Doubly dazzling debut

FOUNTAIN VALLEY — The spinning tennis ball whizzed toward the middle just in front of the baseline as Fabian Matthews and Ryan Cheung ran at it. Boom! The doubles teammates collided and lost the game during the deciding set of a championship match.

Who could blame them? They were playing in their first tournament together.

But Matthews, who will be a senior at Corona del Mar High, and Ryan Cheung of Lomita eventually left with a bigger bang at Los Caballeros Racquet and Sports Club. Matthews and Cheung ended an eventful match with an emphatic pow to win the boys’ 18 doubles title of the 105th Southern California Junior Sectional Championships.

Yes, the No. 2-seeded duo’s communication improved during the match and they defeated former Santa Barbara High teammates Chris Ho and Daniel Nguyen, 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-5 on Sunday afternoon.

Matthews held serve after one deuce to go up 6-5 in the third set, then Matthews helped break Ho’s serve in the next game to win the match over the fifth-seeded team.

The collision didn’t seem to embarrass Matthews and Cheung, who met at the Advantage Tennis Academy in Irvine less than a year ago. They were actually smiling after they bumped into each other.

“It actually felt good; just kidding,” said Matthews, who admitted the hit woke them up.

As if they needed to be alarmed. They seemed plenty aware that they were involved in a tight match. The first set featured a game that had five deuces. Ho and Nguyen won that one to make it 4-4. Matthew later held serve to go up, 6-5, but Ho, who will play for UCLA, also held serve to set up the tiebreaker.

Matthews and Cheung built a 4-1 lead and held on for the 7-5 win in the tiebreaker. Matthews and Cheung dropped the first two games in the first set, but still went on to win that crucial opening set.

“In the beginning we didn’t move really well together,” Matthews said. “I was running this way and he was running that way. We didn’t know where we were, but then we knew where we were going and moved a lot better as a team.”

Cheung, who is home-schooled and said he might attend University as a sophomore in the fall, kept Ho and Nguyen off balance with his left hand.

“That was our first time playing a lefty in this tournament,” Ho said. “It was tough. They played well. We have played better before, but they played well.”

Ho and Nguyen, who knocked out the top seed (Walker Kehrer and Kyle McMorrow) in the semifinals, were also playing in their first tournament together. At Santa Barbara High, Ho usually paired with Billy Grokenberger.

Matthews is no stranger to that duo. He teamed up with Dustin Hladek to beat that tandem for the Ojai CIF division doubles championship back in April.

Matthews and Hladek also defeated Ho and Grokenberger for the CIF Southern Section doubles title in 2006.

“It’s always fun to play Chris,” Matthews said. “I’ve played against Chris before in CIF and Ojai. This was a really good match.”

Matthews said a key to the match was his ability to hold serve in the third set. He was having problems with his serve in the second set. And, Ho and Nguyen capitalized.

Matthews had his serve broken twice in the second set. He couldn’t hold serve again in the third set, but Ho and Nguyen were still trailing, 2-1.

But Matthews held serve twice down the stretch and produced clutch winners to lead his doubles team to the championship.

Not a bad response after colliding with Cheung.

STEVE VIRGEN may be reached at (714) 966-4616 or at steve.virgen@latimes.com.