'Wick Tennis Pulls Out Gutsy Win

Brunswick tennis had one of its most impressive and gritty performances to date with a hard-fought, four-hour win, 4-3, over Montverde Academy from Florida.

The four-team invitational kicked off on Friday morning with Brunswick vs. Montverde Academy. Due to inclement weather, the match was played indoors in their six-court indoor facility. Five doubles teams took the courts with the #4 and #5 playing exhibition doubles.

At #1 doubles, W. Monahan / T. Maclean were simply outmatched by their opponents and fell 2-8. The other two doubles matches, however, were far closer and progressing neck-and-neck. C. Zimmerman and S. Gunningham were on serve for the first half of their match and then eventually broke away to win the set 8-5.
J. Riehl and J. Sieg had been up a break at 5-4, but then their opponents fought to get back on serve and push the set to 7-7. They held serve to go up 8-7, and unfortunately would also break to clinch the doubles point.

With all six singles matches going on at once, it would be a battle to win four singles matches. The first match to finish was Jack Sieg, who pulled Brunswick level with a straight set victory at #6. Will Monahan won the first set at #1 and was down 1-4 in the second but grinded his way back to 5-5 and eventually won the set 7-5: Brunswick 2 Montverde 1.

All the other courts were deep into their second sets at this point and some were fighting to level their matches. At #4 Tucker Maclean had lost a close first set 5-7, and his opponent simply made fewer mistakes in the second set to level the score again at two apiece.

The remaining three matches were all in the third set deciders and would play out full third sets in this format. At #3 Santos Gunningham was playing some great points, but was also inconsistent with his momentum. After having lost a close first set, he pulled the second set back to force a decider. But in the end, his opponent remained the steadier player and closed the third set out 6-2: Brunswick 2 Montverde 3.

At this point Johnny Riehl at #5 and Caleb Zimmerman at #2 were in the middle of their third sets. Johnny looked to be in trouble as we went down 3-0 and seemed to be outplayed, but he wanted some redemption after that doubles point, and began clawing his way back. Suddenly he was back on serve and the score was 3-3. Despite cramping up a little, he remained gutsy and would eventually secure the comeback to win 6-3.

 

You couldn't have written a better script. Caleb was broken at 3-4, and his opponent was serving for the match at 5-3. But he wasn't giving up, and broke right back to serve at 4-5. Down two set match points, he won a crucial deuce point (no ad scoring) to level 5-5. His opponent was now cramping up and Brunswick had the upper hand. Another break to serve out the match at 6-5. Despite the cramping his opponent continued to battle and played some unbelievable winners: 6-6 tiebreak to decide the match.

Caleb dominated each of the points early on to storm to a 6-0 lead and win the tiebreak 7-1 to clinch the victory for Brunswick.

Amazing tennis and a great win for the Bruins. 

BRUNSWICK 4 MONTVERDE 3

Detailed scores:

1D W. Monahan / T. Maclean lost to Z. Murphy / D. Breen 2-8
2D Caleb / Santos def G. Igesund / F. Kimura 8-6
3D Johnny / Jack lost to E. De Felicio / J. Querino 7-9

1S W. Monahan def Z. Murphy 6-2, 7-5
2S C. Zimmerman def G. Igesund 1-6, 7-5, 7-6 (1)
3S S. Gunningham def D. Breen 5-7, 6-3, 2-6
4S T. Maclean def F. Kimura 5-7, 2-6
5S J. Riehl def E. De Felicio 7-5, 1-6, 6-3
6S J. Sieg def N. Moritz 6-3, 6-1