Elliget falls in regional finals | Sports | Summerville Journal Scene

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Elliget falls in regional finals

Published Thursday, July 02, 2009 11:57 AM

By Roger Lee
Summerville Journal Scene ®

Pinewood tennis player Adam Elliget again rose to the top of the field at the Southern Championships, but fell short of his goal.

Elliget came into last week’s tournament red hot, having just won state titles in both singles and doubles play for the 12-year-old division.

The rising seventh-grader had hoped to add to the three Southern regional championships he already has under his belt during the Cary, N.C. tournament, but it wasn’t in the cards.

“Adam endured the heat like a champion,” Jimmy Elliget, Adam’s dad, said. “However, he came up one match short in both the singles and doubles finals to finish as runner-up in both events. This has to be the hardest tournament of the year to win. You come off of a week in Belton at the state championships and only four days later this tournament starts. The field was as strong as ever and they had to deal with extreme heat.”

The format for the tournament this year didn’t allow much time for rest in the later rounds, as the quarterfinals and semi-finals for singles as well as the semi-finals for doubles were all held the same day.

On opening day, Adam beat two players from Tennessee in singles and drew a bye in doubles thanks to his No. 1 seeding.

He followed with wins in the next two rounds for both singles and doubles to advance to the quarterfinals.

In the singles quarters, he faced Anudeep Kodali, the No. 5 seeded player out Cary. He was able to prevail and thought he would play his doubles partner, No. 2 seeded Josiah Collins, in the semi-finals.

However, Hampton Drake was the winner of the other bracket so Adam had to play another South Carolina kid in the semis instead. He had just defeated Drake in the Belton finals so he had a lot of confidence going into the match.

He won the match and was on to the doubles semifinals, where he teamed up with Collins to defeat Georgia's top team. That put Adam in two championship matches the next day.

In singles, he faced No. 1 seeded Tommy Paul from North Carolina, who is ranked fourth nationally.

Adam had beaten Paul six months ago in a Southern Designate, but the player turned the tables on him in Cary.

After fighting for a five-all tie, Adam had several game points and saved three set points before finally losing the first set 5-7.

“After that, you could just see the energy was gone,” his father said.

Adam went down 1-3 to start the second set and never recovered. He lost 1-6 and the title was gone.

An hour later, he had to play Paul again in the doubles final. Adam’s partner had pulled out of the back-draw semi-finals because his shoulder was hurt, but he wanted to at least try for the doubles title. However, Collins’ injury plagued him the entire match.

“He had to serve underhand in his service games because he could not raise his shoulder,” Adam’s father said. “We all really admired their fight, but they could not overcome this handicap and lost 5-8.”

It wasn’t the finish Adam had hoped for, but he still has a lot of tennis left to play this summer. Up next are some national tournaments where he is likely to see some of the same players he has faced over the last few weeks. The first is the National Clay Court Championships in Greensboro, N.C. later this month. Adam will be one of the seeded players trying to win a "gold ball" and a national title before moving up to the 14-year-old division in the fall.

Rising Summerville High School freshman Joel Roberts also competed at the Southern Championships. Fresh off winning a doubles state championship earlier this month, Roberts and his partner vied for the regional doubles title in the 14-year-old division. The duo went 3-2 in Cary and was eliminated from the tournament by the top seed for the division.

Contact Roger Lee @ 873-9424 ext. 213 or rlee@journalscene.com.

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