Longwood's Victoria Matos advances to girls tennis state final
Longwood’s Victoria Matos during the Girls Tennis semi final round of the NYSPHSAA Championship in Schenectady, N.Y., Friday, Oct. 28, 2022 Credit: Hans Pennink
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — Victoria Matos held her ground as she faced perhaps the hardest serve in the field at the state girls tennis championships Friday afternoon.
The Longwood senior repeatedly raced across the baseline to keep unloading her formidable forehand. She hurdled a couple of match points, and soldiered through a long third-set tiebreaker. Ultimately, she managed to survive and advance.
The Suffolk singles champion and No. 2 seed eked out a 5-7, 6-0, 7-6 (8) semifinal victory over Section I champion and No. 3 ranked Mia Palladino of Brewster Central at Sportime Tennis Club.
Matos will face No. 5 Victoria McEnroe of Bronxville in the final on Saturday at 9 a.m. McEnroe, the niece of tennis legend John McEnroe and daughter of 1989 French Open doubles champ Patrick McEnroe, defeated Cold Spring Harbor’s Nicolette Loeffler, 6-3, 6-1, in a Friday morning quarterfinal, before earning a 6-4, 7-6 (1) semifinal victory in the afternoon.
Matos trailed 5-6 in the third set to Palladino and managed to ward off a pair of match points to get to the tiebreaker. “Against her serve you’re really just hitting and hoping to get it back in,” Matos said. “I’m really happy I could dig in and win.”
Following Matos’ 6-3, 6-2 morning quarterfinal win over Julia Laspro of Clarence, she said “I was seventh here last year and being No. 2 comes with pressure but you have to handle it — if you can’t handle the mental side of this, tennis is not your game.”
Top-seeded Friends Academy senior Isabella Sha suffered a 6-0, 4-6, 3-6 quarterfinal upset by Brighton's Leyla Tozin. Palladino, a Stony Brook commit, outlasted No. 6 Garden City junior Nina Wiese 7-6 (5), 7-5.
Two more Long Islanders will have a crack to be state champions on Saturday. Port Washington seniors Dasha Perfiliev and Ellie Ross, the top seed, go for their second straight state doubles title. They will face No. 2 Chloe Bernstein and Jenna Kleynerman of Byram Hills.
The Vikings duo defeated Hannah Rose and Alexia Lansberg of Harrison 6-1, 6-4, after dropping the first two games in the second set.
“They got more aggressive in the second set and put us in a place we didn’t want to be, so we had to turn up our game,” Perfiliev said.
“You see us laughing and having fun because its keep us loose and playing our best,” Ross said.
They bested the Roslyn pairing of senior Ava Veniziano and sophomore Anika Tolat, 6-4, 6-4 in the semifinals. No. 5 Veniziano and Tolat upset No. 4 Elizabeth Norris and Kylie Mariano of Brighton, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, in the quarterfinals.
“We never gave up, even when the other team was winning all the big points,” Tolat said. “We started to win some deuce games and went from 2-3 to 4-3 and saw we could win it.”
Great Neck South senior Kyra Diaz and freshman Madison Lee came back from 2-5 in the first set to win a quarterfinal 7-6 (5), 6-4 over Jamesville DeWitt’s Monah Farah and Tara Pollock. Diaz and Lee were defeated in the semifinals.
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.