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.