Korber in charge, wins 18 singles title

NEWPORT BEACH — The rally had reached dozens of strokes when Shane Korber dumped the relatively easy volley into the net, allowing opponent Parker Glore to save a match point.

A hold for Glore in this 10th game of the second set and it might’ve extended to a third set, where all bets were off.

But Korber made his own luck all week at The Tennis Club.

He calmly stayed in the game and eventually broke Glore’s serve, putting the finishing touches on a 6-0, 6-4 victory in the boys’ 18 singles final at the 20th annual Balboa Bay Club Junior Tennis Tournament.

“It’s great,” said Korber, who will be a junior at Corona del Mar High. “It shows that my hard work’s finally paying off.”

Make no mistake, Korber has been working hard for quite some time. It showed in the first set Friday, when the No. 3 seed “bageled” his unseeded opponent from Huntington Beach.

Glore was still confident he could come back, like he did in the semifinals against another CdM player, Ryan Peyton. The incoming Marina High junior lost the first set to Peyton, 6-2, but came back to win a tight three-setter.

“I’m always so nervous,” Glore said. “But sometimes I play better when I’m nervous.”

Yet it was Korber who shined in the big moments, to the delight of a pro-CdM crowd including Kelli Feeley, Chris Damion and former boys’ coach Tim Mang. His 4-1 lead in the second set evaporated but he held on in the end.

Part of the stepping up involved stepping into some big forehands; footwork has been a key in his improvement.

“It’s a lot better than it used to be,” Korber said of his positioning on the court, also crediting his training with his private coach, Mike Saunders.

The 18s singles win finished a dominant run for Korber, who lost a three-set match in the 16s semifinals last year at the tournament better known as the “War by the Shore.”

This year, the only close call was a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 victory over No. 6-seeded Ahdiv Nathan of Rancho Santa Margarita in the quarterfinals.

“That was grueling,” Korber said. “We pretty much held the entire match. At 5-all in the third set, he broke me, and I had to break back to send it into a tiebreaker and I did and gutted it out.

“That was a pretty big win for me. I’ve just now started winning the close ones. I used to always just barely lose the close ones, and now the close ones are all going my way.”

Korber, 17, has been playing in the boys’ 18s division for a few months now. He’ll do it again next week, at the Costa Mesa Summer Junior Classic where he is the top-seeded player. Then, he said it’s off to Level 3 national tournaments in Chicago and Sacramento.

Damion, Peyton rebound as champs

Chris Damion and Ryan Peyton, who were eliminated earlier than they had hoped in singles competition, teamed up to win the boys’ 18 singles title.

Damion , a recent graduate of Corona del Mar High, and Peyton, a future senior at CdM, defeated Irvine residents Patrick Lipscomb and Matthew Miller, 6-2, 6-1.

Damion and Peyton, the No. 2-seeded squad, beat Newport Beach resident Dante Saleh and Ahidy Nathan of Rancho Santa Margarita, 7-6, 6-3, in the semifinals Thursday.

Damion, the top seed in the boys’ 18 singles division, lost in his first match, in the Round of 32. Peyton, the No. 4 seed in the boys’ 18s, lost in the semifinals.

Matsuoka wins title

Melissa Matsuoka, who will be a senior at Corona del Mar High, along with her doubles teammate Sabrina Man-Son-Hing of Calabasas, won the girls’ 18 double title.

Matsuoka and Man-Son-Hing, the No. 2-seeded team, beat Hayley Smith of Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel’s Joanna Smith in a tight match, 3-6, 6-3, 10-5.

 In boys’ 14 doubles, Corona del Mar resident Alastair Hurry and his partner Will Walker of Fullerton lost in the final.

San Clemente’s Nikolas Ramadan and Irvine’s Eric Tseng won, 6-3, 6-4.