Weather delays EPC tennis tourney
The EPC Tennis Tournament didn't go off quite as planned last weekend. Friday's matches were postponed because of bad court conditions from a morning storm, leaving a lot of tennis to be played on Saturday.
The tournament was played from the pigtail rounds through the quarterfinal matches, with the semis, finals and consolation rounds remaining to be played. There isn't a date set for resuming the tournament, but it's likely to be completed after next week's District 11 Tournament gets underway.
Emmaus' Matt FitzMaurice, seeded third in the No. 1 singles flight, made it through to the semis, where he'll face Nick Kshatri of Parkland.
When the two played earlier in the season, FitzMaurice was favoring a right shoulder injury and lost to Kshatri in straight sets. The meeting wasn't indicative of the normally very close matches that the two have played throughout their high school careers.
The other semifinal match will have Pleasant Valley's Jon White (No. 4 seed) going against top-seeded Andrew Sinai of Freedom, the defending District 11 Class AAA champ.
In No. 2 singles, Emmaus' Sanket Narayana wasn't able to make Saturday's match and defaulted, as did his opponent, Zyang Lin of Pocono Mountain East. The double-default gave Parkland's Nate Lyman a free pass to the semis after he won his first round match. Emmaus' No. 3 singles player Kyle Jaeger came in seeded sixth and beat Whitehall's Gavin Meyers in his first match, but lost to third-seeded Brian Smith of Stroudsburg by an 8-5 score in the quarterfinals.
All three of Emmaus' doubles teams won their first match of the day before being eliminated in the quarters. Cam Widdoss and Darsh Patel lost to the third-seeded duo from Stroudsburg, while Eric Ma and Zhouhong Ze lost to players from Nazareth in No. 3 doubles. In number-four doubles, Stephen Naab and Dan Traynor lost to the top-seeded team from Parkland.
The district singles tournament gets underway Wednesday at Saucon Valley High School. Narayana comes into the tournament unseeded and will play his first round match against Danny Procaccino of Stroudsburg, who is also unseeded.
FitzMaurice will open the tournament as the No. 3 seed and will play his first round match against Mike Fischler of Nazareth.
The first and second rounds will be played Wednesday, with the quarters and semis being played Friday, also at Saucon Valley High School.
The finals are scheduled for Monday at Lehigh University.