Tigers take tough loss with weather's assistance

Thursday, April 10, 2008
Nevada senior James Smith lets out a bellowing yell after scoring a point in a doubles tennis matchup against Bolivar's Brady Fox and Caleb Spinler. Smith and his teammate Ethan Holmes ended up losing the match 8-2.

By Chris Patch

Nevada Daily Mail

Nevada tennis dropped its fourth meet of the season 9-0 to Bolivar Thursday afternoon in extremely windy conditions at Nevada High School.

The wind was blowing hard enough to significantly affect the trajectory of a shot, but that didn't stop Bolivar from holding Nevada (1-4) to a grand total of three games in doubles play en route to shutting them out.

Nevada played slightly better in singles and made two matches competitive but were never really a factor in the meet. Assistant coach Lex Blue thought the Tigers might not have been in the right mindset to play tennis.

"We started out pretty slow," Blue said. "I don't know if we didn't adapt to the weather. We were probably just shocked that we played tennis today after the forecast was so incredibly bad. But we came on and rallied and played a whole lot better in singles. It wasn't pretty, but overall we came back and, like I said, played better."

Though Nevada was more competitive, it didn't translate well to the scorecard. The Tigers managed to win a total of 16 games in six singles matches and were shut out in two. Ethan Holmes lost his No. 2 singles match to Bolivar's Grant Haun 0-8 and thought without the adverse weather the contest could have looked different.

"I think I could have played a lot better if the wind wasn't how it is today," Holmes said. "It was crazy out there. I couldn't control the ball, I couldn't see the ball very well. He was pretty good but I really think I could have done a lot better without the wind."

It was so windy during Holmes' match one of his shots briefly crossed the net before being blown back over to Holmes' side for a Bolivar point.

"I put a lot of slice on it and I hit it really short and kind of high up so the wind brought it back, the slice brought it back," he said. "It came back over, I lost the point."

Dominic Habjan didn't look fazed by the wind in his 6-8 loss to Auggie Newberry. Habjan was close for most of the match and briefly looked like he could make a run at the Tigers' only win before Newberry took advantage of his soft shots and shut the door on the possibility.

"I played pretty well," Habjan said. "I didn't really hit it to his backhand enough, his backhand was definitely his weaker stroke. Sometimes they just fall that way. I definitely wasn't hitting it hard enough. I was being too conservative."

Nevada tennis has a busy schedule starting next week with a home meet against Mount Vernon 4:30 p.m. Monday. A home meet with Webb City Tuesday is followed by a trip to Neosho County Thursday and the Thomas Jefferson Invitational Friday.

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