Roslyn's Ethan Solop defeats Nassau champion Max Golubenko of Manhasset to place third at state championships
Ethan Solop of Roslyn returns against Max Golubenko of Manhasset in the third-place match during the state boys tennis championships on Sunday at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing. Credit: Louis Lanzano
State titles were not on the menu for Long Island’s boys tennis players competing in the state individual championships on Sunday. Alternatively, county title rematches were plentiful and they proved quite intriguing.
Before any of the scheduled action could commence, however, there was the matter of completing the singles semifinal between second-seeded Max Golubenko of Manhasset and third-seeded Sam Saeed of Scarsdale. The match was halted at one set apiece just after 11 p.m. on Saturday due to nine hours of rain delays and the closing time of the USTA National Tennis Center in Queens.
Golubenko was betrayed by his serve in the final set as Saeed broke him four times and rode an array of strong passing shots to earn a 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory. In the other semifinal, which was completed on Saturday, No. 1 Alexander Suhanitski of New Rochelle defeated Ethan Solop of Roslyn, 7-5, 6-2. Suhanitski would go on to defeat Saeed for the state singles title, 6-3, 6-2.
But the third-place match was a highly competitive rematch of the Nassau singles championship between Solop and Golubenko. Golubenko, who had beaten Solop twice in team play, won in straight sets in the county final on May 18.
Solop rolled through the first set on Sunday before Golubenko locked in to take the second set in a tiebreaker. Solop, a Villanova commit, had a pair of forehand winners as he broke serve in the 11th game of the third set.
Golubenko, a Trinity College (Connecticut) commit, showed his strong will in the 12th game by warding off four match points before Solop completed a 6-2, 6-7 (4), 7-5 victory.
“The first three [match] points were out of my control — just him making great shots,” Solop said. “I hung in there, thinking, how long can he keep it up?’’
“Winning my last high school match feels great, especially after losing to him three times,” he added. “That hadn’t happened to me in any season before.”
“Winning the state [championship] was my goal and I didn’t really feel like setting a new goal right away, but when [Solop] won the first set, 6-2, I realized I couldn’t just lose like that,” Golubenko said. “After the three match points, I thought I had him. But I didn’t have him.”
The match for fifth place in singles was also a county championship rematch. Shashank Pennabadi of Ward Melville avenged his three-set defeat in the Suffolk final by beating the hard-serving county champion Samuel Lopez-Cardenas of Whitman, 6-3, 6-4.
“I wasn’t the county champion, but it’s pretty sweet to beat the person you lost to,” said Pennabadi, a South Carolina State commit. “That loss was certainly motivation for today and I’m glad about how I did it.”
“It was hard to lose here, but being the county champ is a big deal for me,” said Lopez-Cardenas, an Ithaca College commit.
In the fifth place match of the doubles draw, there was a re-match of the Nassau County semifinal between Ben Wiese and CJ Bravo of Garden City, who won that tournament, and Nikhil Shah and Aayan Mehta of Syosset. Wiese and Bravo re-affirmed their position in Nassau by breaking the Trojans’ serve three times in the third set of a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 win.
“Winning in the state tournament feels even bigger than the county because it’s a bigger tournament with the best teams from all over the state,” Wiese said.
Clarkstown South’s Christopher Cho and Pratik Nayak beat Geneva’s Drew Fishback and Tucker Fishback, 6-3, 6-4, for the state doubles crown.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
