P.J. Greenbaum of Boiling Springs led throughout both sets of his 6-3, 6-2 win over Camp Hill's Paxton Fitzpatrick in the Mid-Penn AA boys' tennis singles finals at East Pennsboro High School Monday afternoon.
Greenbaum, the No. 3 seed, had not faced Fitzpatrick for two years, and their one previous encounter was a 6-3, 6-0 victory for Fitzpatrick.
"You've got to stick to your guns, stick to your weapons and do the best you can do," Greenbaum said of playing an opponent with whom he had limited experience.
His forehand was working well the whole match. The only time there was a little doubt to the match was when his serve became erratic.
"I had one game in each set with three double faults," Greenbaum said. "You can't win a game with three double faults."
In the first set, those double faults allowed Fitzpatrick to get within 4-2. Fitzpatrick then held serve to make it 4-3, but that was was close as the match would ever become.
"It took me a long time in the first set to figure out how to play him," top-seeded Fitzpatrick said. "I figured out I had to get things back to him without a pace, then he'd make errors returning them. It was a bit too far into the first set to balance that out."
Also, Greenbaum's serving touch returned. He had a couple aces to go up 5-3, then broke Fitzpatrick's serve to close out the first set.
"My serve was off and on," Greenbaum said.
Greenbaum had a few more aces in his last two service games of the second set, including an ace on the clinching point.
In the third-place match, Erik Etter of East Pennsboro defeated teammate Logan Gouse 6-4, 6-0.