James Stout And Dylan Patterson Capture New York Athletic Club Invitational by Rob Dinerman
Winner Matt Mackin, Finalist Tyler Smith
Finalist Stephanie Vogel, Winner Julie Cerullo
Winners Ashley West and Victoria Simmonds, Finalists Elise O’Connell and Julie Cerullo
Winners James Stout and Dylan Patterson, Finalists Peter Kelly and Josh Schwartz
Dateline February 13th
--- Pushed to a fifth game when their opponents staged a furious
eleventh-hour rally in the fourth, top seeds James Stout and Dylan
Patterson responded by racing out to a commanding early lead and never
looked back, defeating Josh Schwartz and Peter Kelly by a score of
15-13, 14-15, 15-8, 12-15, 15-10 this past weekend in the final round
of the eighth annual New York Athletic Club (NYAC) Invitational. It
marked the second NYAC Invitational title for both Patterson, who had
previously won this event with Steve Scharff in 2011, and Stout, the
defending champion by virtue of his march through the draw a year ago
with his Racquet & Tennis pro shop colleague Will Newnham. Schwartz
and Kelly, winners of this tournament in 2015, earned their way to this
entertaining 80-minute Sunday summit with a back-and-forth route-going
semifinal victory over Alex Domenick and Will Hartigan, while Stout and
Patterson took the balancing top-half semi in straight sets against
four-time Intercollegiate singles champion Yasser El Halaby and his
partner Coly Smith, who were coming off an admirable but highly
strenuous performance in an upset four-game quarterfinal win over
Addison West and Eric Bedell just a few hours earlier.
The multi-talented Stout, the reigning world champion in
rackets and a former U. S. Open winner in court tennis as well,
controlled much of the action in the games that his team won with his
athleticism, pace and unpredictable shot selection, while Patterson’s
solid deep-court game and sharp-shooting, especially on cross-drop
volleys to the front left, provided a perfect complement and allowed
this pair to for the most part carry the play, both territorially and
on the scoreboard. It is to the credit of frequent teammates Schwartz
and Kelly that they were able to extemporize, defend, cover for each
other and weather the Stout/Patterson storm as well as they did through
the first four evenly divided games, during which they grittily hung
in, converted the opportunities and openings that presented themselves,
and gratefully accepted Patterson tins (on a forehand reverse-corner
and a backhand straight drop respectively) on the final points of both
the second and fourth games. Perhaps drained by the substantial amount
of energy they had been forced to expend in rescuing the fourth game
with a late burst, and facing their second fifth game in as many
matches, Schwartz and Kelly sagged at the outset of the final stanza,
yielding the first three points and falling behind 6-1 and 8-3, and
they were never able to mount a serious comeback effort or to thwart a
resolute Stout/Patterson surge to the finish line.
In the women’s doubles final, Ashley West, Addison’s wife, and
her partner Victoria Simmonds, a recent top-15 on the pro women’s
doubles tour who was making her return to tournament competition after
giving birth to twins four months ago, triumphed in a well-played and
closely contested four games (15-11, 13-15, 15-13, 15-10) against
Princeton alumnae Julie Cerullo and Elise O’Connell. The latter duo
concentrated much of their attack on West, who, however, proved fully
up to the challenge by consistently fending off her opponents’ salvos
and scoring a number of winners of her own. After eking out a close
third game, West and Simmonds were never in trouble thereafter,
benefiting from a half-dozen Cerullo/O’Connell tins while staying
error-free themselves as the fourth and final game moved along.
Cerullo was able to earn a split on the day by
successfully defending her NYAC Invitational women’s singles title with
a tight though straight-game 11-8, 12-10, 12-10 final-round win over
Stephanie Vogel. The men’s singles final between Matt Mackin and Tyler
Smith went to former Trinity College co-captain Mackin, who, after
dropping the opening game, ultimately prevailed by a 7-11, 11-7, 11-8,
11-6 tally.
