District tennis: Highland doubles team qualifies for state

MONTROSE — Highland doubles players Ani Katta and Sawyer Sulzener didn't get off to the best starts Thursday, but they finished extremely well.The Hornets duo won two matches at the Northeast Division I District at Springside Racquet & Fitness Club, meaning they will be playing in the state tournament next week at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason.The Wadsworth doubles team of Brandon Ball and Vincent Gambaccini, the Grizzlies' first district participants since 2019, played extremely well but dropped a three-set heartbreaker in the opening round.Coming off a Highland Sectional crown, Katta and Sulzener lost their first three games and needed a long first-set tiebreaker to down fourth-place Canton Sectional finishers Ethan Base and Dylan Kolarik of Uniontown Lake 7-6 (6), 6-0 in the opening round."We were bad," Sulzener said of the opening set. "We just needed to get it out of our system. We were struggling on serve returns, so we couldn't get a point started.""We were really slow to start out," added Katta, a sophomore who played first singles in the regular season and reached the state tourney in doubles last year with two-time Gazette MVP Luke Butcher. "We weren't aggressive enough in the first set, but I think we fixed it in the second."The Hornets were tied after six games of their quarterfinal against University School's Lucas Weidenbecher and Jack Levy, but won nine of the last 11 en route to a 6-4, 6-1 victory over a team that finished second at the Solon Sectional.That means Highland is guaranteed of finishing in the top four when play resumes Saturday at 8 a.m., and the top six placers in singles and doubles advance out of the Northeast District, by far the biggest in Ohio."We get used to our opponents' style," Katta said. "We're both really smart players and we know how to adjust."Next up for the Hornets, who got very good serving from Katta and some great overheads and forehand and backhand volleys from Sulzener in the second set against University School, is a semifinal match against North Royalton's talented Enrique Isaev and Jerrel Rayen, who won the Springside Sectional.If Highland wins that match, it will play for the district title. If it loses, it will play for third place. A win in either would likely improve the Hornets' state tournament draw."We need to play with maximum intensity," said Sulzener, a junior who manned the second singles spot in the regular season. "We need to keep the pressure on."Junior left-hander Ball and senior Gambaccini, Wadsworth's top singles players in the regular season, played a thrilling match before falling 5-7, 7-6 (6), 6-2 to University's Weidenbecher and Levy. The Grizzlies trailed 4-1 in all three sets but got some great net play from Ball and some solid serving from Gambaccini before going a bit flat in the final set."The energy was down and we made too many unforced errors," Gambaccini said. "The shots we were making in the first two sets, we weren't making in the third. It was a downward spiral."In hindsight, the Grizzlies' best opportunity to win the match was in the second-set tiebreaker, but they dropped the final two points and never had a match point."We had a lot of points we could have closed down and won the match, but we didn't," Ball said. "They won those points and pulled it out."In the third set, Ball was uncharacteristically broken in the first and fifth games and Wadsworth never recovered. University didn't hit a lot of big serves or smash many volleys, but it managed to win points when it was most necessary."We weren't consistent enough," Ball said. "They made us keep the ball in play and we couldn't do that, especially me."Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com.