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Sports

Robbie Bellamy Wins Sectional Doubles Title

The 16-year-old Palihi sophomore Robbie Bellamy and his 15-year-old partner dominate the 18s division.

Life is pretty cool right now for Pacific Palisades High School student Robbie Bellamy.

He and partner Greg Garcia of Poway won the Boys' 18s Sectional Doubles tennis tournament on Sunday at Los Caballeros Racquet & Sports Club in Fountain Valley. Around 1,400 players participated in the Sectionals, the biggest junior tournament of the year in Southern California.  

Bellamy is only 16 and Garcia is only 15, yet they did not drop a set competing in the higher age group filled with players who already have a year of college tennis under their belts. 

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"Yeah, it is the biggest win for me so far," said Bellamy, who has produced big win after big win all year to raise his national rankings to No. 23 in singles and No. 3 in doubles in the 16s. "Greg and I lost the very first match we played together [in February] but we're undefeated since then."

In April, the duo won the 16s doubles final of the USTA International Spring Championships at Home Depot Center in Carson, upsetting the top-seeded Joseph DiGiulio of Newport Beach and Spencer Papa of Edmond, Oklahoma, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 11-9 in the final for their first Grade 1 event win. 

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Before Sunday's triumph, Bellamy had called Carson the "coolest" win of his young career, but it doesn't get any cooler than winning an 18s tournament as a 16-year-old like he did last weekend.  

"I'm pretty good from the baseline and Greg's pretty good at the net, so we've got both those covered," said Bellamy, who played singles for Palisades High and led the Dolphins to their third straight City Section title last month.  

First, Bellamy and Garcia beat Jake Douglass and Max Hawkins of Palos Verdes, 6-2, 6-2. Then they beat Brendon Josephson and Julian Ruffin of Moorpark, 6-3, 6-2. In the third round the duo beat Caryl Hernandez and Dante Saleh of Newport Beach, 6-0, 7-5.

In the quarterfinals, Bellamy and Garcia beat former Palisades High player Alex Giannini and his partner Stephan Menichella of Los Angeles, 6-2, 6-4. In the semifinals, the Southern California boys beat Axel Bouillin, a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara, and Sam Todd, an incoming freshman at Dartmouth, 7-6, 6-3.

"The semifinal match was the toughest," Bellamy said. "Actually, the last two teams we played we didn't know at all. They were really good, we're just playing really well."

In the finals, Bellamy and Garcia beat Denis Nguyen of Harvard and Curtis Wu of MIT, 6-3, 6-4, as Bellamy hit numerous return winners and hit 95 percent of his first serves without a double fault.

In singles, Bellamy finished fifth in the 16s. He lost in the quarterfinals of the main draw, but won the ensuing playoff rounds, including a victory Monday.

Bellamy has a busy summer of tennis ahead, beginning with an 18s national event in Lakewood on Saturday, where he will play both singles and doubles. He has not set any goals, but he wants to do well in the USTA Boys National Championships at Kalamazoo, Michigan in early August.

"Last year was the first time that I played it and I got to the quarterfinals in doubles with a different partner [Abe Hewko] and I made the round of 64 in singles," he said. "I want to play well there and in the clay court events."

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