Half Moon Bay sweeps Peninsula Athletic League tennis titles

The Cougars were in both the singles and doubles finals at San Mateo High School and they came away with both titles.

Charlie Underwood, a junior who missed most of the regular season with an injury, put on a dominant performance as he cruised to a 6-0, 6-1 win over Aragon freshman Veraaz Kahn in the singles championship match.

In the doubles final, the No. 2 team of Brian Booher and Evan Alexander — who took turns filling in for Underwood at No. 1 singles during the regular season — teamed up to post a 6-4, 7-6(3) victory.

It is the first time the Cougars have swept both PAL championships.

“I knew we had talent,” Booher said. “We said we just have to come to play.”

Despite playing just four regular-season matches, “tweaked my left hip flexor,” Underwood said, there was no question he was the No. 1 seed. Menlo-Atherton coach Sorenson said Underwood came into the match as the highest-ranked player in the PAL. Using the Universal Tennis Rating, a mathematical formula that comes up with a ranking, Sorenson Underwood’s rating was a 10.8.

No other player in the PAL was as high as 8.

Despite his lack of playing time during the PAL season, there was no rust on Underwood’s game. He came back for the regular-season finale before winning his first three matches in the PAL championship, dropping just one game.

With punishing ground strokes and a delicate touch at the net, Underwood was no match for Kahn, the No. 3 seed.

“I didn’t really feel any pressure,” Underwood said. “I just came to play my game.”

Half Moon Bay is not known as a tennis hotbed, but Underwood is the third in a line of outstanding singles players to come from the coastside. Devin Nerenberg made it to the PAL singles championship match in all four years of his high school career — losing to Aragon’s Steve Benvenuto in 2005 and 2006, and to Menlo School’s Daniel Hoffman in 2007 and 2008.

In 2014, Drew Davison came along. After finishing second his freshman year and taking third place his sophomore, Davison dominated the PAL in 2016, going undefeated in winning the singles title.

Underwood is familiar with those former Cougars, having practiced with both.

“Devin is like best friends with my dad,” Underwood said, adding that Nerenberg went on the play collegiately at UC Santa Barbara. “Definitely look up to him.”

Kahn struggled with Underwood’s power game. He made a lot of uncharacteristic errors as he knew he had to take more chances if he was going to have any shot at upending Underwood.

“He was really good,” said Kahn, who dropped a 6-0, 6-1 decision to Underwood during the regular season.

“I was being really inconsistent because I was trying to hit winners.”

Khan lost the first set at love, 6-0, and was down 5-0 before he finally won a game, preventing the double bagel.

“I wanted to get at least two (games),” Kahn said.

In the doubles final, Booher and Alexander took on Burlingame’s Ari Mishra-Agoram and Ryan Gyde, the No. 4, who had pulled off the upset of the tournament by knocking off M-A’s top-seeded team of Ollie Novak and Mitch Herbst.

It was evident that Booher and Alexander were singles players who did not have a lot of doubles experience, as they stayed mostly stuck to the baseline. Alexander said the pair had spent about 45 minutes practicing playing doubles last week.

“I can’t really play at the net,” Booher admitted. “We just decided to play at the baseline.”

It took a lot of the first set for the Cougars to find their rhythm and the Burlingame pair took advantage, jumping out to a 4-1 lead in the first set.

But Booher and Alexander won five straight games to take the first set 6-4.

“I was just thinking what we could do to switch it up (to get back in the set),” Alexander said.

The second set was a back-and-forth affair with Burlingame taking a 5-4 lead and serving to win the set.

But the Half Moon Bay tandem broke Mishra-Agoram’s serve to tie the set at 5-all. HMB won its service game to take a 6-5 lead, but Gyde won on his serve to force a tiebreaker.

Booher and Alexander won the first five points in the first-to-7 tiebreaker. The Burlingame pair hung on for as long as they could, but could not hold off the Cougars, who closed out the victory with a 7-3 decision in the tiebreak.

In the third-place singles match, San Mateo’s Nicholas Throgmorton, the No. 2 seed who was upset by Khan in the semifinals, rallied from down a set to beat Menlo-Atherton’s Alex Parikh-Briggs, 5-7, 6-2, 10-6.

In the third-place doubles match, Carlmont’s Vikram Kacholiya and Jay Motamarry, the No. 6 seed, handed Novak and Herbst their second straight loss, posting a 7-6, 6-4 win.