The never-ending stream of success that is Benjamin Cardozo tennis was on full display earlier this month, when Wei Cheng Lin and Leighann Sahagun anchored the boys’ and girls’ singles sides with quarterfinal and semifinal victories in the Mayor’s Cup tournament. Yet while the story is ending for one, it is just starting for another.
Lin, a senior, reached a weary conclusion to his high school tennis career after falling 6-3, 6-3 to Asika Isoh, of Queens Gateway to Health Sciences, in the semifinal. He had just completed a two-day dispatching of teammate Roland John, and recalling his matches each week prior – the PSAL tournament, the state tournament, the Mayor’s Cup team tournament – was itself a tiresome exercise.
“For now, I’m getting a little rest,” he said.
Sahagun, meanwhile, likely won’t get a break anytime soon. The top singles player on the Cardozo girls’ side, she put up a fight in the final against Beacon’s Hannah Berner, ultimately losing 6-2, 7-5. She has plenty of USTA regional tournaments ahead of her, no doubt wishing to hold onto, and even improve on, her No. 70 national ranking. And did we mention she’s only a sophomore?
“She’s a gem,” said her coach, Neal Baskin. “Every year you have tryouts and you look for one blue chip player. … I think her ground strokes are fabulous, her two-handed backhand is great, her forehand is terrific. [She has a] great serve.”
All those traits were on display during her quarterfinal match against teammate Arielle Griffin, which Sahagun won 6-2, 6-4. The strength of her backhand almost made her appear ambidextrous; her serve usually landed less than two feet from the corner of the service box. By all accounts, she is an all-court, power player.
“She’s a good ball striker,” Lin said. “She gets every ball back deep, so it’s not easy to play her.”
Lin, meanwhile, rides a different style to success in the PSAL. He is less of a risk-taker than Sahagun, more apt to keep points alive and frustrate with his speed and precision than to overwhelm with spinning ground strokes. Such descriptions can be used euphemistically to describe a shameless lobber, but in Lin’s case, they tell the story of a No. 2 singles player who, as coach Howie Arons likes to tell everyone, is good enough to lead just about any tennis team in the city.
For Lin, the Mayor’s Cup was an occasion to emerge from first-singles player Jonathan Raude’s shadow. But limelight has never been Lin’s focus: to him, Raude’s withdrawal was more about losing a roadblock to victory than losing a roadblock to fame and recognition.
“Raude is one of the top players in the city, so it’s gonna be tough to beat him any day,” he said. “It [wouldn’t be] easy going up against him.”
Another factor contributes to the divergence in Lin’s and Sahagun’s playing styles: the girls’ player has always been pushed by her father, Rommel Sahagun, a tennis coach who has instructed Leighann since she was four years old. (An established tennis coaching figure, he has counted Mayor David Dinkins among his clients.) He helps her train for hours each day over the summer, and no doubt she has plenty of drills to look forward to in the coming weeks.
Getting advice from two different coaches can be confusing and controversy-causing for some players, but Baskin and Coach Sahagun appear to have a genuinely positive relationship. “She gets fine coaching from her dad,” Baskin said.
Moreover, their spirits are surely buoyed by the enormous potential Cardozo girls’ tennis will carry next year, when Sahagun is a junior, starting at first singles for the second time. Cardozo has a young team.
“We have a great nucleus, and I think we’ll be even better now,” Baskin said. “Next year our goal is to win the city … and win the Mayor’s Cup. I’ve never even thought of that in my mind [before].”
A bona fide, on-court warrior will lead the charge.
“She’s very competitive, very strong – even if she gets behind in a few matches. She never gives up. She’s a fighter,” Baskin said of Sahagun. “She’s not afraid to go for her shots. That’s what’s terrific about her.”
