Ratos earns tough win in season debut

West Aurora's Mike Holme hits a shot during a singles match Saturday at the West Aurora boys tennis tournament.
MarY Beth Nolan / For the Beacon news

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YORKVILLE -- Yorkville senior No. 1 singles player Tom Ratos just wanted to make sure he got a win in his season debut Thursday.

Ratos was able to do that against a game IMSA sophomore Nathan Yan 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) to help the Foxes to a 4-3 non-conference, dual-meet win.

It wasn't easy, however, as Ratos had to rally after getting his serve broken to win the second set in a tiebreaker against Yan, who will most likely be IMSA's No. 2 singles player all season. Waubonsie Valley transfer Gary Sheng, the sophomore brother of former IMSA No. 1 player Tony Sheng, will likely be No. 1, but was out with a respiratory illness.

"I just wanted to come out of it with a win," Ratos said. "I had the break early and I relaxed a little bit. I had the break and I thought I was good, but I had a couple of double faults and he broke me. I knew it wasn't going to be easy. It was a win, and that's all you can hope for in your first match."

Sheng was just one of a host of Titans (1-2) who missed the meet due to an illness. The top four doubles players were also not on the court. But seniors Matt Liu and Akash Moradia stepped up from No. 3 doubles to No. 1 and handled Yorkville junior Andrew Moment and his freshman brother, Jon, 7-6 (7-6), 6-4. Sophomores Eric Huang and Oscar To then handed Kyle Riemenschneider and Dylan Sutcliffe a 6-4, 7-5 defeat at No. 2 doubles.

"We've got a bunch of guys sick, so we had to bump everybody up," IMSA coach Jim Bernardini said. "Really pleased with a team that would normally play No. 3 to do so well at No. 1. We're hoping they're all back at full strength after spring break next week."

For Yorkville, junior Kyle Pamson took his first crack at singles after starting as a doubles player the first two years of his varsity career. The results were positive, as Pamson handed IMSA junior Lawrence Kim a 6-0, 6-2 defeat in his singles debut.

"Very impressive win for him," Yorkville coach Frank Yabsley said. "I was very happy with what he did. He's been an awfully tough doubles player up until now, playing varsity for three years. He's going to be something to reckon with."

Yorkville's other win on the court came at No. 3 doubles, as juniors Jairo Perez and Chris Robinson dropped the first set but recovered to beat IMSA seniors Tony Yunker and Grant Rotskoff, 1-6, 6-3, 6-1. The Foxes received the meet win due to the fact that IMSA did not have enough healthy players for the No. 4 doubles match.

IMSA's third win came at No. 3 singles, as senior Ishan Dahal recovered from losing the first set to top Yorkville junior Alex Jones, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1.