Santino Advances at Junior Tennis Classic Championships

The Grandstand court at the USTA National Center has been home to some of the most iconic matches in U.S. Open history, and Douglaston junior player Anthony Santino had the opportunity to play (and win) on it this weekend.

Competing in the opening round of the BJK NTC Junior Tennis Classic Championships, Santino battled for more than two hours on the stadium court against Brooklyn’s Ira Rey-Anatole.

Saving his best tennis for the end of the match with some well-executed approaches to the net, a backhand sent long from Rey-Anatole allowed Santino to advance into the second round with a 6-0, 5-7 10-6 victory (a 10-point ‘super tiebreak’ was used in lieu of a third set for all tournament matches).

“I’ve been a ball boy at the U.S. Open and watched a lot of the top players on that court, so it was a cool experience,” said Santino, who is currently a sophomore at St. Francis Prep. “Once we got past the first game or two though, it started to feel like any other match.”

The first set was all one-way traffic for Santino. Appearing tense in the opening stages of the match, Rey-Anatole struggled to find the range on his ground strokes and serve as he committed numerous unforced errors. Santino was content to simply keep the ball deep and down the middle of the court on his way to a dominant first set win.

Rey-Anatole broke Santino’s serve in the opening game of the second set, and appeared more relaxed once he got on the scoreboard. With his powerful shots now finding the lines, the Brooklyn native began to take control of the rallies and push Santino around the court as he stormed to a 5-2 lead.

Santino began to exhibit strong fighting spirit, tracking down seemingly unretrievable shots and frustrating Rey-Anatole into making mistakes. He brought the match back to 5-5 while fighting off three set points, and saved two more of them while serving to stay in the set at 5-6, but a forehand error from Santino sent the match into the deciding tiebreaker.

“If we had played out the third set, it would have been a completely different story,” said Santino. “Because I knew the match would be over either way in about 10 minutes, I knew I could at least push through that amount of time.”

In the final tiebreaker, Santino began to rush the net in an effort to shorten the lengthy baseline rallies. The plan worked as Rey-Anatole began to feel rushed on his shots. The Douglaston native raced out to a 6-3 lead and managed to keep the momentum for the rest of the match.

“I was losing a lot of energy towards the end of the match,” Santino said. “Once we got to the final stages, I was trying to come into the net more and keep the points short because it seemed like he had more stamina.”

Santino, who has been training extensively over the summer with coach Danny Casesa as part of a scholarship program through the New York Junior Tennis League, said the pair have been working on a number of on-court elements to help take his game to the next level.

“The biggest emphasis has been on being aggressive,” said Santino. “I’m getting taller, but not really using enough of my height in my service motion.”

The changes in his game will be critical in the coming months as Santino will likely step into the No. 1 singles slot next year on the Varsity tennis team at St. Francis Prep. The team graduated five starting players this past season.

The finals of the BJKNTC Junior Tennis Classic Championships are scheduled for Monday afternoon. To follow Santino’s progress throughout the event, visit the tournament drawsheet.