Kaiden, Slater red hot at BBC Racquet Club
Patrick Laverty
They had just lost the second set, 6-1. They were trailing 5-2 in the
third set. They were up against two match points, trailing 15-40 in
the eighth game of the third set, in which they had yet to hold
serve.
It easily could have been the end for Roxanne Kaiden and Jess
Slater. Instead they forced the Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club to turn
the lights on by extending the match.
Kaiden and Slater not only fought back to win the game, but they
won the next four games after that. It gave the duo a dramatic
come-from-behind, 7-5, 1-6, 7-5 victory over Carly Adams and Shasha
Dunlap in the quarterfinals of girls 16s doubles at the War by the
Shore junior tennis tournament.
The comeback was made simple by the point-by-point attitude held
by Kaiden and Slater.
“We were not going to just let them take us,” Slater said. “We
believed in ourselves. We played it point by point.”
That started after they had fallen behind love-30 and then 15-40
on Kaiden’s serve in the eighth game of the third set. Adams and
Dunlap, who attend Newport Harbor High, had two chances to close out
the match, but were unsuccessful in their attempts.
When Kaiden, 15, who attends Corona del Mar, pulled out the game
to close the gap to 5-3 in the third set, it was the first time
Kaiden or Slater had held serve in the third set. Slater, 16 and a
teammate of Adams and Dunlap at Newport Harbor, had difficulty with
her serve throughout the match.
“I think I only held serve once or twice the whole match,” Slater
said. “I’ve never played so well and had so much trouble with my
serve.”
But after Kaiden and Slater broke Dunlap to close to within 5-4,
Slater made her serve stand up, tying the third set 5-5. After a
break of Adams, Kaiden held serve and the memories of a poor second
set, which they lost 1-6, and a disastrous start to the third set
were erased.
“I think our anger got in the way a lot,” Kaiden said of the
team’s struggles in the middle of the match. “We just wanted to win
it so bad, we weren’t concentrating on each point. So that’s when we
said we’re taking it point by point and we’re going to win.”
Kaiden and Slater advance to the semifinals at 3:30 p.m. today
against Kelly Curtius and Rachel Manasse, who were 6-0, 6-2 winners
over the Newport Beach duo of Brittany Cluck and Gabrielle Nestande
Wednesday.
On the other side of the bracket are the top-seeded Young twins,
Hayley and Miranda. Slated to start high school at Corona del Mar in
September, the 14-year-olds defeated Cassidy Grandstaff and Katie
McKitterick, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) Tuesday to advance to the semifinals.
It was the completion of a busy day for the Youngs, who had to be
thankful they were able to come back from a 5-4 deficit in the
tiebreaker to close out the match.
Hayley had played a three-set match earlier in the morning,
falling to top-seeded Kendra Ivey in the singles competition, 6-4,
2-6, 6-1. Miranda had played a pair of singles matches already,
defeating Grandstaff in three sets before falling to second-seeded
Jillian Braverman in two sets.
Hayley and Miranda won the first set in doubles against
Grandstaff, who lives in Corona del Mar and attends Mater Dei, and
McKitterick, who attends Sage Hill, but trailed 5-4 in the second.
They came back to win the next two games before McKitterick held
serve to send it into the tiebreaker.
Young and Young held a 4-2 advantage in the tiebreaker, but
McKitterick and Grandstaff then rolled off three straight points, the
last of which came on a winner down the line from McKitterick.
But befitting a top seed, the Youngs came back with two
consecutive points of their own, the second on a winner down the
alley by Miranda. The final point came when Grandstaff hit a strong
volley that caught the tape and bounced back on to her side of the
court.
Hayley and Miranda will face Brooke Pletcher and Roxanne Ellison
at 3:30 p.m. today in the semifinals, with an all-Newport Beach final
a distinct possibility.
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