Anya Konopka wins Suffolk singles title; Sayville doubles qualifies for state championships

There’s always going to be disappointment on the final day of the Suffolk girls tennis individual championships. Someone wins and someone loses. But this year, there was going to be disappointment of a different kind.

When the second day of the three-day tournament concluded on Friday and the pairings were set for Sunday’s championship and third-place matches, all four doubles teams left the venue believing they had earned a spot in the state championships in Schenectady Oct. 26-28. Later that night, they learned that wasn’t the case.

Section XI girls tennis coordinator Mark Mensch had made an administrative error when he told all the tournament participants that Suffolk would have four doubles entries at the state tournament, when in fact it only had three. That meant that the loser of the third-place doubles match would not be going upstate.

As result there were two appeals Friday and a lot of angst. In an effort to secure a state invite, Harborfields won an appeal to resume the semifinal match against Bayport-Blue Point that it had withdrawn from because of an injury in the second set. And Bayport-Blue Point lost an appeal to memorialize the win in that match because Harborfields exceeded the interruption time permitted for an injury.

Meanwhile, Sayville was handed a must-win match for third place and the final Suffolk spot in the state tournament. In the end, it was Harborfields' Aya Deckman and Josie Rudloff who ended up with the disappointment of losing a state tournament spot they thought they earned less than 48 hours earlier.

The Westhampton pairing of Matilda Buchen and Julia Stabile took their second straight county title with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Bayport-Blue Point’s Emilia and Evie Romano.  

The Romano sisters began the day by winning the interrupted second set and then dropped only eight points in the third set as they polished off a 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 semifinal win over Deckman and Rudloff.

SEE PHOTOSPhotos: Suffolk girls tennis individual championships

Deckman and Rudloff — arguably the benefactors of the appeals — ended up on the outside looking in when Sayville’s Meredith Albertelli and Kylie Person earned a 6-1, 6-1 victory to take third place and earn Section XI’s final doubles spot in the state tournament.

“It was a shock when we found out what this match would mean after we thought we were already in,” Albertelli said. Added Person: “Our attitude was that we’d done it once and we could do it again.”

Deckman and Rudloff may have been the team most affected by the events that preceded Sunday. The pair is typically very strong but had trouble getting first serves in and made atypical unforced errors.

“The last 24 hours was really tough — there was a lot of pressure,” Rudloff said. “And Sayville? They were at the top of their game.”

“It was nice we got a second chance,” said Deckman, whose ankle injury halted the semifinal match with Bayport-Blue Point.

The Romanos seemed to bring an extra level of aggression to completing the semifinal.

“It was an unfair situation we were put in,” Emilia Romano said. “But we didn’t let anything creep in and ruin our focus.”

The imbroglio had the unfortunate side effect of overshadowing a pair of impressive championship performances.

Anya Konopka of Smithtown East got past Maria Perez of Middle County, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, for the singles title. The 5-10 junior lost a 5-1 lead in the third set as Perez raced back and forth on the baseline to get to every shot, but Konopka pulled it together in the end. Ross School eighth-grader Lola Dangin topped Smithtown West’s Bella Spilotros, 6-1, 6-1, for third place. All four semifinalists will be in the state tournament.

Konopka, who as county champion could gain a top-four seeding in the state tournament, said: “I definitely was having a mental block, but at 5-5 I shook it off."

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

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.