The No.16 seed Bromfield girls tennis players moved deeper into the Division 4 Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association playoffs this week after defeating No. 17 seed Seekonk in a lengthy and competitive round-of-32 match at Bromfield June 4. The final score was 4-1, but it took awhile to get there.
In a high school competition, each school fields three singles players and two doubles teams. The winner of each match earns a point for their team. With only four courts available, games played at Bromfield require that one of the five matches must hold until another finishes.
At last Sunday’s match, Seekonk took the early lead with a victory in second doubles, defeating sophomore Nora Clarke and eighth-grader Khivi Nanra. But Bromfield quickly evened the score 1-1 with Michelle Xu’s victory in first singles. “Michelle played extremely well and dominated her match against a senior opponent,” wrote coach Chris Holmes in an email to the Press. “It was quite an impressive feat for a seventh-grader and a big win for us.”
Senior Sophia Zhou stretches to make contact with the ball at midcourt. Zhou won 2 of 3 sets in a marathon match that went 3½ hours against a determined Seekonk opponent.(Photo by Kent Boynton)
The first doubles team was the day’s ”held” match, and players took to the court as soon as the second doubles match was completed. Teammates junior Sarah Burns and ninth-grader Cassie Fisher have been Bromfield’s most reliable competitors, according to Holmes, and they quickly beat their opponents, putting Bromfield ahead 2-1.
This left the Trojans in need of one more point to secure a victory. Both the second singles and third singles players were entering their third hour of play, and both were engaged in close, competitive matches. For a brief while it looked like there would be a weather delay as a spot shower came through, dampening the court. But fortunately, wrote Holmes, the courts never got too wet to continue.
Shortly after the shower passed, sophomore Abigail Ames closed out her second singles match, giving Bromfield a 3-1 lead and assuring the team’s victory. Winning her first set required Ames to break a 6-6 tie with Seekonk’s Carissa Mason, a game she won 7-3. With the team match on the line, Ames battled and won the second set 7-5, this time with no tiebreaker required.
But the match of the day—and one of the best of the season, according to Holmes—was senior Sophia Zhou’s back and forth third singles battle with Seekonk’s Madison Fitzgerald. Zhou and Fitzgerald had split the first two sets in roughly two and a half hours of play. Although Bromfield was already the overall match winner, the girls returned to their court to play a decisive third set. “They both played extremely well,” wrote Holmes, but it was Zhou who prevailed, 6-4. The match was completed under the court’s lights after more than three and a half hours of play.
With their win over Seekonk, Bromfield advanced to the District 4 round-of-16 playoffs. The girls were scheduled to play the top-seeded Hamilton-Wenham Regional Generals on their home courts at Gordon College on the afternoon of June 10. The team is undefeated. “It will be a tough challenge but a great opportunity for our young team to see how a top-level team plays,” said Holmes.
Results
- 1st singles: Michelle Xu (Bromfield) defeated Lilly MacDonald (Seekonk) 6-2, 6-0
- 2nd singles: Abigail Ames (Bromfield) defeated Carissa Mason (Seekonk) 7-6, 7-5
- 3rd singles: Sophia Zhou (Bromfield) defeated Madison Fitzgerald (Seekonk) 6-3, 4-6, 6-4
- 1st doubles: Sarah Burns and Cassie Fisher (Bromfield) defeated Brook Meyer and Sarah DeMelo (Seekonk) 6-0, 6-1
- 2nd doubles: Ava Lyon and Leandra Pereira (Seekonk) defeated Nora Clarke and Khivi Nanra (Bromfield) 6-4, 6-0
