How Rockford Christian tennis player gutted it out to reach the state title match

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS — This isn’t how Finley Buelte wanted to play.

But it’s how the Rockford Christian senior needed to play to become the second Rockford-area player to reach the boys state tennis championship match in the last 25 years.

Buelte reached the Class 1A singles finals Saturday morning by edging Kiran Garapati of Chicago Latine in the semifinals.

Buelte, the No. 2 seed, lost 7-5, 6-4 in the finals to top-seeded Nicholas Patrick of Rock Island Alleman despite struggling with his first serve. Patrick had lost just nine games in 10 previous sets at state, including only one in the first set of his five previous matches.

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"I am excited," Buelte said. "I got close. And I gave it my all."

"He was an unbelievable player," Patrick said. "Great strokes. Great return. Great volleys. I had a couple of big shots in big moments and was lucky to come out with the win."

Buelte won 7-6, 7-6 in the semifinal against Garapati, who won the state doubles title last year with his brother, winning the tiebreakers 7-4 and 7-2. And the No. 2 seed did so by playing less aggressively than normal in a marathon match that lasted over two hours for only two sets. Instead of blasting forehands all day, Buelte mixed in a lot of backhand slices and looping topspin forehands with his power shots — instead of the blast away all day style he uses in practice with his private coach Branden Metzler.

“That’s what I do with Branden,” Buelte said. “That’s what I would like to do. But when it’s not going in, you can’t do that. You have to shift your play toward something that actually works.

“I played well for what I had. I didn’t have the best, but I found a way to win. I couldn’t put the ball away like I normally do. I was spraying my forehand wide because I was pulling my body instead of staying through it. And I was getting tentative because it was a very close match.”

Three years ago, in a rain-delayed match that was moved inside and didn’t finish until more than six hours after it began, a hard-hitting Buelte was upset in the sectional finals as a freshman by Freeport’s Preston Engel, who was losing badly until he changed to a safe, just-keep-it-in game.

Buelte never did that Saturday, but he did dial it down and save his big shots for big moments.

“What Preston did at sectionals was very smart, because I was a one-hit player then,” Buelte said. “I hit the same way the whole time. That’s what I tried doing today. I mixed it up a little bit. And so did (Garapati).”

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The semifinal win meant Buelte joined Belvidere North’s Anderson Park (2017 in Class 1A) as the area’s only state boys tennis finalist since Guilford’s Kevin Park in 1996.

Guilford’s Tracy Fenelon also finished second twice in the old one-class system, in 1978 and 1979, before missing the state tournament his senior year with an illness. Rockford West’s Dan Wikse became the area’s only state champion in 1965.

In the semifinal, Buelte started slowly in the first set and had to break serve twice just to reach the tiebreaker, with Garapati serving for the set at 5-4 and 6-5. Buelte took inspiration from a Rafael Nadal quote after the all-time Grand Slam winner had rallied to win from two sets down.

“I was talking to myself, saying ‘You’ve got to be like Rafa.’ He said you always have a chance,” Buelte said. “That just stuck in my head; 5-0 or 0-5, I want to keep fighting back. That was the motivation for breaking there.”

The tiebreaker was 3-3 when Garapati made two unforced errors. A Buelte passing shot then made it 6-4 and he won the set when Garapati dumped a drop shot into the net.

In the second set, Buelte fell behind 3-5 with his serve broken three times. But he broke back himself three times in a row to send the match into another tiebreaker. “Neither of us could hold serve,” Buelte said.

In the tiebreaker, Buelte jumped ahead 4-0. He won the first three points with three strokes; Garapati dumped a short Buelte service return into the net and Buelte followed that up with an ace and a service winner.

“I was very surprised; the whole match had been close up until that point, like deuce almost every game,” Buelte said. “That was crucial. Getting a big lead in the tiebreaker is mentally rough on the opponent. It makes him get a little bit tentative. And it made me more freeon my serve. My serve wasn’t going in today, but when it did, it came at the right time.”

Buelte was undefeated on the season until losing to Patrick. He had his serve broken three times in the first set, the last at 5-5 when he came within two points of taking his first lead. He then got broken to start the second set, double faulting on the very first point.

At that point, he had been getting in maybe 25 percent of his first serves. But after adjusting his toss, he held serve four times in a row. But this time, he couldn't break back himself, with Patrick holding all five times he served for the 6-4 win.

"I just had to get that first serve going," Buelte said. "My (private) coach from Arllington Heights says, 'Once your first serve gets going, you can hold and compete with these big guys. I just wasn't getting that in at first."

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Also in the tournament: Auburn junior Sharankumar Kamaraj in Class 2A and Rockford Lutheran sophomore Tyler Brinkmeyer in 1A were the only local players besides Buelte to win their first-round matches. Both then lost their next two and were eliminated.

The Auburn doubles team of Drew Licari and Dhruv Ramaswami also finished 1-2, as did Guilford senior Joe Gesmer in singles, with both winning their first consolation match. The other three local qualifiers in Class 2A lost both their matches: Hononegah’s Arun Kumar in singles and Peter Breiten and Austin Kirwin in doubles and Guilford’s Wyatt Lane and Andrew Roberts in doubles.

In Class 1A, Rockford Christian’s Christian Ciembronowicz and Brandon Istad finished 1-2, while RC teammate Chatham McIlroy and Belvidere North brothers Jackson and Spencer Kohls lost both their matches.

Matt Trowbridge is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at mtrowbridge@rrstar.com and follow him on Twitter at @MattTrowbridge. Sign up for the Rockford High School newsletter at rrstar.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: IHSA tennis: Rockford Christian Finley Buelte plays for 1A state title