Hirschberg Rolls To Class LL Tennis Title

The outcome never seemed to be in doubt.

Top seed Daniel Hirschberg of Staples needed just over an hour to defeat No. 2 Tom O'Brien of Fairfield Prep, 6-2, 6-0,  Thursday afternoon in the finals of the CIAC Class LL tennis tournament at the Yale courts.

Hirschberg dominated the event, dropping just 10 games in his six matches after losing in the finals last year as a  sophomore.

"It feels great," he said. "I came up a little bit short last year but this feels awesome to win this year."

The final, originally scheduled for Hall High School on Wednesday, was moved to Yale after being postponed the previous day.

Hirschberg set on an early tone with a break in the opening game of the match. He also broke O'Brien in the seventh game of the first set, then added three more breaks in the second.

"(The early break) was a huge advantage," Hirschberg said. "I won the second set easier because I broke in that first game."

The top four players in each of the four classes earned the right to compete in the state Open championship, which begins Saturday, but Hirschberg, a junior, won't be participating because he has four final exams at Staples next week.

"He kept the ball on the court," O'Brien said. "We had really short rallies and he took advantage of it. He was real consistent. When he needed to make good shots, he made good shots. He stayed in the match. I did the opposite."

Hirschberg, who never has lost to O'Brien in singles play, made Thursday's match look easy, although he insisted otherwise, at least initially.

"At the beginning, it definitely was not easy," he said. "I really had to focus on sticking to my strategy because I knew that would work later in the match, but it really wasn't working in the beginning.

"I think the key was my coach (Kris Hrisovulos) just telling me to keep going, keep going, and that's why I rolled in the second set."

Hirschberg faced a break — his only one of the match — before holding serve in his first service game.

"I think he really wanted this," Hrisovulos said. "He executed the game plan almost to perfection. He's a great kid, he's been awesome all year. He's been the MVP all year."

Hirschberg's strength is his endurance, and Hrisovulos knew that O'Brien is an aggressive player by nature, so the plan was to break O'Brien's rhythm by changing the pace.

The Fairfield Prep senior began making too many unforced errors as the match wore on.

"Tommy's body language dropped, and (was) getting frustrated the latter part of the second set," Hrisovulos said. "You could just tell in his mind how frustrated he was getting. You have to give Danny credit. He executed what he had to do. He's been great  all year in big matches against big opponents."

Any chance O'Brien had of getting back in the match ended when he squandered a 40-15 lead on serve in the third game of the second set, putting him down 0-3.

From that stage, it seemed like only a matter of time. Hirschberg closed out his opponent with a forehand smash on his second match point.

"I definitely frustrated him, got back a couple balls he didn't think were coming back and ended up winning the points," Hirschberg said. "That caused him to try to hit harder and hit it bigger than he normally does."

O'Brien was amazed at Hirschberg's ability to return shots.

"No point's over until the ball bounces twice or hits the curtain," O'Brien said. "He gets to everything. He's just a great player."

Theorectically, winning the Class LL titles makes Hirschberg the top player in the state, although Trinity Catholic's Dante Terenzio, who was playing for the Class S title Thursday, has a full tennis scholarship to Louisville.

Hirschberg did not face Terenzio during the regular season because he was playing in a tournament when the Wreckers met Trinity.   

"I'd put (Hirschberg) in the top one or two," O'Brien said