Steady Lin Captures Singles Title

By LAUREN PETERSON

Dec. 5, 2001 12 AM PT

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Tracy Lin raced from midcourt to the back left corner to return a deep cross-court forehand by Lindsey Nelson on match point of their Southern Section girls’ tennis singles championship.

Lin lunged and sent the ball back over the net with a no-look, backhand lob. The ball looped high in the air and arced gently over Nelson’s head as she approached the net, landing softly behind her in the back right corner.

“Somehow, it got in,” Lin said.

So did a lot of her other shots, and the Anaheim Canyon High sophomore took a 6-3, 6-4 victory Tuesday at SeaCliff Country Club in Huntington Beach.

The top-seeded Nelson, a sophomore at Villa Park, had beaten Lin five times in a row in high school matches, claiming the last two Century League singles titles.

They played in single-set, round-robin matches twice each of the past two seasons as well.

But she has Lin’s number no more. Lin, seeded third, became the first Canyon player to a win a section title since the girls’ individual tournament began in 1971 by returning seemingly everything Nelson sent her way, overcoming deficits in each set.

She held a 2-1 edge in the first set, but Nelson broke her and then held serve to take a 3-2 lead before Lin won the last four games.

Nelson had a 3-0 lead in the second set, which featured several lengthy rallies and pinpoint shots from both players.

But Lin was more precise and consistent, pulling into a 3-3 tie and winning three of the last four games with well-placed winners.

“I was just trying to finish it out, and I’m glad I did it,” said Lin, who advanced to the final with a 6-3, 6-1 semifinal victory over Irvine Woodbridge’s Elizabeth Exon earlier in the day. “I was playing really well today.”

Nelson, on the other hand, wasn’t at her best. She suffered food poisoning Monday and said she considered bowing out of the tournament.

“I just didn’t feel well altogether,” she said.

A three-set semifinal, in which Nelson defeated fourth-seeded Natalie Braverman of Newport Beach Newport Harbor, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, didn’t help.

“After that match, I wasn’t not going to play this,” said Nelson. “But Tracy played an awesome match and I can’t take any of that away from her.”

Celia Durkin and Erin Everly of Calabasas had to work hard to become the third team from their school to win a section girls’ doubles title.

They did it with a 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-3 victory over Taylynn Snyder and Brittany Holland of Corona del Mar in the final.

That victory came after a 2-6, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2) semifinal victory over the Palos Verdes Peninsula team of Colby Comstock and Nicole LaBrucherie.

“We were just dead tired coming into this, but we pulled it out,” Durkin said.

Durkin and Everly took a 4-0 lead in the third set and stopped a Corona del Mar comeback to follow former Calabasas standouts Natasha Pospich and Stacy Jellen in 1989 and Shera Wiegler and Kirsten Gross in 1995 as doubles champions.

The title comes after each played singles most of the season, helping the Coyotes to the semifinals in the Division IV team playoffs.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

SINGLES CHAMPIONS

Winners of the Southern Section individual tennis tournament

2001: Tracy Lin, Anaheim Canyon

2000: Brittany Reitz, Corona del Mar

1999: Luana Magnani, San Marino

1998: Tiffany Brymer, Rio Mesa

1997: Marissa Irvin, Harvard-Westlake

1996: Zuzana Stunova, Rio Mesa

1995: Zuzana Stunova, Rio Mesa

1994: Amanda Basica, Peninsula