The Paris Tiger tennis team closed out its regular season with two wins.

Paris 6, St. Thomas More 3

URBANA — In singles, most of the matches started out close.

Robert Wells’ match at #4 was the only one we took a big lead early. Wellst finished off a 6-0, 6-0 sweep doing a good job of placing his shots with pace and also getting to the net to put points away.

The other match that started with a runaway first set had a very different ending. At #1, Marcus Mitchell played good points in the first set but was usually just keeping himself in the points instead of hitting shots to win them. He did a great job of turning that around in the second set, hitting winners and forcing errors to take a 6-3 win and finish it off with a 10-5 win in the tiebreak.

At #2, Drake Bartos was close early, but his opponent did a nice job of making Drake run down hard hit balls to take a 6-2, 6-0 win. Hudson David played good, consistent tennis against an opponent who hit without much pace but used extreme topspin to keep Hudson pushed behind the baseline. The two played a lot of long rallies but David was more consistent and also mixed in a few nice dropshots when he had the opportunity, taking a 6-4, 6-3 win.

At #5, Aidan Creech played a lot of long points, but couldn’t find any weaknesses in his opponent’s game, falling 7-5, 6-2. At #6, Carter Fox won a fairly quick first set 6-2 by taking advantage of some errors from his opponent. In the second set, Fox’s aggression dropped off a little and his opponent’s increased, leading to a much closer score. In the tiebreaker, Fox hit what looked to be a winner on match point that was called out. He was able to regroup and eventually getting the 6-2, 7-6(4) win anyway.

Going in to doubles up 4-2, Paris needed only one win, but STM wouldn’t go away easily, leading throughout the first sets of all three matches before Bartos and David finally took three in a row at the end of the first set at #2 to take it 7-5.

Paris played significantly better in the second set of all three matches.

“I was especially impressed with Marcus and Robert at #1 as they started to figure out how their opponents played, doing a much better job of being in the right spot for volleys and balancing aggressive shots with placement to take a 6-3 win after dropping the first set 6-2,” Coach Stefan Aydt said. Unfortunately STM had a few good breaks early in the tiebreaker to build a lead and also played much cleaner to take the 6-2, 3-6, 10-1 win. Not long after that match ended, Harris Romero and Creech clinched the meet for Paris with a 3-6, 6-2, 10-4 win at #3 by doing a better job of winning points at the net during the last two sets. David and Bartos picked up our final win by coasting through the second set for a 7-5, 6-1 final.

With the win, Paris finished the regular season 8-11 preparing for the IHSA Sectional at Danville.

Paris 3, Robinson 2

The Tigers eeked out a win Tuesday with a 3-2 win over Robinson.

In singles, Marcus Mitchell played the only rematch of the night against Eli Rosborough, who had beaten him 6-3, 7-5 earlier in the season. Tonight’s match was closer, with both players hitting a ton of hard and well-placed shots. Mitchell was more consistent than Rosborough in the first set, taking a 6-1 win that was much more competitive than the score looks. The second set was close early, but Rosborough did a better job of keeping Marcus moving so he couldn’t be as aggressive to take a 6-3 win and followed that with a 10-6 win in the tiebreaker.

At #2, Drake Bartos made his debut at a higher spot in the lineup after beating Hudson David head-to-head in Saturday’s LIC tournament. He also played a close match against an opponent who liked to come to the net. Both players did a lot of running, but Robinson was able to put away enough points at the net for a 6-3, 7-6 (4) win.

At #3, David picked up a nice 6-4, 6-2 win by hitting some well-placed shots to run his opponent around the court. Robert Wells picked up the quickest win of the night, taking a 6-0, 6-2 win by overpowering his opponent with hard hit groundstrokes and mixing in some volleys for winners as well. At #5, Aidan Creech won a match that was close throughout. At #6, Carter Fox had a rough night against a lefty who did a nice job of placing the ball to beat Foxr 6-3, 6-0.