It took a while Wednesday afternoon for Hixson junior Alex Condra to become completely comfortable with the role of being the hunted in the District 6-A/AA individual tennis tournament.
Not long enough that it really cost him, though.
Condra overcame what he considered a subpar day with two wins in the tournament at the Brainerd recreation complex, the latter -- a 6-3, 6-3 win over Red Bank's Daniel Cox -- giving him his second consecutive district singles championship.
The teams that dominated district play -- Hixson's boys and Brainerd's girls -- dominated the individual events. The Wildcats' Carl Phillips and Landon Goforth won the doubles title, defeating Red Bank's Cody Schmidt and Josh Reed 6-3, 7-6 (7-5).
The Lady Panthers' Yasmin Foster improved to 9-0 for the season by defeating 2014 district singles champion Alex Bonner of Central, 6-3, 6-2. Brianna and Brittany Canty made it a clean sweep, defeating Red Bank's Rachel Thornbury and Linnea Lantz, 6-1, 6-3.
All players who advanced to the final round Wednesday qualified for the region tournament, which will be held May 11 at Champions Club.
It will be Condra's third consecutive region tournament. He was district runner-up as a freshman, falling in the region semifinals. The next season he won the district, advancing to the region final before falling to former Grace Academy standout Blake Savard.
This season, he wants more.
"I could tell during warmups that I couldn't keep my forehand in," he said of his play Wednesday. "I decided to play my backhand as my strength. I figured as long as I could keep it in, I'd be fine."
He said the Wildcats' sweep of the titles "shows improvement from the beginning of the year." They were state semifinalists a year ago.
"This should be a big boost to our play and our self-confidence," he said. "It'll give us our confidence to play our best, but we have to keep working harder."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.