Middletown tennis pair Michael and Habwe add the Section 9 title to their recent OCIAA championship

GOSHEN — Alexis Michael made it to the state girls tennis tournament a year ago as a doubles player, but this year there was still the urge to try singles.

She thought and thought and made her decision probably until the last possible second, but the Middletown senior went for the doubles again and it paid off in a big way.

Along with freshman Sandra Habwe, the duo played together for the first time at the Orange County Championships last week and won. As the top seeds for the Section 9 tournament, the Tall Queens, as Michael calls himself, continue to gain momentum as they learn to complement each other’s games.

It was four matches and four wins for the pair at Match Point Tennis on Tuesday and Wednesday, culminating with a for-the-time run in a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Warwick’s Leah Scalo and Keri Leahey in the championship match. Both pairs advance to the state meet.

The second set was tied at 1-1, with Middletown dropping four straight games and even trailing in a game that could have gone to a third set. But Habwe and Michael managed to win six games in a row to close out the game.

More: Freshman wins the Section 9 tennis singles crown after a two-and-a-half hour battle

More: Section 9 of the Girls Tennis Tournament brackets will be announced

“It was a difficult game, but we prevailed,” said Habwe. “We really wanted that. We had a great attitude before the second set, but it wasn’t in our favor at the beginning. … We just weren’t at our best and then we had to push through, start over and keep going until the end.”

Both Michael and Habwe said there was no question of conceding the final game 1-5 as neither wanted to play a third set.

“We trusted ourselves and our coach trusted us,” Habwe said.

Michael made her decision to play doubles after familiarizing herself with the challenging field of singles and believed she could be more competitive in doubles.

“Double is easier for me,” said Michael, who also plays mixed doubles with her brother. “I love doppelgangers. It’s just so much fun. “It’s someone who has your back because in singles it’s just you, but in doubles you have someone there to pick you up.”

According to Habwe, the two complement each other, with Michaels playing more at the net and Habwe playing more on the groundstrokes.

In the morning semifinals, Michael and Habwe defeated Warwick’s Danika Brezina and Celia Greco 6-4, 6-2, and Scalo and Leahey defeated Washingtonville’s Maddy Kantor and Addison Davis 6-3, 6-1. Brezina and Greco advanced to states with the consolation victory over Kantor and Davis, 6-3, 6-7 (8-6), 6-3.

The state tournament will be held Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing.

kmcmillan@th-record.com

X / Twitter: @KenMcMillanTHR

This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Middletown pair captures Section 9 dual championship