Sectional tennis: Highland doubles team advances to districts

GRANGER TWP. — Ani Katta and Sawyer Sulzener barely perspired, while Aaron Davis sweated buckets. The top singles players for the Highland boys tennis team in the regular season, the top-seeded Katta and Sulzener needed just 35 minutes to beat Strongsville's unseeded Jignesh Dave and Chaatwik Nettem 6-0, 6-0 in quarterfinal doubles play Tuesday at the Highland Division I Sectional. That secured the Hornets a spot in the top four and a district berth, with semifinal, final and third-place sectional matches scheduled for Saturday at 9 a.m. at Highland. "We were aggressive and that really helped us," said Katta, a sophomore seeking his second state doubles berth. "We just really played our game." Davis, an unseeded freshman singles player, dropped a 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 decision to Strongsville's fourth-seeded Sathvik Vetumarni in a quarterfinal match that featured exemplary sportsmanship, several momentum swings, numerous long points, even more great shots and a marathon game that lasted at least 15 minutes and probably closer to 20. Highland's other remaining entrant, the unseeded doubles team of sophomores Nikita Belyanskiy and Alex Blagrave, dropped the first 10 points and 12 of the first 13 in a 6-1, 6-2 loss to St. Ignatius' third-seeded Cody Hodge and Reynaldo Guillermo, with the bulky and powerful Hodge obliterating the ball at every opportunity. Katta and Sulzener, a junior, have now won 36 of the 37 games they've played at the event. They will take on Westlake's fourth-seeded Colson Milovich and Sammy Jang, who won a three-set marathon in the quarterfinals, in the semifinals. "I wasn't focused on them," Sulzener said of Strongsville's Dave and Nettem. "I was more focused on what I could do and working on things to prepare for the tougher matches to come." The next step for Katta and Sulzener is to place as high as possible at sectionals to improve their seeding at the Northeast District, which advances six singles players and six doubles teams to the state tournament. "The next match (against Westlake) is very important, arguably the most important," Katta said. "We'll definitely be ready for it." Davis' match provided so many tantalizing points it made up for the one-sidedness of the other two involving the Hornets. He broke Vetumarni to pull to 5-4 and get back on serve in the first set, only to get broken right back. In the second set, the seemingly tireless freshman went up 5-1 after holding serve to win a game that had at least a dozen deuces. Vetumarni picked up his play in the third set, successfully got to net and started finishing volleys he had been missing earlier. Down 5-2, 40-30, Davis made one last stand, blistering a difficult backhand passing shot to get to deuce, but Vetumarni won the next two points. Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com.