Knoxville has the biggest youth team tennis league in the South, and teams from that city won four of the six state titles decided this past weekend in Chattanooga.
After Knoxville Racquet Club teams earned the 12- and 14-under advanced championships with 19-1 and 18-2 match records Friday and Saturday, Cedar Bluff Blue defeated the Memphis Mustangs 39-23 in the 14s intermediate final and Whittington Creek from Knoxville topped Greeneville 37-24 for the 12s intermediate title Sunday at the Champions Club.
Hendersonville defeated Cookeville 32-24 for first place in 18s intermediate, and Knoxville's Bobcats were third with Shelbyville's New Kids fourth.
As the runner-up in Tennessee's designated wild-card age group for 2015, Greeneville gets to join all the state winners Aug. 21-23 at Columbia, S.C., for the USTA South Sectional. Greeneville beat the Chattanooga Titans 33-19 in a Sunday semifinal, and the Titans then lost the third-place match to the Knoxville Racquet Club Net Rushers.
The Chattanooga Lightning beat a KRC team, the Smashers, 39-23, for third in 14s. Four of the 10 Lightning players were on the 14s state champions last year, including 2015 team leaders Nicholas Webber and Rachel Hruby.
"We came in thinking we were going to win, so it was kind of a letdown," said Webber, an Arts & Sciences freshman.
Hruby was proud of the effort, however.
"This year here there were a lot of tough, close matches," the Baylor freshman said. "We fought enough for me to be OK with third. We played well."
Said coach Raul Fernandez: "It's always tough in the state. Our goal always is to make it to Sunday, and we've done that since 2012. We're missing out on sectionals this year, but they got better and that's the important thing."
Knoxville Racquet Club teams won national intermediate titles in 2009 (14s) and 2011 (18s), and program overseer and current 14s advanced coach Jim Frederick said "we've been lucky the last six years."
"In Knoxville we have about 1,200 kids playing team tennis in the summer, so we have a lot to pull from."