set match like they play in the semifinals you can lose the first set, blow it off and regroup. You can’t do that here.”