Girls tennis: Highland's Ally Haynes breezes into semifinals

BATH TWP. — Ally Haynes can breathe easy now. Sort of. Despite a head cold that has lingered for a month and a subconscious habit of holding her breath during key points, the Highland junior beat North Royalton's Brianna Rush 7-5, 6-1 Thursday in the quarterfinals of the Springside Division I Sectional. The win earned the third-seeded Haynes a spot in the singles semifinals Saturday at 8 a.m. and guaranteed a top-four finish and berth in the Springside District, to be held next week at Springside Athletic Club. Highland's top-seeded doubles team of Evy Boucher and Kenzie Pawlak also earned a district berth by easily advancing to the sectional semifinals. "Last night I went to bed sick," said Haynes, who beat Wooster's Alyssa-Rae McIntosh 6-1, 6-1 to reach the quarterfinals. "I've just been loading up on Advil. I felt pretty good, but I still can't breathe through my nose." During tense moments, the 16-year-old Haynes sometimes doesn't breathe, period. "I don't know what it is," she said with a laugh. "I get totally wrapped up in the point and forget to breathe. I've been trying to exhale when I hit the ball, but it's a work in progress." During one extremely lengthy and important point, Haynes ran all over the court and fully extended to hit three backhands, reaching the ball a split-second before it hit the ground for a second time. Finally, Rush missed a forehand and Haynes had a crucial hold of serve for a 4-1 lead in the second set. "You should see my racket," Haynes said. "The whole side of it is shaved off from hitting the ground. There's probably red paint on the court from when I was hitting it. I'm surprised they didn't call me for racket abuse. "If she would have hit one more ball over, I was done." Haynes teamed with Jo Oberhaus to finish third in doubles at the 2021 Springside Sectional, and the duo then fell one district victory shy of reaching the state tournament, but she still had to overcome nerves in her first set against Rush. After failing to take advantage of three break points that would have given her that set, Haynes finally capitalized on the fourth, then played with much more confidence in the second set. "I'm not a bad tiebreaker player, but I was really tight that first set," she said. "I was kind of shaky and really didn't want to go to a tiebreaker, because those can go either way." Haynes will play Hudson's second-seeded Erica Liu, who defeated Highland's extremely game Lily Hantz 6-4, 6-2 in her first match Thursday, in the semifinals. Wooster's top-seeded Ava Mathur and Hudson's fourth-seeded Mallory Hannan, who beat Haynes in the regular season, will meet in the other semifinal, with the final and third-place match to follow. "I need to change up the pace of play," Haynes said of her match against Liu. "I'm going to throw some slices in, mix up the height and try to get to the net." Then she laughed and added, "I can't let the points last that long if I'm holding my breath." There was no suspense at all for Boucher and Pawlak, who have won 36 of the 37 games they've played in the tournament. Only Brunswick's Abby Ivory and Sophia Angus, who went down 6-0, 6-1 in the quarterfinals, have captured a game. The Blue Devils opened the day with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Berea-Midpark's Emily Morgan and Jenna Weth. The Medina doubles team of Julia Kraft and Mandy Caspio fell 6-4, 6-0 to Wooster's fourth-seeded Alexis Kakanuru and Hailey Jung, while the Bees tandem of Claire Kocar and and Larken Talley lost to Brecksville's third-seeded Claire Martens and Sophia Liu by the same score. Both Medina teams led 4-3 in the first set, with Kocar putting on a spectacular overhead display at the net. Boucher and Pawlak will meet Kakanuru and Jung in the semis, with Martens and Sophia Liu taking on Hudson's second-seeded Soph Uijtewaal and Violet Tuttle. "If we just keep our energy up, it will give us good momentum going into districts," said Boucher, who finished fourth in doubles with Ella Gillin at the 2022 sectional. "We know where to be on the court, so it's harder to split us or get around us." The 5-foot-10 Pawlak has a powerful left-handed serve — "It's a bomb," the right-handed Boucher said — and likely ranks among the tournament leaders in aces and service winners. "We both have really strong serves and our communication is good, which really helps," Pawlak said. "Our style of play works. We put balls away when we can and keep the point going when we can't, but we know the matches are going to get harder on Saturday." Canton D-I Sectional Despite using an underhand slice serve all season due to a shoulder injury, Wadsworth singles player Lauren Ball reached the quarterfinals before falling 6-0, 6-0 to Hoover's top-seeded Tess Bucher at Jackson Park. Bucher, a University of Kentucky commit, lost in the state championship last season. Wooster D-II Sectional After winning three matches Tuesday, Cloverleaf's Vanessa Sweitzer fell 6-0, 6-0 in the quarterfinals to top-seeded Haley Slay of Archbishop Hoban. Slay qualified for the state tournament last year as a freshman. Cloverleaf's Ava Baldwin was eliminated in the quarterfinals on the first day of cat the College of Wooster. Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com. Follow him @RickNoland on X.