“I just knew I could not go into a third set,” Hammond said. “I just knew I had to bring it back. I needed to focus. As much as the heat was bothering me, I knew it was bothering everyone else.”
Hammond fought off the heat, fatigue and a game opponent in No. 7 Caroline Ray of Falmouth to reach the semifinals of the annual Maine Principals’ Association singles tournament on a blistering hot day at the Franklin Pasture Tennis Courts.
Faced with a battle from the beginning of her quarterfinal, Hammond worked Ray side to side in the heat, trying to wear her down. But the Yachtsmen’s second singles player — top player Julia Brogan is the No. 3 seed — was a game opponent, matching Hammond’s power and precision.
Late in the first set, though, Hammond found an equation that worked.
“I knew that if I hit regular backhands to her hard, we would have gone into deep rallies, so I had to end it as quickly as I could,” Hammond said.
Hammond hit deep and middle-depth slices to Ray’s backhand side, and then pounded her left-handed forehand deep to the opposite side on the return shots.
Hammond will face Brogan in the semifinals Monday, with matches scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at Bates College in Lewiston.
The other semifinal will pit No. 1 seed Lana Mavor of Yarmouth High school against No. 4 Rosemary Campanella of Wells.
On the boys’ side, No. 2 Nick Forester advanced to the semifinals with a 6-0, 6-1 victory over No. 10 Peter Mao of Mt. Ararat. But it was Forester’s match against Mt. Blue’s Evan Backus that gave him fits early.
“I was hoping, he’s a freshman, I was hoping I could get into his heads a little bit early, maybe fluster him,” Backus said. “I know he can definitely outhit me, so I wanted to keep the ball in and try to out-rally him.”
The strategy worked at first, with the unseeded Backus taking a 2-1 lead in the opening set.
“I have a pretty unique style of play,” Backus said. “When you’re playing a one-seed or a two-seed, they can figure you out pretty quick. I just try to mix it up a lot.”
Forester did figure things out in the first, rattling off five consecutive games to take the set, 6-2.
Backus gave Forester everything he had in the second set, as well, at times matching the Falmouth No. 1 player’s power shot for shot. But Forester was too much after he found his stride, taking the second set by an identical 6-2 mark.
“I’m pretty sure I was the first Mt. Blue player to get to the round of 16 for guys, and we had a player from our girls’ team make it, too, so that was pretty cool,” Backus said.
His counterpart on the girls’ team, Eryn Doiron, advanced out of Friday’s round of 32 with a three-set win over Falmouth’s third singles player, Kate Kelley. She ran into a buzz saw in Campanella on Saturday, though.
“I enjoyed playing inside (Friday), and I didn’t think I would,” Doiron said. “But, I’ve played here in the Lewiston courts, too, so that was fine.
“My goal was to do one better than last year,” Doiron added. “This was icing on the cake.”
Sixth-seeded Cole Ouellette of Lewiston battled through the heat against No. 11 Matthew Jarmusz of Morse High School, and lost both battles. After dropping the first set 7-6 (2), Ouellette ran out of steam in the second and fell, 6-1.
“First set, I was pretty good, but the second set, the heat kicked in,” Ouellette said.
“He was more conditioned than me, I thought, and he played better in the second set,” Ouellette added. “He kicked it up a notch on his serves.”
Top-seeded Nick Mathieu of Mt. Ararat High School advanced with little trouble through his draw to reach Monday’s semifinals. He dispatched Alex Klemperer in the quarterfinal round, 6-2, 6-1. He will face fourth-seeded Michael Mills of Cape Elizabeth, who nearly lost to Lewiston’s Timo Teckenberg in the round of 32 on Friday before rolling through his two matches on Saturday.
On the other side of the draw, Forester will face No. 3 Dariy Vykhodtsev of Thornton Academy.
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