By Audrey Carrico
NKyTribune sports reporter
The final matches of the 9th Region girls tennis tournament provided plenty of excitement Thursday as both the singles and doubles championships were decided by third-set tiebreakers at Tower Park in Ft. Thomas.
On one court, Cooper sophomore Kayla Johnson defeated Beechwood junior Sadie Jones, 6-3, 2-6, 10-2, in a back-and-forth singles battle between two first-time region finalists.
In the first set, Johnson took the lead on the first serve and stayed in control for a 6-3 decision. Jones rallied in the second set behind a dominant late run that turned a 3-2 lead into a 6-2 victory.
That left them to duel it out in a third-set tiebreaker. Climbing ahead 4-0 early, Johnson never looked back and claimed her school’s first region title in girls singles by a 10-2 margin.
“It’s important for me to stay focused on each point and not lose focus when I’m down,” Johnson said. “I know if I get too down on myself it will take me out of the match.”
As a freshman, Johnson made it to the region semifinals to earn a berth in the state tournament. Her season ended there, however, with a tough first-round loss to one of the higher seeds in the state bracket.
“My hope is that I’ll be able to enter the (state) tournament as a seeded player,” Johnson said of returning as a region champion.
The 9th Region girls doubles final was another thrilling match with the top-seeded Ryle duo of 7th grader Niveditha Selvaraju and sophomore Avery Love facing seniors Clare Shay and Sam Spellman of Notre Dame.
After a mixture of rallies by both duos, the first set found itself tied at 5-5 before Notre Dame came away with a 7-5 decision.
“We were in the lead for a lot of the first set,” Love said. “When we got beat out at the end of the set we told each other we weren’t going to end on that because that was just not our best playing.”
Regrouping after the setback, Love and Selvaraju came out swinging and claimed a 6-2 win in the second set to force their match into yet another third-set tiebreaker.
At first, it seemed as though Ryle would run away with the tiebreaker as the duo opened up a 7-2 lead. Shay and Spellman rallied to pull within 7-6 before Selvaraju and Love made a final push to come on top 10-6.
“They’re great players so we knew that it was going to be hard once they came back,” Love said after the victory. “We tried getting ahead early because we knew that if it was close if would be harder to win.”
This is the first time since 2019 that Ryle has won the 9th Region girls doubles title. That was the year that seniors Elizabeth Hamilton and Halimae Laurino went on to claim the school’s first state championship in tennis.
Love and Selvaraju will be making their debut in the doubles bracket of the state tournament that takes place May 28-30.