The first two rounds of the southwest boys district tennis tournament went off on Thursday, leaving 16 potential singles or doubles competitors left for the semifinals and finals of the tournament to be played on Saturday.
Of the 16 left playing playing for state seeding, 10 were top seeds for districts and sectional champions, making Saturday a tournament of the best Cincinnati has to offer.
The state tournament will begin on May 28 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason.
Day two
Division I
Singles
A pair of No. 1 seeds in one semifinal and a top-seed and a bracket buster in another started the day in Division I singles.
Phillip Kogan's run of upsets ended in a 6-0, 6-0 loss to Charlie Temming from St. Xavier. Temming won each of his first three matches of the district tournament in 6-0, 6-0 sweeps.
In the other semifinal, Mason's Vignesh Gogineni met fellow No.1 seed Sai Dore from Springboro. Gogineni won 6-3, 7-5 to take his place in the finals against Temming.
In the same score as his semifinal victory, Gogineni won the district title and stopped Temming's string of sweeps in a 6-3, 7-5 decision. In the third place match, Dore topped Kogan 6-3, 6-2.
Anderson's Payson Scott won the fifth place bracket, beating Sycamore's Arjun Rajagopala 2-6, 6-2, 6-3. The victory qualified Scott for the state tournament.
Doubles
The doubles portion of Division I almost followed the same blueprint of the singles, ending with a Mason champion in a Mason-St. Xavier final.
Sam King and Akshay Joshi won 6-1, 6-4 over Nicholas Choo and Kevin Dong from Sycamore to get to the finals. The Drew Evans and Tucker Berry duo from St. Xavier beat the Beavercreek team 6-1, 7-6(4).
The Bombers forced a three-set match in the finals, but the other two sets went easily to King and Joshi 6-0, 6-7(4), 6-2.
Choo and Dong won the third place match while another Sycamore pair, Nick Meyers and Mark Karev, clinched a state appearance with a win in the fifth place match.
Division II
Singles
Indian Hill freshman Jack Pollock became the only non-No. 1 seed to win a southwest district title with his 6-3, 6-1 victory over Summit Country Day's Elizabeth Fahrmeier.
Pollock beat the eventual third-place winner Avi Mahajan from Seven Hills 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 in the semifinal. Fahrmeier won her semifinal against Will Stephens, a No. 4 seed from Mariemont, 6-4, 6-2.
Mahajan took that third-place match 6-1, 6-1 with Stephens.
Doubles
Another Indian Hill freshman, RJ Poffenberger, along with his junior teammate Tejas Pisati won the Division II district title, clinching a clean sweep for the school.
Indian Hill beat the Cincinnati Country Day pair of Kasey Chopra and Matt Castrucci 6-1, 6-0 to make the finals. In the finals, Poffenberger and Pisati beat another CCD team, Max Berghausen and Sai Nalagatla, 6-3, 6-2.
Berghausen and Nalagatla reached the finals by beaing Noah Boyce and Sophie Russell from Oakwood 6-3, 6-2. Oakwood's pair won the third-place match 6-3, 6-3.
Day one
Division I
Singles
Springboro's Sai Dore, Mason's Vignesh Gogineni, St. Xavier's Charlie Temming and Walnut Hills' Phillip Kogan reached the district semis, punching their tickets to state, with another ready to clinch a spot in the fifth place spot.
Dore, Gogineni and Temming were three of the bracket's No.1 seeds and played to their seed. The fourth top seed, Tippecanoe's Kessler Hackenberger was upset by Kogan after retiring with a 15-15 score at the third set tiebreaker. Kogan then beat Sycamore's Andrew Wittenbaum 7-5, 6-4 to reach the Saturday potion of the tournament.
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Temming took both of his matches 6-0, 6-0. Dore beat Mason's Eric Tang 6-0, 6-1 and Anderson player Payson Scott 6-1, 6-1. Gogineni won his first match 6-0, 6-0 and beat Lakota West's Anthony Shalakov 6-1, 6-2 in the quarterfinal.
Wittenbaum, Shalakov, Scott and Sycamore's Arjun Rajagopala will battle for the fifth place position. Saturday's semifinal matches will see Dore and Gogineni play while Temming and Kogan meet on the other side of the bracket.
Doubles
Again in the doubles portion of Division I, three of the four remaining semifinalists were top seeded duos: Drew Evans and Tucker Berry from St. Xavier, Alan Xie and Deven Wells from Beavercreek and Sam King and Akshay Joshi from Mason.
The spoiler of the bunch was the Sycamore duo of Nicholas Choo and Kevin Dong who beat Tippecanoe's top-seeded group 6-0, 6-0 in the tourney's quarterfinals.
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Evans and Berry will play the Beavercreek squad in the semifinals while Choo and Dong will hope to again notch an upset over King and Joshi.
There will be a fifth place mini-tournament in doubles. The Tippecanoe duo will see another St. Xavier team made of Jimmy Gott and Vincent Knott. Turpin's Andrew Kissel and Nathan Dittman will see Sycamore's Nick Meyers and Mark Karev.
Division II
Singles
A No. 4 seed didn't deter Mariemont's Will Stephens. Stephens beat top-seed Kellen Kronour from Kenton Ridge 6-1, 6-1 before beating No. 2 Mark Keller of Wyoming 6-0 6-1 to reach the semifinal.
Also reaching the semifinal were Summit Country Day's Elizabeth Fahrmeier, Indian Hill's Jack Pollock and Seven Hills' Avi Mahajan. Fahrmeier and Mahajan were top seeds while Pollock drew a No. 2.
Fahrmeier will meet Stephens in the semifinal after beating Cincinnati Country Day's Abhijit Jagtap 6-1, 6-0 before a 60-, 6-1 win against Sam Zelinski of Chaminade Julienne.
Pollock rode 6-1, 6-0 and 6-1, 6-1 wins into the semifinal while his opponent Mahajan reached after a 6-1, 6-1 and 6-0, 6-2 pair of wins.
Division II will not qualify a fifth person to state, leaving just the four remaining as state qualifiers.
Doubles
A potential all-Cincinnati Country Day district final is possible in Division II doubles. The team of Kasey Chopra and Matt Castrucci as well as the duo of Max Berghausen and Sai Nalagatla both reached the district semifinals with the former as No. 3 seeds and the latter as No. 1 from the Mason sectional.
Waiting on Chopra and Castrucci will be Cincinnati sectional champions Tejas Pisati and RJ Poffenberger from Indian Hill. The other CCD group will see the Troy sectional champions, Noah Boyce and Sophie Russell from Oakwood.
That Oakwood group beat Maiemont's Wil Glassmeyer and Riley Whitmore 6-1, 6-1 in the first round then beat the Seven Hills team of Colin Yeager and Neal Parameswaran who reached the quarterfinals as a No. 4 seed with a 6-0, 6-2 upset of the No. 1 Yellow Springs team.
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