Connor's High School Tennis - Regional Final in Gainesville

 

Connor traveled to Gainesville with his team on Thursday for their Regional Final match. Connor played line 4 singles and had a tough match against a tall and lanky opponent. Connor started off with a solid first set win, but he ended up behind in the second set and he had to work hard to catch up. We were worried it would end up going to a tiebreak, but Connor finished the second set after a couple of stressful match points. He won his match 6-4, 7-5 and we were thankful it didn't have to go to a tiebreak. 

Connor's backhand is still a little inconsistent and he tends to run around it, but he overcomes his difficulties and worked hard to find a way to win. It was the hardest we've seen him play in a long time and I'll never forget one point where he had to change direction quickly to catch up to a wide angle and ended up scrambling so hard to get it that he fell after making the play. Connor's typical style is to casually get to the ball at the last second, so it was surprising and exciting to see him going all out and trying his hardest.

Usually the matches have the doubles go first, but this match they did 4 lines of singles and then started the line 5 singles as the doubles matches got going. Connor's teammate lost a close match on line 3, so for the first four matches they went 3-1. Going in to the last three matches, they only needed to win one, but they fell behind in the line 2 doubles and the line 5 singles. Thankfully Grant and Jacob won their line 1 doubles match. Once they clinched the 4th win, all other matches stopped. We'll never know if Connor and Ethan would have caught back up on line 2 doubles, but it wasn't looking good.

We are proud of the boys for winning regional. They'll be traveling to Orlando next week to play in the 3A FHSAA State Boys' Tennis Tournament. There's always tough competition and we hope they play well and enjoy this opportunity to represent their high school. This is PVHS's 4th year in the row to make it to state.