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NICHOLASVILLE Over the last three state tennis tournaments, Ashland junior Alden Johnson has steadily progressed up the ladder in the pursuit of a singles title.
This year was different.
Despite being a No. 4 seed, Johnson repeated last year’s result by bowing out of the tournament in the quarterfinal round.
Early on during the three-day KHSAA State Tennis Championships presented by UK HealthCare at the Top Seed Tennis Center, Johnson sensed something was different.
The mental edge which carried him throughout the season was starting to fade and, among other things, it started to impact his serving.
“Coming into the tournament, I had a good amount of confidence,” he said. “I thought I was going to be able to make a farther run in the tournament, but sadly it ended today in the quarterfinals.”
Surprisingly, one thing that undid him was something he seemed to have in abundance.
“You get confidence from wins and without confidence it’s hard to win,” he admitted. “So, I think I’m going to have to over the summer travel, collect some wins and see where it goes from there.”
He was able to get through Tuesday’s first-round match with Harrison County’s Dason Herrington relatively unscathed, winning 6-1, 6-1 but things slowly started to unravel from that point.
“Coming into the first match, I had to get the nerves out at the beginning and then had solid ground strokes and was just playing a solid game,” he said. “Going into the second match, I started to have the ‘yips’ and I was mentally struggling with serves and it kind of snowballed down to the past few matches.”
That second match was a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Brayden Johnson of Edmonson County.
On Thursday morning, the struggles continued. Yet, he was still able to hold off No. 9-16 seed Jacob Holland of Lexington Catholic, 6-4, 6-2.
“Definitely, the serves was the big issue in the match,” he said. “I don’t know how many double faults I had, but I knew if I kept the ground strokes clean and just played a solid game off the ground, that I’d be able to pull one out.”
Over the last four years, subtracting the 2020 season which was canceled due to Covid-19, Johnson advanced at least one round farther than the previous campaign.
He gave No. 9-16 seed Alex Horn of Lexington Christian a battle as a seventh-grader, before eventually falling 7-5, 6-1. In 2021, he collected a walkover win in his first match and picked up his first contested victory by defeating Monroe County’s Brandon Sheffield, 6-0, 6-1 in the Round of 32. That season ended at the hands of top-seeded and eventual state champion, Eli Stephenson of St. Xavier.
Last year, he won three matches, topping Rowan County’s Chris Gray, Villa Madonna’s Shayaan Ahmad and No. 9-16 seed Dylan Mather of Owensboro, before falling to No. 3 seed Eli Wood of North Oldham.
The normally feisty Johnson was relatively subdued in his quarterfinal match against No. 5-8 seed Samuel Gurevich of North Oldham, and it showed in his body language.
“I was trying to pump myself up a little bit to just get going,” he said.
Right from the start, Johnson could sense he was in trouble. He trailed 3-0 and then 4-1.
“Like halfway through the first set, I noticed that I was being punished for the short balls that I was hitting,” he said. “I wasn’t always scrambling to get another shot back in, but I knew that I was always on the defensive end.”
It was a similar start to the second set with Gurevich again pulling ahead 3-0 and 4-1. In the end, it was just too much of a deficit for Johnson to overcome as Gurevich claimed a 6-1, 6-2 win.
Clearly disappointed, Johnson was almost contrite after the match.
“I had a few break points to break his serve and I thought I was going to have the chances, but I just couldn’t win the big points there,” he said. “He just played better than me.”
Johnson was the lone area representative out of 24 to advance to Day 2 of the tournament.
Rose Hill Christian freshman Lakin Deerfield was a winner in her first match on Tuesday, but couldn’t pull off an upset over No. 9-16 Sophie Hollowell of McCracken County in the Round of 32 to extend her stay in the tournament.
Still, she was upbeat and optimistic about her future, despite like Johnson, giving an honest appraisal of her play.
“It wasn’t a very pretty (match), but sometimes you just have to do what you can to win, and my shots weren’t really going in, so I just had to take some off of it and hit through it and hit through my shots with a lot of topspin in it and really go to the backhand a lot. That’s usually the person’s weaker standing point,” she said of the adjustments she made in her 6-3, 6-1 win over Magoffin County’s Makinna Caudill. “So, I just went to the backhand all I could and that’s how I won it.”
