Palisades wins record 14th consecutive City Section tennis championship

Before Tuesday afternoon’s City Section Open Division team tennis final, Palisades High players gathered in a circle for their pre-match ritual of seeing how long they could juggle a soccer ball without letting it touch the ground.

By the time the match was over three hours later, they had proven to be just as skilled in another sport, defeating Granada Hills 19 to 10.5 for their 14th consecutive upper-division team championship — setting the standard for most consecutive titles (nine in Division I and five since the Open debuted in 2018).

“Seeing their lineup it was very formidable and on paper, they had a good chance to win but we rose to the occasion,” said Hall of Fame head coach Bud Kling, who celebrated his 76th birthday last week. He has piloted the boys to 30 City titles since 1979 to complement his 21 championships in two separate stints with the girls, starting in 1985, for a combined total of 51 — more than any coach in any sport in section history.

Jex Frankel set the tone with two service breaks in the last three games to beat the Highlanders’ No. 1 player Kristian Sharma 6-4. He went on to beat Granada Hills’ No. 2 player David Tinajero 6-2 and No. 3 player Aydan Fatu 6-1 before being subbed out in the last rotation with the 15-point threshold already reached.

“Even though I was behind for most of that first set the thought of losing never crossed my mind,” said Frankel, a senior committed to Wesleyan University. “He’s a talented player but he’s only a freshman. I trusted my game and made an effort to get to the net since volleys are my strength.”

Sophomore Neel Joshi, who made it to the semifinals in the 16s singles draw two days before at Ojai, won all three of his sets at No. 2 singles, including a tiebreaker over Fatu that put top-seeded Palisades on the verge of clinching. The No. 2 doubles team of Caleb Scott and Zach Cohen got the decisive point and a half with a 6-2 win versus Granada Hills’ No. 2 pair of Leo Sun and Dominic Ablakhad.

James Truong and Christian Camarillo swept 6-2, 6-1, 6-0 at No. 1 doubles for second-seeded Granada Hills, which entered the contest at Balboa Sports Center in Encino undefeated in 14 matches.

The teams have met in the finals every year since 2015 (the 2020 season was canceled because of the coronavirus) and nine times since the Dolphins’ latest run began in 2009. Though the Highlanders are still in pursuit of their first crown, Palisades upped its record total to 39 since the school opened in 1961. A distant second on the all-time list is University with 14.

“The last thing we seniors wanted was for the streak to be snapped on our watch,” Frankel said.