Youth Tennis: Edalat, Kenerson victorious

It was hard for the girls’ 16 doubles championship match at the 27th annual The Tennis Club Junior Open Tournament to get much closer, both in terms of relationship between the players involved and the score.

Three of the four participants — Camellia Edalat, Brooke Kenerson and Roxanne Mackenzie — play for the Corona del Mar High girls’ tennis team. Edalat was paired with Kenerson for the tournament better known as the “War by the Shore,” while Mackenzie’s partner was Shayee Sharif of Huntington Beach.

As for the score?

“Two points apart,” Edalat said after she and Kenerson edged out a 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (4-7), 10-8 victory in a third-set super-tiebreaker Friday at The Tennis Club Newport Beach.

Another all-CdM doubles team earned a title as well. Incoming juniors Jacob Cooper and Ryan Wessler topped Hikaru Kasai of Rolling Hills Estates and Mikael Purne of Rancho Palos Verdes, 7-5, 6-1, for the boys’ 18 doubles championship.

The lone local War by the Shore singles winner Friday came in the girls’ 10s, in which Audrey Kranson of Newport Beach beat Tianmei Wang of San Marino, 6-4, 6-1, to win the title.

Edalat will be a senior at CdM, and Kenerson a junior. They were able to win the 140-minute marathon match against incoming CdM sophomore Mackenzie and Sharif, but it wasn’t easy.

Edalat and Kenerson rallied from a 3-0 first-set deficit to claim the set in a tiebreaker, and they had three match points on Edalat’s serve at 5-4 in the second set. But Mackenzie and Sharif saved them all and eventually broke, leveling the set at 5-5.

The CdM duo was able to break Sharif’s serve, but Kenerson was broken as well serving for the match at 6-5, so another tiebreaker was needed. This time, Mackenzie and Sharif came out on top.

The players got a three-minute break before the super-tiebreaker. Edalat and Kenerson needed to refocus.

“[Thursday] we did this too,” said Kenerson, referencing the semifinals when she and Edalat survived, 10-7, in a third-set super-tiebreaker. “We didn’t get off to a great start. After a set, we kind of like to think, ‘Start over, start fresh, just forget about the last set.’ I think it was helpful, especially for the third-set tiebreaker, to use that mind-set that we had [Thursday] for the second set.”

They went ahead, 4-1, in Friday’s super-tiebreaker, then fell behind, 5-4, before rallying for the title. Edalat said it was good practice for the upcoming girls’ high school season, adding that she hadn’t played in a tournament in about a year.

“I felt like if I was going to come back to tournament play, this would be the tournament I come back to,” she said. “It’s just great. Everyone we know is in it, and all of the people that you play are genuinely really good at tennis. It’s really worth it.”

Cooper and Wessler thought so after claiming the boys’ 16 doubles title. It was a nice gift for Cooper on his 17th birthday.

“It feels cool,” he said. “It was only two rounds, but a win’s a win.”

Cooper and Wessler played a lot of doubles together for CdM this past season, particularly early on. The War by the Shore semifinal round Thursday was interesting, as Cooper and Wessler also had to beat their CdM teammates, Matt Paulsen and Grant Brown, to move on. They said CdM Coach Jamie Gresh was there to observe that match.

“He was rooting for us,” Cooper said with a grin.

Kranson, meanwhile, had to win just one match for the girls’ 10 singles title. She was the top seed in the three-player draw, and got a bye into the final.

Still, she had to battle for a win over Wang in a tight match.

“She was really good,” said Kranson, 10, who will be a sixth grader at Montessori Greenhouse school in Garden Grove. “[I was] a little bit [nervous]. The girl was really fast ... I got a little bit tired in the middle of the second set.”

Kranson was able to finish strong. She has been playing tournaments for three years and has had a good summer. Last month, she got to the girls’ 10 singles consolation finals at the prestigious Southern California Junior Sectionals.

“It’s a really fun sport,” Kranson said. “I like making a lot of friends in tennis, and I like the fact that you have to work hard to move on.”

Other local players lost in the finals Friday. Newport Beach resident Adam Langevin, who will be a senior at Sage Hill School, lost to No. 4-seeded Gilbert Chung of Los Angeles, 6-4, 6-1, in boys’ 18 singles.

“We were both just a little bit on edge going into the match,” Langevin said. “We were both a little tight. We were breaking back and forth all day. As it went on, he started to recover just a little bit. My whole game is based around my forehand, and I couldn’t put three [of them] in the court. I was trying to force it a little too much.”

CdM’s Diego Fernandez del Valle was outlasted by No. 2-seeded Justin Cheun of Irvine, 6-7, 6-3, 6-3, in the boys’ 16 singles final.

Top-seeded Newport Beach resident Perry Di Giulio lost to Alan Ton of Fountain Valley, 6-2, 7-5, in the boys’ 12 singles final.

Newport Beach resident Logan Friedman and partner Caleb Saltz of Indio lost to Ton and Grant Gallagher of Irvine, 6-2, 6-4, in the boys’ 12 doubles final.

Di Giulio, 11, will be a sixth-grader at Eastbluff Elementary. He said he played all right, but he had to work on putting balls away.”

The last of three brothers to come up through the junior tennis ranks, he didn’t hesitate when asked about following in Joseph and Austin’s footsteps.

“My goal is to go to UCLA like Joseph,” Perry Di Giulio said.