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Boys’ tennis: Barring freak injuries, it should be a Matthews-Dome final

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Corona del Mar’s Fabian Matthews, pictured, and Arroyo Grande’s Andre Dome seem to be destined to meet each other in the Southern Section-Toyota boys’ singles finals on Saturday. But weird things and freak injuries tend to happen on the last day of the individual championships.

Last year, for example, Santa Monica Crossroads’ Clay Thompson pulled out of his semifinal match with Orange Lutheran’s Steve Johnson to play at the Quicksilver junior-circuit tournament in Newport Beach (Johnson won the Southern Section and Thompson won Quicksilver). Talk among some of the coaches was that Ojai champion Kyle McMorrow of Thousand Oaks had pulled out of Friday’s matches to participate in this year’s Quicksilver tournament, which starts Saturday; however, his coach, Dave Assorson, shot down that speculation. ‘He [McMorrow] would have loved to have been here,’ Assorson said, ‘but he’s played too much tennis recently’ and has developed shoulder problems and back spasms.

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McMorrow, Matthews -- who has already singed with UC Irvine -- and Dome, who’s heading to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on a scholarship, were considered the top three boys’ singles players after Harvard-Weslakte’s Ryan Thacher, the No. 1 juniors player in the country, decided to not enter the tournament last week. But with McMorrow out of the way, the path seems to be clear for Matthews and Dome to meet in the final. Unless, of course, one of them plans on playing in the Quicksilver tournament.

Who’s playing on Saturday’s semifinals?

In Singles:

  • Brentwood’s Walker Kehrer, a junior, pictured, is awaiting the winner of Dome and Irvine University’s Jason Lin’s quarterfinal match.
  • Corona del Mar’s Fabian Matthews, a senior, will play the winner of Claremont’s Torsten Keil-Long and Troy’s Justin Thompson’s quarterfinal.

In Doubles:

  • In one semifinal match, Peninsula’s Tyler Bowman and Jon Kazarian, both seniors, will play Brentwood’s Jackson Isaacs and Chris Lord, both sophomores.
  • In the other, Irvine University’s Matt Siow and Michael Tang, both juniors, will take on Thousand Oak’s Denis Lin and Marcos Giron, a junior and a freshman, respectively.

-- Jaime Cardenas

-- Images by Jaime Cardenas

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