Matt FitzMaurice is in his third year of high school and in each of those seasons, he reached the finals of the District 11 singles tennis tournament. The first two times, he came up short, losing to Freedom's Andrew Sinai in the finals. This season was different for FitzMaurice as he downed Parkland's Nick Kshatri 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the district finals to earn his first berth in the PIAA Tournament.

Kshatri captured the first set, but both players seemed to have issues with the officiating. FitzMaurice seemed to be especially bothered by some calls early on, but coming out for the second set, he seemed to have a renewed focus.

"That definitely rattled me a little bit, but there are no excuses, that happens to everyone and it happened to him, too, so it's not something that only affected me," said FitzMaurice. "It's part of tennis, so you have to roll with it. You have to either get over it or you stick with it and that's going to cost you big, so I just had to get over it and that's what I did in the second and third set."

In the second set, FitzMaurice held a 5-2 lead, but Kshatri battled back and broke serve in the ninth game of the set, making it a 5-4 match with Kshatri serving. FitzMaurice again settled down and broke Kshatri's serve to clinch the set, sending the match to a third and final set. In the final set, FitzMaurice was well in control and broke serve to go up 5-1 before finishing off his friend and opponent in the match to collect the gold medal.

"There was not a point in that match that he didn't have me worried or stressed," admitted FitzMaurice. "He's the kind of player you can be up 5-0, 40-love and he will come back and make it happen and come out on top, so I couldn't really rest at all, especially in that first set.

"He was playing well and I got a little lucky in the second set with some bounces and the third set, I got an early break, which helped my confidence. But that could have gone either way, so that definitely helped my confidence."

Kshatri admitted that FitzMaurice took him out of his game and had him running more than he would have liked. FitzMaurice also kept Kshatri from using his forehand, which was dominating in the first set.

"I tried to pin him in the backhand corner. His forehand is a huge weapon; I'm scared of his forehand," said FitzMaurice with a laugh. "He's the kind of kid who can make you pay in the short-ball, which he definitely did today. I was a little clean just getting the ball around to his backhand, which helped me build a point around that and I was able to go from there and get some points under my belt."

"It was a great match by both players and Nick really stepped it up, he was playing really strong and serving well throughout the match, I felt," said Emmaus coach Dmitri Diamandopoulos. "Matt coming off of that first-set loss, we knew he had to stay focused and stay in the points. Matt, in that third set, really stepped it up and served well and peaked and his game was on, so he came out on top."

FitzMaurice didn't allow himself to look past the match with Kshatri and think about a potential first trip to states. Instead, he made a potential district title his goal for the season and admits that he doesn't completely know what to think about playing in the PIAA Tournament.

"No words yet. It just hasn't set in, but it's great," said FitzMaurice, who has a simple approach to how he's going to play when he gets to Hershey. "First serve in the first round, that's my first goal. I'm starting small. This [the District 11 title] was the first goal, so wherever it goes from here is just icing on the cake."