Sea Kings duo advances to semifinals

SEAL BEACH ? At the end, Fabian Matthews took a second to survey the damage he and Corona del Mar High doubles partner Dustin Hladek had done Friday at the Seal Beach Tennis Center.

The duo had just advanced to the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section boys’ tennis doubles championships, without dropping a set or even getting broken in a service game.

“We made it look kind of easy, but it really wasn’t,” Matthews said. “We just played really well. I’m serving really well, and we’re playing really well.”

That was evident after the Sea Kings duo’s 6-0, 6-3 quarterfinal win over Michael Vann and Nicolas Patonal of Harvard-Westlake. The first set was done in a little more than 15 minutes, but Matthews and Hladek did have to battle in the second set.

Up, 5-3, they had several chances to break and close out the match, but couldn’t close the deal and were forced to serve it out. It reminded Corona del Mar Coach Tim Mang of the Pacific Coast League championships, when Matthews and Hladek were ahead, 5-2, in the third set against University’s Jason Lin and Gautam Vaidyanathan but eventually lost in a tiebreaker.

On Friday, however, and Matthews held serve at love against the Harvard-Westlake pair, stamping their berth in the semifinals.

“They’re a better team now,” Mang said. “I can tell they’re nervous, but they worked through that this time. They’re starting to play doubles now. When we hold serve, there’s no problem because we can return so well.”

The earlier Round of 16 match against Los Alamitos ? won 6-1, 6-4 by Matthews-Hladek ? also appeared to be a breeze in the first set. Two straight come-from-behind break games gave the Sea Kings a 5-1 lead and they cruised from there.

On-serve at 1-2 in the second set, Hladek fell behind, 40-15, in his service game. But he saved four break points overall, leveling the score at 2-2. Matthews and Hladek eventually broke Los Alamitos at 4-4 to take the set and match, ending with a pair of aces by Matthews.

“That was the turning point, I think, in the match,” said Hladek of his service rally. “Fabian came over a lot, and I got a lot of first serves in, which helped us in that game.”

Matthews’ topspin-heavy forehands, combined with Hladek’s volleying and service return, were strong points that neither of Friday’s opponents could answer. Hladek, in particular, was crushing opponents’ serves back at them Andre Agassi-style all day.

“That’s definitely become one of my strong points,” he said. “My volleys are the best part (of my game), but coach and Fabian helped me out a lot with that, too.”

The Corona del Mar duo will face Jeffrey Kamei and Brian Fang of Troy in the semifinals at 11 a.m. today at Seal Beach Tennis Center. Playing in the other semifinal are Chris Ho and Billy Grokenberger of Santa Barbara, as well as University’s Lin and Vaidyanathan.