YARMOUTH — Teenagers dominated the singles competition at the 25th annual Betty Blakeman Memorial Tournament on Sunday.

Two 19-year-old players, fifth-seeded Tyler Adams of Buxton and Joulia Likhanskaia of San Jose, California, captured the singles titles in their first trip to the finals at The Blakeman, Maine’s largest tennis tournament.

Adams, the No. 1 singles player at the University of Southern Maine, pulled out a narrow straight-sets victory over old high-school nemesis Jordan Friedland, a two-time Maine schoolboy state champion from Lincoln Academy who now plays for the tennis club at Stanford University.

Likhanskaia, a three-time Florida Class 4A state champion who was named an All-American after compiling a 19-3 record this past spring for Bowdoin College, lost just two games in her straight-sets win against Julia Brogan, a 16-year-old incoming junior at Falmouth High School.

It was the first appearance in The Blakeman for the second-seeded Likhanskaia, who won 36 of 41 games in her three matches.

“I just tried to play my game, come in a lot and be aggressive,” she said.

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For much of the final, Likhanskaia used her powerful first serve and returns to keep Brogan pinned up against the baseline. When the unseeded Brogan, who knocked off top-seeded defending champion Cornelia Deeg of Boston in the semifinals, did venture forward, Likhanskaia usually would win the point by dropping a soft shot behind her.

“She hits a hard ball, and she has very good placement,” Brogan said.

Despite the lopsided loss, Brogan remained upbeat.

“I made semis last year, so it was kind of nice to get to the finals this year,” Brogan said.

The men’s final was a much more competitive affair between two players who know each other quite well.

A year ago, Adams and Friedland teamed up to advance to the finals of the tournament’s men’s doubles division. Previously, both had advanced to the semis in singles competition

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Adams managed to break Friedland’s serve three times while eking out a 6-4, 7-6 (7-2) win.

“I managed to hold my service at key times and get some service breaks when I needed to,” Adams said.

“It was the typical grind,” Friedland said. “It was tough from the beginning. He got a (service) break, and it was tough to hold on. I was playing from behind pretty much the entire match.”

Friedland found it especially difficult to handle Adams’ forehand topspin shots.

“For some reason, I couldn’t figure out the one-hander and I had to slice it,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out how to come over it because he was hitting it so heavy.”

Adams said he didn’t want to get into a hitting match with Friedland.

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“I had to dictate play,” he said. “I didn’t want to run around a lot. I had played a lot of tough matches earlier and I didn’t want to stay out there all day. I tried to work the ball around a lot.”

More than 200 players competed in seven divisions during three days of competition on courts in Yarmouth, Cumberland and Falmouth.

The tournament is named for Betty Blakeman, who died of breast cancer in 1989.

Proceeds go to the Cancer Community Center in South Portland.


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