CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A year ago, then a sophomore, Huntington’s AJ Mercer learned the week of the WVSSAC State Tennis Championships he was not eligible to participate in the event after taking part in a national tournament that he won in California during the high school tennis season.
Yet after winning the No. 1 singles championship as a freshman, Mercer is back to being a singles champion thanks to his dominant showing Saturday at the Charleston Tennis Club.
While all Class AAA matches were moved from the Kanwaha City Community Center’s outdoor courts to a nearby indoor venue, it did nothing to slow Mercer, with the junior and University of Kentucky commit notching a 6-1, 6-1 win over George Washington’s Rohen Jones in a rematch of the 2021 final.
That year, Mercer needed a third set to win the title. This time around, he handled matters about as efficient as possible.
“I felt prepared coming into the match. I knew what I had working, what wasn’t working and I just wanted to play my game and see where it took me,” Mercer said.
Playing his game worked well throughout the day for Mercer, who later teamed with sophomore sophomore Ryan Patterson to post a 6-1, 6-1 victory in the doubles title match against Rohen Jones and Samir Jones.
“We’ve had some success this season. We try to do what we want to do based on what the other team gives us,” said Mercer, whose older brother JJ plays tennis at Kentucky. “We have a pretty good connection. Our games complement each other and it always helps playing with a friend.”
One day after helping lead University’s girls program to its first team championship, Hawks’ sophomore standout Lyla Byers was back at it again Saturday. Byers won the Class AAA singles title with dominant 6-1, 6-0 victory over George Washington’s Nadia Orcutt.
“Early in the match, it was about playing every single point. When you’re playing someone very good, you have to compete for every point and not let anything go by,” Byers said. “That’s what I did. I competed for every point and won some big points in the beginning. In the second set, I carried that on and tweaked my serve a little bit to get a few more first serves in and that helped boost my confidence. Then I could start playing more aggressive to close it out.”
With the team accomplishment from Friday, Byers felt it was imperative to avoid complacency.
“I’m very competitive so I always want to win everything,” she said. “Last night, I prepared myself and thought it’s not over yet. There’s still more I could accomplish and that’s what was important.”
Byers and her younger sister Sela Byers claimed a pivotal victory in a doubles match over Orcutt and the Patriots’ Zoe Charles one day earlier that went a long way in determining the team champion.
The duos met again in the doubles finals, and though Byers had momentum from the previous day as well as the singles title, Orcutt and Charles prevailed 7-6 (11-9), 6-4 in what became the final match of the season.
Orcutt, a sophomore who spent her freshman season at Charleston Catholic and was a Class AA/A No. 1 singles and doubles champion, believed the resiliency she and Charles displayed after trailing 4-1 in the opening set helped turn things around.
“We worked all season for this,” Orcutt said. “Zoe is my best friend. We have been playing together since we were 12. We’ve worked every year together for this exact moment.”
George Washington’s Nadia Orcutt and Zoe Charles win Class AAA doubles championship with a 7-6 (11-9), 6-4 victory over University’s Lyla Byers and Sela Byers. #wvpreptennis pic.twitter.com/Bn3ZoXbhbP
— Greg Carey (@gcarey938) May 13, 2023
Orcutt and Charles worked together throughout, and after a 5-1 lead turned into a tight second set, they closed things out in the fashion they aspired to.
“We’ve been playing together for so long that we are a well-oiled machine,” Orcutt said. “When one person goes, we know the other person has to be in another place right in that moment. That makes it function very well as a doubles team.”
Mercer earned a 6-1, 6-0 semifinal victory over Samir Jones, while Rohen Jones got past Hurricane’s Jacob Smolder 6-2, 6-1 in the other boys singles semifinal.
In the boys doubles semifinals, Patterson and Mercer topped Woodrow Wilson’s Alberto Simoncello and Ram Asaithambi. In the other semifinal, Cabell Midland’s Aiden Cottrell and Ashton Cottrell won the first over GW’s Jones and Jones 6-2 and led 1-0 in the second, before being forced to forfeit due to a medical emergency.
In girls singles semifinal play, Byers defeated Lakyn Campbell of Parkersburg 6-1, 6-1 and Orcutt topped Hurricane’s Savannah Allen 6-3, 6-3.
Orcutt and Charles earned their spot in the doubles final with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Campbell and Pallavi Sundaram, while Byers and Byers scored a win over Huntington’s Molly Archer and Olivia Akers.