Tennis: Snyder, Ball capture CIF doubles title

Richard Dunn

HUNTINGTON BEACH - Corona del Mar High junior Garrett Snyder isn’t

interested in going for a three-peat next year in doubles, even though no

one in the 80-year history of the CIF Southern Section individual boys

tennis championships has done it before.

“I’m definitely going to play singles next year (in the postseason),”

Snyder said, after winning his second straight CIF doubles title, this

time with freshman teammate Carsten Ball.

Snyder and Ball, a left-hander, were seeded No. 1 entering Friday’s

Round of 16 at SeaCliff Tennis Club and continued their postseason

mastery on Saturday, defeating seniors John Mano and Jason Wood of Los

Alamitos in the finals, 6-3, 7-5, the toughest challenge of the

postseason for the CdM tandem.

Snyder, who won the CIF doubles championship last year with

then-senior Brian Morton (now at UC Irvine), and Ball cruised to the

finals with a 6-1, 6-1 semifinal win over Jon Rubenstein and James Thayer

of Harvard-Westlake.

“Their real good match was their semifinal win,” CdM Coach Tim Mang

said. “They played excellent tennis.”

Mano and Wood, the No. 3 seed, defeated second-seeded Garrett Leight

and Jonathan Dutton of Beverly Hills, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, in the other

semifinal.

“It was no surprise to play (Mano and Wood) in the finals, even though

they were not seeded No. 2,” Snyder said. “I think the two best teams in

the tournament played (in the finals).”

Ball and Snyder did not lose a set in 20 postseason sets with their

10-0 mark in five Pacific Coast League matches and identical record in

the CIF individual championships.

Snyder, who played No. 2 singles for Corona del Mar during the regular

season, won the interscholastic doubles title this year at the Ojai

Valley Tennis Tournament with CdM senior and University of Arizona-bound

Cameron Ball, who played No. 1 singles for the Sea Kings but missed the

PCL Finals because of an ear infection.

Snyder became the 12th player in history to capture back-to-back CIF

doubles titles, but only the sixth to accomplish the feat with different

players.

Carsten Ball is the first freshman to win a CIF doubles championship

since Parker Collins of La Canada in 1996. Collins, now at USC, later

transferred to CdM.

Snyder and Ball became the seventh CdM doubles team to win a CIF

championship. Jim Curley and Jordan Otterbein won CIF doubles titles for

the Sea Kings in 1975 and ‘76, the only CdM players to repeat before

Snyder.

In the second set of the title match, it was tied, 5-5, before the Sea

Kings broke Wood’s serve and closed out the match with Snyder serving.

In the CIF singles final, unseeded Chris Surapol of Whitney upset

top-seeded Doug Stewart of Malibu, 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1.