Princeton tops South in finale
By: Justin Feil
The Princeton High-West Windsor-Plainsboro South match has always been the one that both boys’ tennis teams especially look forward to each season.
This year, the match was scheduled to be the first of the season. Wednesday, after multiple postponements and almost nothing left to decide, the match ended the 2003 season.
The Little Tigers came away with a 4-1 win that says plenty about the year they’ve put together. The win wrapped up an unbeaten Colonial Valley Conference record to go with a third straight Mercer County Tournament team title and a return to the Group III state final.
After Ilia Shatashvilia won by default and Chris Hoeland took third singles, the first doubles team of Nate Abraham and Chad Maisel that advanced to the state doubles tournament semifinals before losing, clinched the match with a tough two-set match over fellow state doubles semifinals Shintaro Mori and Russell Nitzberg.
"Our ending was a little rough," said Maisel, the PHS co-captain. "It’s a nice way to end my season and my high school career with a win. That was definitely a good thing."
Maisel is one of four seniors that PHS loses, which is just one reason that the Pirates can’t wait for the rematch in nine months. The two teams are scheduled to begin the 2004 season at Princeton High in March.
"They lose four seniors, we lose two," said South’s Greg Kelley, who teamed with Alex Wang for a three-set win at second doubles. "We have a legitimate shot at beating them, and winning the county tournament. If we play the way we can, we definitely can win.
"I’m going to be thinking about it and trying all summer to stay in tennis shape. I play soccer too, but I love tennis. I’m really looking forward to next year."
The two teams have traded dominant runs in the past decade. WW-P South won seven straight MCT titles before PHS captured the last three. On paper, next season could be the closest since 2001, when PHS won the MCT crown by two points and WW-P South won the regular-season match, 3-2.
"We’ve talked about it a bit," said Maisel, who will attend Emory University. "We’ll have Chris and Ilia back and they’ll probably scramble for that third point. It should be close at counties. It’s hard to say how it will go. Even though the teams will be different, it should be a great match.
"Ted (Distler, his partner the previous two seasons) and I beat them twice last year and this is the third time this year. Two years ago, though, it was 2-2 and Ted and I lost. It always seems like a good match. It should really go either way."
Wednesday there wasn’t as much doubt about the outcome. While PHS was playing to seal the CVC Valley Division crown, the Pirates had little but pride on the line after already sowing up the CVC Colonial Division title. At 19-2, both of South’s losses have come against PHS.
But there was plenty of pride evident as the Pirates pushed the Little Tigers in four of the flights while Shatashvilia and WW-P South girls’ No. 1 Victoria Vaynberg played a Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King sort of exhibition, which Shatashvilia won.
The Pirates could draw the most pride from their second doubles team avenging earlier losses to PHS in counties and states, and provide the most promise for next season.
"I’m not going to be here to see it," said Wang, who leaves WW-PS for Georgetown University next fall. "I give a lot of credit to Greg. This should give him a lot of confidence for next year.
"This was nice. Over Princeton, my last match on these home courts. It’s kind of a fairy-tale ending. They beat us in counties and beat us in states. This is a match we were looking forward to. We got out there one last time and beat them."
For Wang, it ended two solid seasons of doubles play. Last year, he and Nitzberg put the only dent in PHS’ MCT title with a win at second doubles. This season, he bounced around between partners before settling in with Kelley shortly before counties.
"Every match we learned something," Wang said. "Today was the culmination."
"I think we were just more focused this time," Kelley added. "We came out a little stronger. After they won the first set, they let up a little. We’ve had mental lapses when we played them before. We didn’t have that today."
Kelley is looking forward to next season, where he’ll either move into the singles lineup or draw a new partner for doubles play.
"I’d like to be singles, but I’d play doubles," he said. "It’s great that I gained a lot of experience. If I come back and play doubles, I’d be fine with it."
South loses just his partner, Wang, and first singles’ Eugene Vaynberg, who was not able to play Wednesday since he did not begin the first match against PHS that was postponed.
For the Little Tigers, while Eli Shindelman and Greg Wu dropped their high school finales at second doubles, Marc Nichols joined Maisel in finishing off his high school career off with a difficult two-set win over Brian Lee, who moved up from third singles Wednesday for the Pirates. Nichols played just one season with the Little Tigers after transferring from Lawrence, but was able to enjoy several firsts, including a MCT individual and team title, Group III state title run and a CVC Valley crown.
"It’s definitely one of our goals, one of many goals," Maisel said of the Valley Division title and overall CVC bragging rights. "It’s another thing we can hang our hat on. It’s something. We sort of take it for granted. But two or three years ago, it was South’s to win."
The last two years, it’s been the Little Tigers that have controlled things in the CVC, and Maisel was very happy to have been a part of that dominance.
"I had a great time," said Maisel, who will try out but expects it to be difficult to make the Division III champion Emory team. "When I think about school, this is a highlight. I’ll miss the big matches like South. We had a lot of big wins that I’ll remember."
Wednesday was another of them in what’s become a highlight to every boys’ tennis season, a PHS-WW-P South match. And the next one is only nine months away.

