SPRINGFIELD, Mo. • Area players came out swinging - and winning - on the first day of the girls state tennis championships.
Five area singles players and four doubles teams kept their hopes of a state championship alive with wins that carried them through the first two rounds Friday at the Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield. The state championship matches are set for Saturday.
Three of the four semifinalists in Class 2 singles are from St. Louis. Cam Newton of Ladue will face Hannah Wille of Parkway Central in one semifinal, while Lafayette's Haleigh Chobanian will play Tess Herder of Lee's Summit in the other semfinal.
Newton, who won the Class 2 doubles title last season with Annie Kopp, had a big quarterfinal win over Danielle Benson of Springfield Kickapoo, 6-2, 6-1. Benson finished second in state in singles last year, losing to Newton's teammate, Lindsey Whitehead, in the championship match.
Wille, a member of the MICDS squad that won the Class 1 state team title in 2009, has been the state's most dominant player so far this season. Wille, who sat out the 2010 season after transferring to Parkway Central, had not lost a set in any of her 19 matches. Friday, she defeated the top player from state champion Rock Bridge, Sophi Farid, 6-0, 6-1 in the quarterfinals.
Chobanian scored a satisfying win Friday, defeating Suzanne Barth of Park Hill, 6-4, 6-3 in the quarterfinals. Barth had beaten Chobanian in straight sets in the team portion of the tournament Thursday.
One of the Class 2 semifinals in doubles will also be an all-St. Louis area match-up as Taylor Revling and Grace Hyde of St. Joseph's Academy will play Allison Barker and Erin Barker of Francis Howell. Revling and Hyde, who lost in the state doubles championship last year, had a hard-fought 6-2, 7-5 quarterfinal win over Taylor Johnston and Lucy Givens of Branson. The Barker sisters became the first girls from Francis Howell to reach the semifinals after a straight set win over Grace Wells and Hannah Bradar of St. Teresa's Academy.
Sydney Lehman of John Burroughs and Katherine Desloge of MICDS appear to be on a collision course for a repeat of last year's Class 1 singles championship which was won by Lehman.
Lehman, who is trying to equal the run of three state titles won by her sister Alex with three state singles titles, had two decisive wins Friday and will meet Michaela Henne of Notre Dame de Sion in the semifinals Saturday. Friday, Lehman won both of her matches by 6-0, 6-0 scores.
Desloge also breezed to a pair of wins Friday, losing just two games in her two matches. She will play another Notre Dame de Sion player, Bridget O'Conner, in the other Class 1 semifinal.
Visitation Academy's Jocelyn Koester has her sights set on a second consecutive Class 1 doubles title. Koester teamed with Sami Hornbarger to win the title in 2010. This year she is paired with Briana Menolascino. The Vivettes pair won a couple of straight set matches Friday and will play Elisabeth Hawley and Rebecca Sommers of Pembroke Hill in the semifinals.
Clayton's Carli Cassity and Caroline Greenberg also won their first two rounds Friday. They will play Kate Sims and Alena Frye of Barstow in the semifinals. Sims and Frye finished third at state in doubles last year.
