Boys tennis: Maine South gets past Niles North

Updated: April 17, 2012 10:10PM

Maine South coach Greg Young looked through the matchups before Tuesday’s boys tennis meet against Niles North and viewed three matches – No. 2 singles, No. 2 doubles and No. 3 singles – which he felt were evenly matched.

Young figured Maine South had a good chance of beating the Vikings if his team could win two of those three matches. Win all three and prevailing in Tuesday’s meet would turn into a near certainty.

With victories by Dragan Trivanovic at No. 2 singles, Peter Bruno at No. 3 singles and No. 2 doubles pairing Mark Abtahi and Alex Kryshchuk, Maine South won three critical matches and rolled to a 5-2 victory. The Hawks also clinched the meet victory early enough to remove the pressure from their No. 4 doubles team, which prevailed in the meet’s sole three-set match.

“I played solid,” said Trivanovic, who defeated No. 2 singles player Eric Rosen, 6-3, 6-4. “I didn’t make that many mistakes. I tried to force him to make the mistakes and I just pulled it off at the end.”

“They’re tough at the top,” said Young of Niles North. “We had a couple matches that could go either way that we won, fortunately. I was really pleased with the performance of second singles, third singles, second doubles. First doubles won, (too).”

Niles North’s Dave Bacalla breezed to a 6-1, 6-0 victory against junior Patrick Daleiden. Niles North’s other victory came at No. 3 doubles, when Zach Oppenheim and Matt Pletz won their match, 6-4, 6-4.

Bacalla has been one of the Central Suburban League’s top singles players all season, and Tuesday’s victory showed why as he tactfully picked apart Patrick Daleiden.

“I kind of test them (for weaknesses) on the first couple games. I mix in a couple shots to see where his weakness is,” Bacalla said. “I was attacking his backhand, his high backhand, coming in and out. That was working well for me, so I kept with it.”

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