BURROUGHS HIGH — The way things went in the first of three rounds Thursday, it appeared the Glendale High boys’ tennis team had a distinct advantage against Burroughs.
But the Indians played better in the final two rounds and challenged the Nitros, who were pushed to the brink late in the Pacific League match.
Glendale had to rely on a win by its No. 1 doubles team in the last set of the contest to hold on for a 10-8 victory at Burroughs.
“We figured it was going to be close,” Nitros Coach Bob Davidson said. “In league this year, there are five teams that are very close to one another. I think that on any given day that one team could be another.”
Holding a one-set lead with just one doubles match remaining, Glendale (8-2, 5-2 in league) was forced to win that matchup to secure the victory. Had the Nitros lost the set, it would’ve gone to a 9-9 tie, with Glendale sure to lose on games in the tiebreaker.
The Nitros duo of Elliott Kim and Jeff Asano trailed the Burroughs No. 3 team of Bryan Hoang and Frankie Chicco, 4-3. However, the Glendale tandem battled back to tie the score at 4 and rattled off two more games to take the set, 6-4.
“Glendale is very close to us in talent,” said Burroughs Coach Roy Bernhardt, whose team won the league championship last season. “It looks like there’s going to be a different league champion this season.”
The Nitros won eight of nine doubles sets in the win. Glendale had a 4-2 lead after the first round and was up, 7-5, after two.
The team was paced by the No. 2 team of Mike Astorian and Nick Daka, which won, 6-0, 6-2, 6-1, and is usually the No. 1. Kim and Asano swept, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, and Dougkoon Yoo and Bushra Abdelmalak went, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (8-6).
“We knew Burroughs had good singles, and if we could win two in singles we could probably win the match,” Davidson said.
Those wins came from No. 1 Ashot Papikian, 6-0, and No. 3 Suren Aydinyan, 6-4, who both defeated Melik Nazliyan.
Burroughs (5-3, 2-3) received fine efforts from its top two singles players, who dropped just two games between them. At No. 1, Robert Henry won, 6-1, 6-0, 6-0, and No. 2 Trevor Campbell won, 6-1, 6-0, 6-0.
The Indians’ lone win in doubles came from the No. 2 duo of Andre Yanez and Phillip Lam, 6-4.
Burroughs has had a rough week, as it lost to Burbank in a league match on Tuesday in a super-tiebreaker. The Indians finishd the week Friday with a league contest against Crescenta Valley.
Campbell said he doesn’t mind the busy schedule.
“I would rather be playing three matches in a week than just play one a week,” he said. “If I wasn’t playing in a match I would be practicing for three hours anyway.”