Some of those same issues plagued her in her match against Hollowell, but this time Hollowell was able to take advantage of it to the tune of a 6-0, 6-0 victory.
“It was rough. I have a lot to work on with my backhand. My backhand is my definite weak point,” Deerfielid said. “She was really good. She could aim well. She hit hard. She hit loopy balls and that’s kind of what did it. We had long points. A lot of points went to deuce, but she just knew my weaknesses and that’s what she did and just used them there.”
When she could, Deerfield played to her strengths.
“My forehand is my biggest weapon. I can hit down-the-line forehands pretty good and I can also hit my cross-court shots pretty well, and my drop shots. and those were all really on today,” she said. “It was just my backhand was really off today and that’s what through me off. But other than that, it was a good day.”
In 2022, Deerfield teamed with Bellamee Sparks and the pair were seeded 9th-16th.
“It’s obviously a big transition between doubles and singles. There’s a lot more strategies and a lot of that. I’m not a net player. I don’t like the net,” she said. “Last year, I was at the net a lot and I got comfortable with the net and that helped me a lot this year with hitting approaches and getting into the net, and that’s also something that helped me big.
“I’ve grown a lot since last year,” she continued. “I’ve learned a lot more playing with bigger competition after my matches last year, hitting with girls that were 10 times better than me. That’s what made me better.”
Day 1
Twenty-four representatives from the greater Ashland area qualified for Tuesday’s opening day of action at the KHSAA State Tennis Championships presented by UK HealthCare. However, only three won at least one match and only fourth-seeded Alden Johnson of Ashland advanced to Wednesday’s Round of 16.
Johnson dispatched Harrison County’s Dason Herrington, 6-1, 6-1, in the opening round and then came back in the afternoon and toppled Edmonson County’s Brayden Johnson, 6-2, 6-2. Johnson will face 9th-16th-seeded Jacob Holland of Lexington Catholic Wednesday at 8 a.m. Holland advanced to the Round of 16 after defeating Rowan County’s Chris Gray, 7-5, 6-2. Gray reached that round after out-lasting South Laurel’s Will Wagers in his opening contest, 7-6 (9-7), 6-4. Each of those matches were played at the Top Seed Tennis Center in Nicholasville.
Outside of the Gray-Wagers tilt, the most competitive area boys’ match came from Sean Clark and Nick Parker of Ashland who dueled Zach Hesse and Ashton Morrow of Wayne County. Hesse and Morrow came with with a 7-5, 6-3, victory. While in singles, Central Hardin’s Jacob Jiranek, a 9-16 seed, held off Russell’s Bryson Hill, 6-1, 6-2.
On the girls’ side, Rose Hill’s Lakin Deerfield took down Magoffin County’s Makinna Caudill, 6-3, 6-1, at the University of Kentucky’s Boone/Downing Tennis Complex. Deerfield’s day ended after falling to 9th-16th-seeded Sophie Hollowell of McCracken County, 6-0, 6-0.
Lawrence County’s Kennedy Gauze had one of the day’s most competitive girls’ matches. After falling in the first set 6-1 to Greenwood’s Kate Young, Gauze battled back and took the second set 6-3. However, Young walked away with the win after claiming the tiebreaker 10-6.
In doubles, the Russell duo of Bella Quinn and Ava O’Neal pushed Henry Clay’s 9th-16th-seeded tandem of Lilly Hartman and Eva Pace Cassidy. However the Blue Devils claimed a 6-4, 6-4, win. Likewise, the Morgan County team of Cora Beth Hammonds and Lily Litteral gave Corbin’s Olivia McArthur and Katherine Morton a battle before succumbing, 6-2, 6-3. Isabel Hensley and Abigail Justus of Rose Hill also put up a fight in their match, but Central Hardin’s 5th-8th-seeded pair of Katelyn Ditto and Annie Yates came away with a 6-1, 6-3, victory.
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