Courtside tennis teams winning at NorCal

By Dick Sparrer

The Courtside Tennis Center on Winchester Boulevard attracts many outstanding young tennis players.And a few of them have teamed together to compete in the Northern California Junior Championships in Sacramento.

The girls-18 and boys-15 squads double-teamed Alpine Hills of Palo Alto for a couple of victories last week. The girls crushed Alpine 8-1, and the boys beat Alpine 7-2 in the tournament's semi-final round.

Adam Fauvre, Garrett Wyatt, Stacy Elenkov and Robin Das were each double winners for the boys in the Wednesday win over Alpine Hills.

Fauvre pulled out a tight 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Niki Opa at No. 2 singles, and Das won 6-0, 6-3 in straight sets over Jeffrey Nichols at No. 6 singles. Fauvre and Das later teamed for a hard-earned 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) victory at No. 2 doubles.

Wyatt cruised to a lopsided 6-0, 6-3 win over David Oehms at No. 3 singles, and Elenkov rolled over Brady Cohan 6-2, 6-1 at No. 5 singles. Wyatt and Elenkov came back with an easy 6-4, 6-1 win at No. 3 doubles for Courtside.

Bastien Bartels and Steven Gollod combined for a 6-1, 6-2 win at No. 1 singles in the wins. Both had dropped tough three-set decisions in singles play, Bartels losing a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 heartbreaker to David Kaplan at No. 1 singles and Gollod dropping a tough 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 nod at No. 4 singles to Erich Stahlkopf.

The Courtside girls-18 squad also enjoyed great success against Alpine Hills in Sacramento. The locals swept the singles competition and won two of three doubles matches to crush the team from Palo Alto.

Liora Gelblum started Courtside on the road to victory with a hard-fought three-set victory over Alison Dohrmann at No. 1 singles. Gelblum lost the first set 6-3, but fought back to win the second 6-3 and clinched the match with a 7-5 victory in the third and final set.

Camille Behnke came through with a quick straight set win at No. 2 singles. Behnke made short work of Dominique Alepin, winning 6-1, 6-1 in the two spot for Courtside.

It took Amanda Wise three sets to dispose of Grace Tsai at No. 3 singles. Wise lost the first set 6-4, but fought back to win 6-0, 6-2 in the final two sets to win the match.

Emily Najour and Kathy Fawcett each recorded straight-set victories for Courtside. Najour beat Sara Mesirow 6-2, 6-2 at No. 4 singles, and Fawcett blanked Carolyn Phillips 6-0, 6-0 at No. 5 singles.

Laura Chen made it a clean sweep in singles with a win at No. 6 over Lauren Glascock, but the win certainly didn't come easy. Chen, like Gelblum and Wise before her, had to battle back from a first set loss to win her match in three sets. Chen lost 7-5 to Glascock in the first set, but came back to win 6-1, 6-3 to claim the victory.

Najour and Fawcett ended up double winners for Courtside. The two backed up their singles triumphs by joining forces for an 8-4 victory at No. 1 doubles.

Mo Rastegar and Vanessa Zinn joined the list of Courtside winners with a tough victory at No. 2 singles. The local pair pulled out a thrilling 9-8 victory, winning the tiebreaker 7-4.

Natalie Ackerman and Sarah Delva dropped an 8-1 decision at No. 3 doubles for Courtside's only loss of the day.

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