Beyer’s Lewis claims MMC singles crown; Enochs’ Hayashi, Panchal win doubles

It’s been one heck of a spring for Beyer High School’s Ryan Lewis.

The super sophomore won his first Modesto Metro Conference title on Thursday, overwhelming Downey’s Nick Mendez 6-0, 6-0 in the final at Modesto Junior College.

But the MMC title was just the latest in a string of successes for the 6-foot-2 right-hander.

In March, Lewis won the Natomas Super Series as an unseeded player. A week before that, he won the Arden Hills Spring Junior Open Grand Prix. In both of those tournaments, he was victorious in the 18-and-younger age group even though he could have competed in the 16-and-younger category.

But winning the MMC gives him greater satisfaction than winning either of those United States Tennis Association tournaments – largely due to what transpired last year, when he didn’t drop a set on his way to a 12-0 regular-season mark, only to lose in the final to Enochs’ Jordan Hayashi.

“I did have that thought in the back of my mind,” said Lewis. “I didn’t want to choke again.”

With a sizzling serve and wicked ground strokes, Lewis had Mendez off-balance from the first game, when he hit a cross-court forehand to the corner that caught the runner-up leaning the wrong way.

“I’ve never beaten Ryan,” said Mendez, a sophomore who has faced the champion at least six times in MMC and USTA play. “So I had nothing to lose and I could just try my best to do my best … but that didn’t happen today. I feel like I beat myself and didn’t perform the way I should have.”

Would Mendez’s best have been enough to take down Lewis?

“It would still be very difficult,” said Mendez. “I’m not sure … because I’ve never beaten him.”

Only Hayashi, who battled injury this season, has ever registered an MMC victory over Lewis, who ran his overall league record to 31-1. And though Lewis admitted being nervous at the outset, it didn’t take him long to settle in.

“The first few games are the spark of the whole match,” said Lewis. “I can tell by those early games how I’m going to play for the rest of the match. When I went it up 3-0 and then won the first set 6-0 … I knew it was over.”

In the MMC doubles competition, Hayashi and partner Sohun Panchal teamed to beat Zak Hijaouy and Andrew Ng 0-6, 6-2, 6-1.

“I won singles titles as a sophomore and junior and a doubles title as a senior,” said Hayashi, who took some time off from the game after battling tennis elbow. “This is a good way to end it.”

Panchal said he would normally be excited to team with Hayashi, the reigning Stanislaus District Player of the Year. But before the morning session, Panchal wasn’t sure what he’d gotten himself into.

“He was extremely rusty and couldn’t hit anything,” said Panchal, a sophomore. “But after the first match, he was fine.”

The rust may have been a factor in the first set, which the Jags took without dropping a game.

“Jordan got a lot more aggressive after that and we got a lot more passive,” said the freshman Hijaouy. “We weren’t denying Jordan as much.”

Panchal, a singles semifinalist along with Hijaouy, had a far simpler explanation.

“I had a Subway foot-long about 20 minutes before the match,” he said.

This story was originally published April 30, 2015 at 6:12 PM with the headline "Beyer’s Lewis claims MMC singles crown; Enochs’ Hayashi, Panchal win doubles."