Palisades Tennis Ousted in Semis

It took until the semifinals of the City Section playoffs, but the Palisades High boys tennis team finally got what it wanted: competition. Problem was, the opponent proved to be more than just a speed bump on the road to the finals. The second-seeded Dolphins (12-3) played nervous throughout a 16 1/2 to 13 loss to third-seeded Granada Hills last Wednesday at Balboa Tennis Center in Encino’a defeat that cost Palisades a shot at redemption against defending champion El Camino Real, which routed Pali in last year’s final. Palisades defeated Granada Hills 15 to 14 1/2 in the semifinals last year and was expected to handle the Highlanders more easily this time. But when the Dolphins’ No. 1 singles player Chris Ko, who had not dropped a set to a City opponent all season, lost 6-1 to Phil Weisburd in the first rotation of singles play, it was clear the Dolphins were in for a tough afternoon. Ko recovered to win his next three sets at love, Pali’s No. 2 player Ben Tom also won three out of four sets while Stephen Surjue and Ariel Oleynik each won two sets. The match was decided in doubles, where Palisades lost seven of nine sets. The Dolphins’ top duo of Taylor Robinson and Darya Bakhtiar lost its first two sets, one of which was decided 8-6 in a tiebreaker, before recovering to win the third, 6-0. Sepehr Safii and Daniel Burge scored Pali’s only other doubles victory by beating Granada Hills’ No. 3 team. Safii and Burge also lost a tiebreaker. During the regular season, the City Section uses a straight-up format in which the Nos. 1, 2 , 3 and 4 singles players and 1, 2 and 3 doubles teams from each school play a two-out-of-three set match against the corresponding players from the opposing team, with a total of seven points available. But the playoffs incorporate round robin scoring in which every player or team plays one set against each of the other school’s players or teams, with singles sets being worth one point and doubles sets one and a half points for a total of 29 1/2 points. While the Highlanders (11-5) were shocking Palisades, top-seeded El Camino Real (16-0) was routing Taft 20 1/2 to 9. The Conquistadores went on to beat Granada Hills 21 1/2 to 8 in the finals for their fifth consecutive City team title, tying Palisades’ record, which the Dolphins set from 1969-73 and equaled from 1995-99.