Tennis

Nitros Hand Loss to Falcons

By Alan der OHANNESSIAN

Nitros beat Falcons on Thursday, 11-7, for the second consecutive time this season.

Coming into the series, the Falcons had gotten their first win of the season on Tuesday, March 13 beating Pasadena 14-4 after suffering losses at the hands of La Cañada (8-10) and Burroughs(2-16). Line up instability in the singles category may be a core reason for the ongoing challenges that the Falcons cannot seem to overcome.

Coach Sarah Wiggins had made drastic line up changes in singles on Thursday due to the absence of three players.

“I had a full line up against Pasadena,” said Wiggins. “I haven’t had a full line up for the rest of it.”

She put Tim Chong, one of her top doubles players, in the first singles slot.

Chong, not quite used to the vigor of a singles match, struggled in his performance. He lost to their No. 1, Mike Unanian, and No. 3, Aren Meserkhani, 6-3 and 6-4 respectively. Chong’s lone win came against Nitros’ No. 2 Nowaf Tokaty, 6-4. Tokaty had been playing at the No. 3 slot when the two teams met at Crescenta Valley earlier this season.

Wiggins was sympathetic to Chong’s situation.

“Singles is a different dynamic,” said Wiggins.

Daniel Cha, a player usually at the No. 3 slot, had moved to the second position. Unfortunately, he couldn’t improve the scoreboard for the Falcons. He was over-matched by Unanian, losing 6-0. He did put up a fight in his other matches but ended up losing to Tokaty and Meserkhani by the same score, 6-3.

Doil Kim was the star for the singles team, winning two of his three matches. He beat Tokaty and Meserkhani 6-1, 6-3 before falling to the invincible Unanian in a hard fought battle, 6-4.

Due to the roster shake up, Justin Chung, the usual partner of Chong, had to adapt to new partner James Ho.

“They don’t each other, each other’s game,” said Wiggins.

Despite not playing together before, the team managed to win two of their three matches. They beat the number one team of Andrew Lingat and Alex Choi, 6-3, and the No.3  team of Danny Shafazian and Alex Yoon 6-4. To their dismay, their run fell short, and they lost to Rene Gladian and Sam Sarian,

7-5.

Albert Chtchyan partnered with Patrick Meserkhani. They managed to achieve a win, cruising past Lingat/Choi 6-1, but had to dig deep when pitted against Shafazian/Yoon, 7-5.  Their only loss was against the duo of  Gladian/Sarian, 6-4.

Inconsistent results caught up with the Falcons again with the team of Mheir Krikorian and Allen Chang lost to Lingat/Choit, 6-3.

Wiggins then replaced Chang with Young Peak, but that didn’t change the outcome. Krikorian/Peak lost their two matches by the same score, 6-2.