Chris Li was a late entry on the list of men's singles player in the City Championships but there was no doubt he deserved to be ranked as the early favourite to win the tournament.
Li already had five city titles to his credit and Prince George Tennis Club coach Andrej Vdovenko, the No. 2 seed, was the only one left standing in Li's way to a sixth singles crown.
It took Li a full set to find his A-game but when he did, there was no stopping him. In his first tournament of the season, the third-year UBC pharmacology student downed Vdovenko 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.
"Andrej just came out on fire and I couldn't touch anything," said Li, 22. "His serve was on and he had those hard forehands, which I have a hard time getting. I wasn't in the rhythm and I couldn't get any rallies started up."
There might have been a few wisps of smoke seen coming off Vdovenko's racquet in the first set and he used his big serve to dispatch Li easily in the first set. But rather than getting flustered, Li leaned on his impeccable defence and developed a pattern of long fast-moving returns that pushed his opponent deep into trouble.
"I tried to focus more in the second set and stopped being frustrated when I missed and just tried to play aggressive and not give him easy balls," Li said. "It's hard to anticipate where his serve is going and even his second serve has a lot of kick and I had a lot of trouble with that on my backhand. I just tried to keep the ball in play and be aggressive and I think it was good defence that won it for me."
Vdovenko, sensing his game was starting to crumble in the second set, continued to try overpower Li with his serve. But that first-strike ability went missing and Vdovenko's frustrations came to the surface as he made a series of unforced errors that put him behind on the scoreboard.
Li scored three straight wins to finish off the second set and took the first two games of the deciding set. But he allowed his opponent a glimmer of hope, double-faulted twice to tie it 2-2, just as the Ukraine-born Vdovenko was showing signs he'd found his serve again. He grabbed the lead in the next game, but Li started launching some serving bombs of his own and won the next two games. Three aces by Vdovenko made it a 5-4 game, and Li ended the match with a show of power, landing a backcourt smash and an ace in rapid succession.
Vdovenko, 23, who spent his high school days in Prince George and moved to Victoria before his return to P.G. this spring. He's never beaten Li in tournament play but has twice come out on top in friendly matches this year.
"I felt good, but Chris kept fighting back and I just crumbled a bit." said Vdovenko. "I was on the second serve all the time and that got me on defence quite a bit and he kept hitting nice deep shots, right to the corners. It's tough, you have to be really quick to get a nice ball deep and as soon as you know it he's right at the net, finishing points.
"I lost a bit of confidence in the second set. My backhand went and I tried to stay in the game but Chris was always one game ahead and it's only a matter of time and it's done. At the end I just really didn't care any more so I just went for my shots and I got a couple aces. It was a little too late, I should have done that earlier.
"The pressure gets to you," he said. "It's the final and people are watching and it's tough."
Li got to the final by beating Kristian Kiland in straight sets (6-1, 6-3), while Vdovenko needed three sets to defeat Jon LaFontaine.
Vdovenko ended the tournament on a winning note, teaming up with Matt Altizer in the men's doubles final to defeat Kiland and his brother Jim Condon 4-6, 7-6, 6-3.
Condon and his mom Nancy Condon won the mixed doubles final in straight sets (6-3, 6-2) over Rob Prideaux and Jan Leong.
