May 17, 2008

Local players get top seeds in CCS tennis tourneys

FROM DAILY NEWS DISPATCHES

Local players earned the top three seeds Thursday when pairings for the Central Coast Section tennis tournament were announced. The tournament will be played at Imperial Courts Tennis Club in Aptos.

Menlo School senior Daniel Hoffman, the Peninsula Athletic League singles champion, received the No. 1 seed. He will begin his quest for the CCS crown on Tuesday with a match against Sacred Heart Prep's Billy McCall.

Sacred Heart Prep's top player, Erik Blumenkranz, is seeded No. 2 and will meet Aptos' Brandon Gallegos in Tuesday's first round. Serra junior Spencer Talmadge, the third seed, opens play against Branham's Brooks Baldinger. Talmadge, with a record of 25-1, could face another local player, Half Moon Bay's Devon Neurenberg, the PAL singles runner-up, in the quarterfinals, which also will be played Tuesday.

Burlingame's Taylor Chaparro and Gunn's Rajeev Herekar, the SCVAL's singles champion, are the remaining local players in the 16-player field. Neither is seeded. They could meet in the second round.

The Gunn tandem of Ishan Bhadkamkar and Shravan Narayen is seeded first in the CCS doubles tournament, which also begins Tuesday at Imperial Courts. They won the SCVAL crown. Menlo-Atherton's Alec Haley and George Horowitz are seeded second. Sacred Heart Prep's Mark Westerfield and John Hansen are No. 3.

Other local teams that qualified: Burlingame's Palmer Mendelson and Steven Roston, Menlo School's Max Glenn and Patrick Chase, Palo Alto's Dan Schwartz and David Plotkin and Gunn's Andrew Meyer and Bharat Reddy.