BOYS TENNIS, 2021 individual recap
Posted: Friday, June 11, 2021 - 3:26 PM
Four days of an outside state tournament for the first time in 20 years were capped with individual champions and doubles teams being crowned at St. Cloud Tech High School (Class A) and Prior Lake High School (Class AA).
Following a weather delay of about 90 minutes, Mounds View junior Bjorn Swenson captured his second Class AA title following a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Edina sophomore Matthew Fullerton under steamy conditions. It is the second title for Swenson, who also won as a freshman. No tournament was held in 2020 as the season was shutdown during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
After zipping through the first set, Swenson found himself trailing 4-3 in the second set of a match that featured powerful baseline play with some timely finesse mixed in. The charismatic Swenson dug deep, though, with a state title in reach, by winning three consecutive games to clinch his championship. He fired a powerful to create championship point at 40-love. That was quickly followed by a sizzling passing shot down the left line for the winner.
“I just had to keep fighting and try my hardest to get it done,” said Swenson of trailing in the second set.
On Wednesday, Fullerton led the Hornets to the Class AA championship.
Swenson announced after the championship match that he plans to play doubles next season with his younger brother, Soren, who will be a seventh-grader. He added, however, that for the postseason, he will switch to playing singles with the hopes of winning a third championship. Swenson is one of two Mounds View player to win a boys tennis state championship. The other was Wyatt McCoy in 2007.
In the doubles championship match, Edina’s Otto Schreiner, a junior, and senior Luke Westholder outlasted Mounds View brothers Christo Alex, a junior and eighth-grader Emmanuel, for a 7-5, 6-4 victory.
In the Class A tournament, Breck junior Clayton Haberman defeated Mound Westonka senior Jack Linder for the second time in two days, this time a 6-1, 6-2 victory in the individual singles championship match. In Breck’s 5-2 victory over Mound Westonka on Wednesday, Haberman also defeated Linder in the No. 1 singles match.
Haberman is Breck’s first individual singles champion since Myles Tang won the second of his two small-school titles in 2012. Trace Fielding was the first to win a championship for Breck in 1995 and Reven Stevens followed in 1998.
Breck made it a sweep of titles when the duo of Ishan Nadkarni and Zach Piehl recorded a 6-1, 6-0 victory over St. Paul Academy’s Liam Lynch and Luka Shaker-Check.