Boys Tennis As Planned

by Stephen M. Lewis
DigitalSports Richmond
slewis@digitalsports.com

It was a fairly easy outing for the favorites at the boys Central Region quarterfinals at Mills Godwin Monday afternoon.

Mills Godwin's Kyle Parker, Deep Run's Eric Shulman, Hanover's Jacob Bean and Atlee's Shaowei Tu dropped seven games total en route to a Tuesday semifinal bid.

Parker vs. Dominic Bullano, Cosby
The veteran Eagle kept the youthful Bullard off balance with an array of shots, switching from power to finesse. He won 6-0, 6-1.

Parker is coming off of a semifinal berth in Richmond's Davenport Championships, an impressive performance for a junior, even as good as Parker. He fell to veteran Carl Clark.

"He's just experienced," Parker said of Clark. "Great player. Got great strokes. But he just got the better of me in that match.

"It was a great experience for me, but next year I'm going to try to do better."

Bean vs. Bradley Atkins, Dinwiddie
Parker will face Bean in the semis at Godwin Tuesday at noon.

The Hanover junior admittedly falls into his opponents' style of play. That's exactly what happened against the athletic Atkins, who slowed the pace of the match.

Bean came up with a 6-4 win in the first set, but was much more aggressive with his strokes in the second, winning at love.

"I just tried attacking his second serve more," I tired coming to the net a little more and being more aggressive at the net. Pretty much just hit it harder in the second set."

Shulman vs. Tyler Carey, Cosby
Shulman advanced in the other bracket over promising freshman Carey.

The youngster battled the veteran in some long points, but Shulman's strength was too much, winning 6-1, 6-0.

"It was tough to play in these conditions; it was windy," Shulman said. "All I tried to do was just spin the ball in and keep it consistent and make Tyler miss."

Tu vs. Ian Sammler, Prince George
Shulman will face Tu in the semifinals, who had no trouble with Sammler, the Central District champion.

Tu was powerful from the baseline all afternoon to take the match 6-1, 6-0, a great bounce back after a below-average performance against Bean in the Capital District final.

Now a bigger challenge awaits in Shulman, who Tu has never faced.

"I've heard about him. He's pretty good player," Tu said of Shulman. "I'm just going to go out and try my best. Just play and don't be nervous. See how it goes."

Doubles
The Cosby duo didn't fare well in singles, but moved on in doubles, defeating Prince George's Scott Bristow and Greg Wyche 6-2, 6-1.

They'll face Godwin's second double entry of Kevin McMillen and Edgar Vitkovski, a 6-2, 6-1 victor over Bean and Kevin Hetzer of Hanover.

Parker and Kevin Calhoun of Godwin took care of Tu and Eric Smith of Atlee 6-1, 6-2. The top Eagles team will face Prince George's Sammler and Justin Hayne Tuesday, a winner over Nick Malatesta and Marshall Hatfield of Cosby.

Doubles action begins at 3 p.m., singles kick things off at noon at Mills Godwin.