Lower Merion duo capture Central League doubles championship

Ardmore >> The talented Lower Merion sophomore duo of Vik Miller and Justin Minerva captured the Central League doubles championships May 4, defeating the Radnor pair of Max Safanov and Garrett Spillerman, 6-2, 6-3, in the championship finals at the Springfield Healthplex.
“What impressed me most was their ability to communicate between each other,” said Lower Merion boys’ tennis head coach De-Sean Fennell. “Usually during the Central League tournament I go out to the court every other changeover to point something out, but between the semifinal match and final, I went out to speak to them only once. Anything that I saw out there, either one of them already knew how to approach it, and how to use that to their advantage.”
Miller, who finished second at the recent Central League singles championships, has lost only two matches during the regular season at first singles. Last year, as a freshman, he played third singles for the Aces.
“Justin and I have played together for a couple of years,” said Miller. “It’s easy for us to play together.”
Minerva, who played second singles this spring and as a freshman, won the Central League singles title as a freshman.
“I think that the key to victory was keeping our strategy simple and finding our way into net as quickly as possible,” said Minerva. “Throughout the whole tournament, we were only broken one time, which was a good representation of how we wanted the matches to go. We both trust each other’s ability to hit the serve effectively to set up the net person and finish the point.”
Miller and Minerva advanced to the finals after defeating Conestoga’s Matt Walton and Peter Auslander in the semifinals, 6-2, 7-5. In the other semifinal, Safanov and Spillerman defeated Aseda Adebamgbe and Ethan Blum of Lower Merion, 6-4, 6-2.
In the third place match, Walton and Auslander defeated Adebamgbe and Blum 6-3, 6-1.
In the fifth place match, Strath Haven’s Finn L’Armand and Dylan Taylor defeated Conestoga’s Jack Ginter and Stephen Le, 6-3, 6-4.
In the seventh-place match, Harriton’s Jay Ramaswamy and Matthieu Benoit defeated Radnor’s Luigi Giacomucci and Ethan Lee, 6-2, 6-3.
The top six duos in the Central League doubles championship advance to the District 1 doubles championships.