Martlets Fall to DA

Unlike the Taft match last week, it was a beautiful day for tennis, and it was great to be back on our home courts.  Unfortunately, like our previous match, we lost a series of very close matches, finding it tough to capitalize on early leads and falling in a series of contests of will and endurance.  Starting with doubles, the #1 team of Calvin Bixby ‘28 and Will Jones ‘28 made quick work of their opponents, winning 8-3 with some excellent communication and teamwork.  At #2, Sam Herdeg ‘27 and Jeff Niu ‘26 had a tougher time, dropping the set 5-8 on the heels of solid net play by their opponents (and a few too many unforced errors on our part!).  That left things in the hands of Sonny Darnowski ‘28 and Rohan Satpathy ‘27, who played a see-saw of a match.  The match was truly a battle at the net.  Sonny and Rohan were playing a great net game and hitting tough passing shots, but their opponents were able to get to the net fast and finish off some of those less-than-perfect attempts at passing and lobbing.  Ultimately, the Martlet team lost a heartbreaker of a match, 8-9 (11-13 in the tiebreaker).

In another replay of last week, having lost the doubles point, we knew we needed to take 4 of the singles matches to clinch the team win — and for a while that looked possible.  Though Will Jones ‘28 and Jeff Niu ‘26 suffered early losses at #1 and #2, things were looking a lot closer lower down the ladder.  Issac Kwon ‘28 opened up with an early lead at #6, as did Sam Herdeg at #5, while Calvin Bixby ‘28 and Sonny Darnowski ‘28 traded games with their opponents at #3 and #4 to keep things closer throughout.  Sam closed out his match with an 8-5 win on the strength of excellent athleticism and grit, while the match hung in the hands of the remaining matches.  Unfortunately, we just couldn’t grab the wins at #6 and #3, losing 6-8 in both matches.  Hanging in there was Sonny Darnowski, who, after the longest doubles match we had ever seen, just couldn’t get enough!  With the team cheering for him, he avenged his doubles loss with a hard-fought 8-6 singles victory, bringing the team score to 2-5.  (Shout-outs also to Alessio Suarez ‘28 and Khang Ngo ‘27, who had solid singles victories in our exhibition matches!)

The Grit & Grace award goes to Sonny Darnowski (with an assist from his doubles partner Rohan Satpathy).  After a frustrating tiebreaker loss after a nearly 1.5-hour doubles match, Sonny hopped right back on the court for his singles match, which was nearly another hour of tennis.  Falling behind at several points, Sonny never gave up, rushing the net and keeping the pressure on his opponent, even when things were not looking great.  It was a fantastic display of both grit and grace.