Saturday, May 26, 2007
The Boardman High pair won twice Friday to advance against Middletown.
COLUMBUS — Boardman High brothers Bryant and Robert Salcedo are a match away from playing for the Division I state tennis tournament championship title.
After a scare in the first set of their first-round doubles match Friday, the Salcedos defeated Randy Boll and Roland Lmie of Centerville 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, Friday in their opener at the Ohio State Stickney Center.
“The Centerville kids played like they were an Ohio State University doubles team in that first set,” Boardman coach Steve Warden said. “They played like pros.”
“They had great serves, great volleys and their returns and overheads were solid and I was wondering what golf course in Columbus I would be playing at Saturday,” Warden said.
“Our kids were wondering what the answer was if Centerville continued play that way,” Warden said
Bryant said he wasn’t worried.
Changed strategy
“I knew that they couldn’t keep that level of play the entire match, so we changed our tactics a little bit and started to lob more and they started to make mistakes and we capitalized on those mistakes,” Bryant said.
Robert said, “Bryant started to play more aggressively up at the net. I started lobbing more. We begin making more serves, are ground strokes got stronger and we played with more confidence and pulled it out.”
In a quarterfinal match, the Salcedos defeated Brian Meyer and Robin Urrutia of Toledo St. John’s 6-3, 6-2.
“In our second match, we were loose, confident and started making more shots for easy points,” Bryant said.
In semifinal today
The Salcedos’ semifinal match today at 9 a.m. will be against Middletown’s Michael Cole and Patrick Hamning, a team the Boardman duo had an opportunity to watch Friday.
“The Middletown kids play a traditional style of doubles, one up, one back and they play solid tennis,” Robert said.
Bryant said, “We’ll worry about ourselves, play are game at our level and with confidence, I think we can beat them.”
Boardman’s Scott Warden, a junior, was eliminated by Patrick Bandy of Cincinnati St. Xavier 6-1, 6-2 in a first round singles match.
“Bandy’s USTA ranking is much higher then Scott’s and we knew on paper that it was going to be a tough match,” Steve Warden said.
The coach said that the match was closer than the scores indicated and that his son played pretty well.