Eric Benderly wins deciding match as Commack takes LI boys tennis crown
Eric Benderly of Commack returns a volley in fourth singles during the Long Island boys tennis large schools championship against Roslyn at Anthony Casamento Park in Bay Shore on Monday. Credit: James Escher
This was never what Eric Benderly expected when he woke up on the day of the Long Island boys tennis team championship match.
Six of the seven matches were in the books and Benderly’s Suffolk champion Commack team and Nassau champion Roslyn had each won three. Now all the players and parents had eyes on the Cougars freshman and Bulldogs junior Zachary Sheena as they battled at fourth singles on the middle court.
Early on it looked as if Benderly was going to roll when he won the first set 6-1, but the lefthanded Sheena reached down deep to ward off three match points and win a second-set tiebreaker, 10-8. Enough palpable pressure to crush a freshman? Not Benderly.
He kept mixing soft lobs with hard forehands and eventually pulled out the 6-1, 6-7 (8), 6-1 victory on Monday as Commack won, 4-3, at Casamento Park. When the final point was scored, Benderly dropped his racket and extended both hands to the sky as his Commack teammates raced onto the court to mob him.
“That was an incredible feeling and not how I thought our day was going to go,” Benderly said.
Commack (21-0) is a Long Island champion for the first time and, as Southeast Regional champion, advances to a state semifinal on Friday at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
“He’s usually one of the first players to finish his match but this was his test,” Cougars coach Jimmy Delevante said of Benderly. “He is a super-tough, super-focused kid. He’s exactly the guy you want in that situation.”
“It’s a nerve-wracking and stressful situation with it all hanging on you,” Benderly said. “And it doesn’t feel any easier when you get off to a great start and then can’t finish it in the second set.”
Benderly added that the key to pulling out the victory was “mixing it up between hard and soft shots, mixing it up with kinds of spin. I want to keep an opponent guessing.”
Commack actually needed to win the last two matches . In a meeting of top names at first singles, Commack sophomore Edward Liao dispatched Bulldogs seventh-grader Drew Hassenbein, 6-1, 6-1. At third singles Cougars captain Matt Strogach beat Justin Sherman 6-2, 6-1. However the next three matches all finished as wins for Roslyn (16-2).
Bulldog Ethan Solop turned in an inspired performance to finish the season unbeaten at singles by downing James Yu, 6-1, 6-4 at second singles. Roslyn’s first doubles tandem of Gavin Koo and Matt Stone topped Joe Romito and Brennan Thomann, 6-2, 6-4, and second doubles duo Cayden Shen and Bartek Dziedziach topped Avi Gupta and Matt Schwartz, 6-2, 6-4.
Third doubles featured a marathon first set before Commack’s Saharsh Peddireddy and Jeffrey Behar outlasted Mike Granoff and Brian Toh for a 7-6 (1), 6-3 win to tie the match.
Then all eyes went to Benderly and Sheena. Sheena wore his emotion on his sleeve as the second set went to a tiebreaker. And each time he staved off the loss, his energy seemed to grow. When he won the set, he let out a scream.
Commack played in two of the previous three Long Island title matches and lost both. Having cleared this hurdle, the Cougars now set their sites on a state crown.
“This took all we’ve got, but we definitely have enough left in the tank to win two more,” Delevante said.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
