Saratoga News
Sports
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Saratoga's Jeff Gast was the No. 4 seed in the CCS singles tournament, but lost in the semifinals.
Benevento claims section singles title
Saratoga's Gast falls in the semifinals
By Kevin Sparrer
Simon Cheng was ranked perfectly in the Central Coast Section boys tennis tournament. Leland's Cheng was seeded No. 2 in the individual championships, and it came down to Cheng and Steve Benevento of Aragon in the finals.
It turned out that both players were ranked correctly, because Benevento was the No. 1 seed in the tournament and he was able to defeat Cheng for the CCS title, despite the fact that Cheng had the early lead after the first set.
Benevento battled back to win the next two sets to take the CCS crown with a 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory.
Cheng defeated No. 3 seed Steve Stege of Los Gatos in the semi-final round in straight sets 6-2, 6-5. In the quarterfinals, Cheng downed Toki Sherbakov of Mountain View in straight sets 6-3, 7-5. Cheng's first win came against Eric Matsumoto of Live Oak with authority. Cheng didn't give up a single point to Matsumoto and won the contest 6-0, 6-0.
Cheng's teammate from Leland, Thomas Norton, also competed in the tournament, but fell in the first round.
Stege fell to Cheng, but only after defeating his first two opponents. Stege downed Devin Nerenberg of Half Moon Bay in straight sets 6-3, 6-2 after besting Shahin Maleksalehi of Prospect in the first round 6-0, 6-0.
"Stege had a great year," said Los Gatos coach Todd Dissly. "He has really improved in all aspects of the game."
Dissly said that Stege is very committed to the game of tennis and would like to play for Stanford. "With a stronger mental game, I believe he'll be back next year to take the CCS individual title," added the coach.
Jeff Gast of Saratoga also competed in the tournament as the No. 4 seed. Gast fell to Benevento in the semi-final round after a tough battle, losing in straight sets 7-5, 7-5. Gast won his quarterfinal match 6-0, 6-0 over Parker Larson of Aptos after defeating Jeremy Dilley of Hillsdale 6-0, 6-0.
Eric Banks and Osheen Davoudi didn't have quite as much success in the CCS doubles tourney for Leland as Cheng did in singles. Banks and Davoudi won their first match and then were defeated in the quarter-final round by Ron Alivia and Lorenzo Cabrera of St. Ignatius 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. Banks and Davoudi's first-round win came against L.B. Pressas and Bryan Gardner of Palma. The Leland pair won the match 7-5, 6-2.
