The first day of the boys’ tennis state tournament individual competition saw most of the top seeds hold serve, setting up a competitive day of championship matches Friday.
Mounds View junior Bjorn Swenson, the 2019 Class 2A singles champion as a freshman and the No. 1 seed in the 2A bracket, improved to 20-0 this season with straight-set victories Thursday over Jayho Hong of Wayzata and Joshua Christensen of Rochester Century. Swenson will play Sujit Chepuri of Blake in Friday’s semifinals.
Also advancing was No. 2 seeded Matthew Fullerton of Edina, fresh from helping the Hornets to the team championship Wednesday. He will face Orono’s Matias Maule, who won 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 over No. 3-seeded Collin Beduhn of Wayzata.
In doubles, Minneapolis Washburn’s Luke Little and Nick Anderson pulled off the biggest upset of the day, defeating the No. 3-seeded team of Ojas Bhagra and Spencer Busch of Rochester Mayo in the first round. Little and Anderson went on to lose to Ty Kruger and Dane Patton of Duluth East in three sets in the quarterfinals.
They will meet Mounds View brothers Christo and Emmanuel Alex in the semifinals.
Otto Schreiner and Luke Westholder of Edina will play Brandon and Dylan Pham of Mahtomedi in the other doubles semifinal.
In Class 1A, all of the top seeds advanced in singles. No. 1-seeded Clayton Haberman of Breck will meet No. 4 Evan Fraser of Mounds Park Academy in one of today’s semifinals. No. 2 Marjan Veldic of Rochester Lourdes needed three sets to defeat C.J. Velgersdyk of Southwest Christian in the quarterfinal. Veldic will play Mound Westonka senior Jack Linder in the other semifinal.
The Breck tandem of Ishan Nadkarni and Zach Piehl, the top-seeded doubles team, will meet Alex Draeger and Tyson Michels in one semifinal while Liam Lynch and Luka Shaker-Check of St. Paul Academy will play Dylan Hahn and Jack Onkka of Thief River Falls in the other.
The semifinals and finals in Class 2A will be at Prior Lake High School, in Class 1A at St. Cloud Tech. All semifinals begin at 8 a.m., championship and third-place matches at 11:30 a.m.
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