Rishvanth Krishna wins CIF boys' singles championship at Ojai tournament
No one was talking much about Rishvanth Krishna heading into the 123rd annual Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament.
That changed Saturday afternoon when the Irvine University sophomore added his name to a distinguished list by winning the boys CIF singles championship with a 6-4, 6-4 triumph over another 10th-grader, Matteo Huarte of Mater Dei, in an all-Orange County final at Libbey Park.
Huarte trailed 5-2 in the second set, but pulled to within 5-4 before Krishna closed it out to become the fourth boys singles champion from University in the last five years at Ojai. Corona del Mar’s Niels Hoffmann ended the Warriors’ streak of three in a row by winning last spring.
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Past CIF singles champions at Ojai, the longest-running amateur tennis tournament in North America to be held in the same location (dating back to 1899), include Bobby Riggs, Stan Smith, Rick Leach, Jeff Tarango, Sam Querrey and Marcos Giron — elite company Krishna is happy to join.
Despite being seeded No. 3 in the 64-player bracket, the 16-year-old Krishna flew under the radar until Friday's semifinals, where he pulled off the upset of the weekend by beating top-seeded Lorenzo Brunkow of Palisades, last year’s runner-up.
Morning rain in Saturday's forecast prompted tournament officials to add an extra round Friday but it did not seem to rattle Krishna. Nor did falling behind 5-2 in the opening set, as he reeled off four straight games to take a 6-5 lead on his way to winning a tiebreaker and rolling to a 7-6 (4), 6-1 victory over Brunkow, a senior committed to UC Santa Barbara.
Huarte, the No. 6 seed, also pulled off a big surprise in a marathon quarterfinal earlier in the day at Ojai Athletic Club, splitting sets with No. 2 Cayden Wang from Crean Lutheran, 6-7 (5), 6-4, before prevailing 10-8 in a super tiebreaker. He then swept Jeremy Sieben of Flintridge Prep to set up a finals matchup with Krishna, who had edged Newport Harbor’s Ryan Honary 9-7 in a pro set in his first match of the day.
Saturday’s doubles final between the top two seeds saw the No. 2 duo of Caden Lee and Zhiyu Yuan from Beckman rally past No. 1 Trevor Nguyen and David Tran of Marina, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5). Neither tandem dropped a set in its first five matches.
It was the second consecutive Ojai doubles crown for Lee, who won it last year with his younger brother, Tyler. An Orange County duo has won the last four doubles titles at Ojai.
Eighth-seeded JiHyuk Im and Humam Alajeely helped University win the coveted Griggs Cup, awarded to the school with the most combined wins in singles and doubles, by advancing to the semifinals before falling to Tran and Nguyen, 7-6, 6-4. The Warriors have captured the Cup four of the last five times.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
