Kadena’s Brooke Brewer beat Kubasaki’s Sophia Wurdinger 7-5, capturing her second straight Okinawa district singles teitle. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa – In a span of three days, Kadena’s Maddux Fisk and Brooke Brewer played about as much tennis as physics might permit – eight singles matches and two doubles matches each.
Together, the seniors repeated as Okinawa district singles champions on Wednesday at Kadena’s Risner Tennis Complex, Fisk downing teammate Gabriel Fino 6-3 and Brewer outlasting Kubasaki’s Sophia Wurdinger 7-5.
But oh, what a long road they all took to get to those finals.
“I feel like I’m about to fall down,” Fisk said.
He had good reason.
With the government still shut down and high school sports on the shelf as a result, Fisk and Brewer and their teammates arranged their own tournament featuring Kadena and Kubasaki players, played Monday and Tuesday, also at Risner.
Then DODEA-Pacific high school sports resumed Wednesday after a week on the shelf. Thus, the Okinawa district tournament which had been scheduled to start Monday began Wednesday, with Dragons and Panthers playing singles all over again.
“A bunch of matches,” Fisk said. He had won the unofficial tournament singles title as well, and last Oct. 9 beat teammate Micah Berry 6-3 to capture his first of two Okinawa singles titles.
Kadena’s Maddux Fisk has made it two straight Okinawa district tennis tournament singles titles. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Kadena’s Gabriel Fino finished second in the Okinawa district boys singles tennis tournament. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Though the final score seemed somewhat one-sided, Fino and Fisk went at each other with spirited, lengthy rallies, which Fisk ended up getting the best of in the end.
“He’s fast and always able to keep the ball in play. He’s very consistent,” Fisk said of Fino.
“He has really good shot selection and tennis IQ; he’s been playing a lot longer than me,” Fino said of Fisk. “He places his shots with good angles and speed.”
Likewise, Brewer and Wurdinger waged a tight battle, emblematic of the back-and-forth nature of their regular-season matches; one might win one day, the other another day.
At the start of the season, Brewer said, she felt confident she could repeat at island champion, “but as the season went along, I wasn’t so sure any more,” Brewer said of Wurdinger and Dragons teammate Josephine Zwierzynski. “They’re really good competition for me.”
Thus, Brewer said she had to take her game to a higher level.
“They taught me to play against whomever and figure out how to win or at least be competitive,” Brewer said.
The Okinawa district tournament continues Thursday with doubles and mixed doubles, the last regular-season competition for Kadena and Kubasaki. They play in next week’s Far East tournament Oct. 15-18 at Matthew C. Perry.
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