Local star doesn’t act her age

Rick Devereux

Cierra Gaytan-Leach doesn’t hold a whole lot of regard for her age.

The 12-year-old, who will be an eighth-grader at Corona del Mar

Junior High in the fall, will play in the three different age groups

in the final day of competition in the 12th annual Costa Mesa Summer

Junior Classic today.

As the top seed in girls 12s singles, Gaytan-Leach will play No. 2

seed Joanna Smith from Laguna Niguel at 9 a.m. She and Catherine Isip

are also the top seed in girls 16s doubles at 11 a.m. Gaytan-Leach

and Isip are also one of five teams in the girls 18s doubles, winning

both round-robin matches Thursday.

The girls 18s doubles draw was added by tournament director Hank

Lloyd after the tournament started in the hopes of getting more

players involved. The matches are first to eight games, round robin

format, with the two teams with the most total games won facing off

in the finals today.

“I was trying to create an opportunities for more teams to play

with the idea of more matches without getting knocked out of the

tournament,” Lloyd said. “The girls love it because it creates great

doubles play that we don’t see a lot in other tournaments.”

The last minute addition of the draw -- it was put together

Wednesday and the first matches were played Thursday -- caught some

of the competitors off guard.

“I wasn’t going to play 18s in the beginning but I’m glad I did

because I get more practice in,” Gaytan-Leach said. “Now I have four

matches tomorrow. After this I’m going to be worn out and take a day

off.”

Gaytan-Leach defeated Newport Coast’s Jungyeun Lee, 6-0, 6-2, in

girls 12s singles semifinals Thursday to advance to the final today.

She and Isip beat the Newport Beach duo of Lindsay Norman and Miranda

Young, 6-0, 6-2, Thursday to advance to today’s final. Gaytan-Leach

won both round robin matches Thursday to grab the maximum 16 games.

The only other duo to win 16 games was Vanessa Dunlop-Carly Adams,

both from Newport Beach.

Former Newport Harbor High standout Diana Khoury and Jamison

Steele also partnered for the girls 18s doubles, but were held to

three games in their match against Dunlop-Adams. Khoury at least was

able to warm up for that match, a luxury not available for her girls

18s singles semifinals loss to No. 1 seed Olivia Colman from Los

Angeles.

“I just got off work and I came and played the match and I didn’t

even warm up,” she said. “I didn’t play well and that was the match.

I could have done better, I could have done a lot better, but who

knows? I’ve beaten seeded players before.”

Joseph DiGiulio from Newport Beach beat Austin Hunsaker from Yorba

Linda, 6-0, 6-0, in boys 12s singles and will play Laguna Nigel’s

Michael Tan at today’s 9 a.m. final.

Corona del Mar’s Parker Rhodes lost, 2-6, 6-1, 6-1, in the boys

14s singles semifinals to Salvador Romero. The Costa Mesa tandem of

Alexandra McIntosh and Eleanor Edles lost in the girls 14s doubles

semifinals, 6-3, 7-6, to Brynn Boren and Alex Tachovsky.