Chantilly's spin and Yang
By Jason Mackey
Chantilly senior Adam Vagner was inching toward the 10 games needed to secure a win in the Chargers' No. 1 singles slot to kick off Tuesday afternoon's home tennis match with Herndon.Vagner held a seven-game advantage at the time – a seemingly perfect opportunity to have some fun, or at least work out a few kinks.
The shaggy-headed Vagner took a backhanded swipe at the underbelly of the ball, his racket nearly parallel with the ground. But the spinning sphere never reached its intended target, and the ball sailed straight into the bottom half of the net.
“Adam is definitely a funny player,” said Chantilly coach Karen Kegerreis, whose squad improved to 7-3 both overall and in the Concorde District with a convincing 9-0 win over the Hornets. “Sometimes he won't make the best shot selection, but sometimes he'll look really good at the shot that he selected to pull out of his pocket at that time.”
With his tongue coyly popping out of the side of his mouth, Vagner turned and walked back to the baseline, sloughing off a shot that probably should've stayed in his pocket.
“Sometimes I can go through a match and just use all backhanded slices,” said Vagner, who'll look to walk onto the tennis team at the University of Virginia. “But I really don't like doing that because I want to have some attacking power from that slice, so I like to focus on my backhand a lot.”
Not that his errant slice mattered much. Vagner regrouped and quickly disposed of Herndon's Jack Czerwinski, improving his record this season to 8-2. In a very difficult Concorde District tennis circuit, Vagner has struggled with only two players -- Sidarth Balaji of Fairfax and Drew Courtney of Robinson.
After battling Balaji to an eventual 11-9 loss on April 4, Vagner dropped a less-contested decision to the UVA-bound Courtney on April 11, further expunging the difficulty of competing in the Concorde.
“In every sport, the Concorde District is just going to be the most competitive district that you have,” said Kegerreis, whose team will travel to Fairfax on Friday. “Even though [tennis] is not as big of a sport as basketball or football, I think that you still have that quality of players.”
Vagner's role on the Chantilly team includes more than just matching up against the district's top competition. He's also a mentor and a doubles partner to sophomore David Yang, who posted a 10-1 win over Herndon's Doug Decarme on Tuesday.
After both Vagner and Yang secured their respective wins in singles competition, the duo took a short break and hit the court again for doubles. As talented a tandem as you'll find in the Northern Region, Vagner and Yang defeated Herndon's Czerwinski and Decarme, 8-1, to post yet another doubles win.
“They're very close talent-wise,” said assistant head coach Doug Kegerreis. “I think David is a lot better than he thinks he is. He could become really, really good.”
A shy and soft-spoken Yang briefly analyzed his singles win, “It was okay, I guess. I think I could've done better. It could've probably been 10-0.”