Tennis

Doubles Wins Carries Churchill to Title
By B.J. Koubaroulis

Special to the Washington Post

Wednesday, October 31, 2007; E05

Churchill's Robyn Segal and Alyssa Perez finish each other's sentences and often steal each other's thoughts. Yesterday at Blake, Segal and Perez -- Churchill's top doubles team -- appeared to be of single mind as they rectified their only loss of the season and dispatched Walter Johnson's Daryl Oh and Jimena Talavera, 6-3, 6-3.

Segal and Perez's win helped Churchill to its fifth Montgomery County girls' tennis title in six years.

"Everyone came in here," Segal said. "Determined to get it done," Perez interjected.

Perez and Segal had their undefeated streak stopped by Oh and Talavera last week as Walter Johnson defeated Churchill, 4-3, in the teams' regular season meeting.

Walter Johnson (13-0) won the regular season title, but Churchill (12-1) had representatives in all seven of yesterday's finals comprising four singles and three doubles matches.

Churchill won all three doubles events en route to a 23-19 win over second place Walter Johnson.

"This time around we knew what was coming," Perez said.

Blake senior Carmen Jackman (12-1) used a mixture of deceiving drop shots and short touch shots to neutralize Churchill sophomore Elizabeth Kaufman's power en route to a 6-3, 6-1 win in the top singles match.

"I was trying to keep it out of her strike zone because it's a lot more difficult to power the ball when you are off balance," said Jackman, who became the first Bengal to win a girls' county tennis title. "Hopefully that will motivate other girls to come out and do the same thing."