Cardozo High's Sahagun Clinches PSAL Tennis Singles Championship

The unbeaten streak of Cardozo High tennis standout Leighann Sahagun has made it all the way to the end of her high school tennis career.

Competing in the finals of the PSAL Singles Championships Tuesday afternoon at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing, Sahagun used her strong groundstrokes to take control of the baseline rallies throughout the match, firing off one final forehand past Becky Shtilkin of Goldstein to wrap up a 6-2 6-2 victory and defend her championship from last year.

“I knew beforehand that I was going to have to raise my game because she’s a very good player,” said Sahagun. “I felt like I did a good job of playing my game and staying focused throughout the match.”

With Shtilkin’s second serve often landing short in the service box. Sahagun used her forehand to play first strike tennis, often following up her groundstrokes with timely trips to the net for winning volleys.

Although Sahagun broke Shtilkin’s serve three times in the first set before racing out to an early lead in the second set, she often chastised herself loudly for missed shots during the match.

“It was more getting upset with what I was doing out there,” said Sahagun. “She’s obviously going to get her fair share of points out there, but I would get frustrated if it was a silly miss or a poorly executed shot.”

Apart from a pair of double faults to give back a service break at 3-1 in the second set, Shtilkin found herself forced to play defense and trying to draw errors from Sahagun throughout the match. On her first match point, a backhand error from Shtilkin’s error wrapped up the match and gave Sahagun a perfect record for her high school tennis career.

“I didn’t really think about the streak until I was serving for the match,” said Sahagun. “I really wanted to go out with a bang.”

In the doubles final, the Cardozo pair of Stelliana Falkas and Olivia Poon weren’t as fortunate, losing 6-4 6-1 to the top-seeded Goldstein team of Jackie Varnyan and Kimberly Salkin.

“I don’t think we played the big points as well as we wanted, especially the deuce points,” said Poon. “It was still a big surprise for us to get to the finals though and with both of us coming back next year, we’ll be better prepared for big matches like this.”

Sahagun has recently signed a national letter of intent to compete on the Women’s tennis team at Arizona State University.

Check back in with Patch for video of the award ceremony.