MASON – Mert Oral has done it again.
The Ann Arbor Greenhills junior standout cruised to his third overall individual state title at the Division 3 No. 1 singles championship Wednesday at Mason High School.
Oral, a University of Michigan commit, secured his second straight title in No. 1 singles competition in D3, adding to his No. 3 singles title in Division 4 in 2018.
It didn’t take long for Oral to get going as he won 6-0, 6-0, in the opening round of the tournament over Forest Hills Eastern’s Sreejay Ramakrishnan, then took down Grand Rapids Christian’s Simon Volkema 6-1, 6-0 in the semifinals, before defeating Owen DeMuth of Bloomfield Cranbrook Kingswood in the title match 6-1, 6-0.
The top-seeded player in Division 3 closed out the postseason with a perfect 7-0 record after going unbeaten in last week’s team state finals, helping the Gryphons finish second in the state behind Cranbrook Kingswood.
Oral also defeated DeMuth 6-1, 6-0 in the team’s state finals and finished the playoffs dropping only three games in the 14 total sets he competed in between the two tournaments.
Oral will return next season as the favorite to win a fourth straight state title and could become only the sixth player in Michigan high school tennis history to win four overall state titles and only the eighth to win three No. 1 singles championships in a career.
Three other Ann Arbor-area tennis players also competed in the No. 1 singles tournament in Division 1 competition Wednesday.
Pioneer’s Stanley Rhodes fell 6-3, 6-2 to Bloomfield Hills’ Noah Roslin, Huron’s Angie Zhou dropped his match to Joshua Portnoy 6-0, 6-0 and Skyline’s Anthony Van Oyen fell 6-4, 6-0 to Gabe Brown of Athens.
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