Julia Keenan of St. Thomas won her second-straight girls singles title. For more photos, go to the Photo Album.
MANCHESTER – Julia Keenan accomplished something on Friday that hadn’t been done in a decade.
The St. Thomas Aquinas High School sophomore defeated Londonderry’s Kelli Murphy, 6-1 and 6-3 in the girls singles tournament at Southern New Hampshire University, to become the first girls tennis player in New Hampshire to win back-to-back state titles since 2000.
“I’m really excited right now,” Keenan said. “It feels good (going back to back).”
After the opening rounds of the tournament were postponed twice, pushing the start back 10 days, the semifinals and final for both boys and girls were to take place on Thursday. But rain suspended play again, and the conclusion of the tournaments was pushed back again.
When play began on Friday, Murphy had already advanced to the final after beating Manchester Central’s Margaret Teague, 6-2 and 6-2, while Keenan still had to finisher her semifinal match against Bow’s Sunday Swett.
“I only had to win seven points and that’s what I wanted to do,” Keenan said of her 6-1 and 6-4 semifinal win. “I think I had an advantage because I had warmed up a bit. I was used to the heat.”
Neither player was used to the other, as Friday’s match marked the first time they’d faced off.
Londonderry's Kelli Murphy returns a shot during Friday's final.
“I’ve watched her play and from what I saw, that’s all I knew,” Murphy said. “Julia is very good. She’s a tough player. I did my best and that’s all you can ask for.”
Going in, Murphy wanted to keep Keenan using her backhand, but that proved to be easier said than done.
“She has a huge forehand, it has a lot of topspin,” Murphy said. “I wanted to hit to her backhand a lot. That worked sometimes, but other times it didn’t. She just fought hard. I made some errors I probably shouldn’t have made. She was just consistently good.”
Murphy, who won the singles title as a sophomore two years ago, was able to take the first two games of the second set. But Keenan regained her composure and won six of the final seven games to capture her second-straight title.
“I composed myself and was able to pump myself up,” Keenan said. “Can’t get down about it. You’ve got to keep your head up. I had to make sure my serve was effective and stay down on my shots.”
That effective serve helped keep Murphy from battling back once she got down.
“Usually you count on your service game to keep you in the match,” she said. “When you get broken, you’ve got to break her back and she has a real good serve.”
Keenan is the first to win back-to-back girls titles since Exeter’s Jessica Pasay in 1999 and 2000. She’s the ninth player to win two straight girls titles and the 12th to win two titles overall.