WATERVILLE, Maine — Olivia Leavitt of Falmouth moved closer to her third consecutive championship while Mount Ararat of Topsham’s Nick Mathieu made a strong play for his first title as the top seeds advanced Saturday during Round of 16 and quarterfinal play in the high school state singles tennis tournament at Colby College.
Leavitt yielded just two games while dispatching Claire Valley of Brewer 6-0, 6-0 and No. 8 seed Lena Rich of North Yarmouth Academy 6-1, 6-1.
“I’m playing good, feeling good,” said Leavitt, a senior who will attend Brandeis University in the fall. “My body’s healthy and that’s the most important part.
“I’ve worked on being more aggressive and on my fitness so I can stay in points longer. I’m putting points together better now, and my serving percentage has been high, which really helps.”
Mathieu, a sophomore who reached last year’s boys final, topped Fort Kent’s Ryan Chasse without losing a game before erasing a 3-2 first-set deficit to defeat No. 8 Luke Horton of Mount Desert Island 6-3, 6-1 and earn his spot in Monday morning’s semifinals set for the Racket and Fitness Club in Portland.
“I’m feeling more mentally mature this year, like I know what to expect in the tournament, which I really didn’t last year coming in as a freshman,” said Mathieu, the No. 4 seed in 2014. “I’m a lot more familiar with this environment now.
“I don’t feel much pressure, but I know it’s there because people expect more from me this year, I think.”
Mathieu will be joined in the semifinals by No. 2 Isaac Salas of Portland’s Waynflete School and two boarding students from Serbia, No. 3 Luka Stevic of Lee Academy and No. 4 Teodor Antelj of Fryeburg Academy.
Mathieu will face Antelj and Salas will meet Stevic in the semifinals.
“There’s tons of competition this year,” said Mathieu. “I don’t think the seedings really mean that much, really, because one through four anyone has a chance to win the tournament.”
The top four girls’ seeds also qualified for the semifinals, with Leavitt set to play No. 4 seed and Falmouth teammate Julia Brogan while No. 2 Bethany Hammond of Belgrade and Saint Dominic Academy of Auburn will face No. 3 Rosemary Campanella of Wells.
Hammond, a semifinalist as a freshman in 2014, fought off a strong first-set challenge from Natalia Mavor of Cheverus of Portland before moving on to a 6-2, 6-0 victory in the Round of 16, then topped Caroline Ray of Falmouth, the No. 10 seed, 6-1, 6-4 in the quarters.
“Both matches were definitely good competition, it was good to actually get some good competition,” said Hammond. “I definitely had to kick it up a notch.”
Brogan, a junior, lost just one game in her first match of the day against Megan Nathanson of Scarborough before outlasting No. 5 seed Izzy Evans of Greely of Cumberland Center 6-4, 6-3. The freshman Campanella scored straight-set wins over Christine Levesque of Mount Ararat and No. 11 Margot Andreasen of Portland.
Salas, a four-year veteran of state singles tournament play, advanced to the semifinals for the second straight season by defeating Peter Mao of Mount Ararat without dropping a game and then stopping No. 7 Victor Menezes of Saco’s Thornton Academy 6-2, 6-0.
Stevic and Antelj, first-year players on Maine’s high school tennis scene, each scored a pair of straight-set victories.
The versatile Stevic, among the top-ranked age-group players in his native country, used different strategies to secure his wins.
He gradually turned to a more attacking style featuring a powerful serve and effective net game to put away Matthew Jarmusz of Morse of Bath 6-1, 6-0 in the Round of 16.
Stevic took a more patient approach in the quarters and topped No. 11 Tristan Rother of Fryeburg Academy 6-1, 6-1.
“He had some good strokes and forced me to go back and play some defense because he was getting enough offensive points off his strokes,” said the 6-foot-3-inch Stevic of Rother, whose 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 Round of 16 upset of No. 6 Michael Mills of Cape Elizabeth was the lone three-set match of the day.
“Then I waited to the point where I could hit a deep ball to get my chances to attack.”
Antelj eased past Foxcroft Academy sophomore Fernando Caceras 6-1, 6-1 in his Round of 16 match before surging past No. 5 seed Aiden McGrory 6-2, 6-4 in the quarterfinals.
