DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL MALE ATHELTE OF THE WEEK:Fisher’s consistency leads Eagles to success

There are few high school tennis players around who could claim more influence on his team’s success than Estancia High’s Bradley Fisher.

All season, the Eagles have known they needed to have singles success to have team success. Fisher, a junior and Estancia’s No. 1 singles player, has taken much of that responsibility.

“He, along with the other singles players, are counted on for wins across the board,” said Estancia Coach Rachel de los Santos. “This year we’ve counted on him to win all three, and to win big, in case we tied [and went to game scores as a tiebreaker]. He always did.”

A year after helping Estancia to a Golden West League title and a spot in the CIF Southern Section Division V quarterfinals, Fisher helped the Eagles — now in Division IV — to their first Orange Coast League championship.

Estancia faces No. 2-seeded St. Margaret’s at Rancho San Clemente Tennis Center today at 3 p.m. in the second round of the playoffs.

Fisher has played with eye-opening dominance, going unbeaten in league all year until losing his very last league set to Calvary Chapel’s Andrew Wiseman, 7-5. In every league win, it wasn’t close; Fisher topped his opponent by a margin of 6-2 or better.

He also bounced back from the Wiseman loss, capturing the league singles title by beating Eagles teammate Danny O’Neil, 6-7 (5-7), 7-5, 6-0, in the championship match on May 2 at Laguna Beach High.

“Danny played awesome,” Fisher said. “It was fun playing him the final. It was nice having both of the finalists be from Estancia.”

Nice too for de los Santos, the seventh-year coach who has seen Fisher’s progression firsthand. Last year, he was the Estancia No. 2 singles player behind 2006 graduate Scott Braunsdorf, even though the two players had similar success.

That success Fisher had last year — he only lost two sets in league — helped ensure a smooth transition.

“I was ready to go in at No. 1, because I had pretty good success at the No. 2 spot,” said Fisher, whose younger sister, Kendra, plays for the Estancia girls’ tennis team.

Fisher and O’Neil, along with Ely Zaidler, have helped Estancia rack up singles victories all season. So it might have been appropriate that two of them would meet in the league finals.

“It was intense, but in the van on the way home they were laughing and talking to each other,” de los Santos said. “They’re competitive with each other, but they also get along really well.”

One of just two junior tournament players for the Eagles, Fisher has made small adjustments to his game this year. He said he has worked on his serve and is focused on being more consistent.

“His game is a lot more refined,” de los Santos said. “He’s getting better with approach shots, and coming up to the net. He’s definitely trying a lot of new things and he has a lot more shots in his game than he did last year.”

Plus, he just loves tennis.

At the 107th annual Ojai Valley Tournament in late April, Fisher lost in the second round. But there he was two days later, watching the Pac-10 collegiate matches at the tournament. Fisher also saw Steve Johnson of Orange High in the CIF singles division final, as well as Fabian Matthews and Dustin Hladek of Corona del Mar in the CIF division doubles final.

Orange High was formally in the Golden West League with Estancia and Johnson, the defending CIF Southern Section singles champion, is the only other player to beat Fisher this year.

“It was definitely good to watch all the matches, especially the Pac-10 matches,” Fisher said. “It showed you what it takes to play at that level.”

And, with a year still left at Estancia, he remains on the right path.

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or at [email protected].