Going into the CIF-Southern Section boys tennis Round of 16, Trinity Classical Academy’s Dustin Kua had a lot on his mind.
“I was really stressed out,” he said. “I just took finals and yesterday was the last day of school so my mind was all over the place while I was playing.”
Kua fell in the first round at Seal Beach Tennis Center on Friday afternoon, 6-2, 6-1.
He lost to Harvard-Westlake’s Jed Kronenberg, the No. 42 class of 2017 player in the state of California according to tennisrecruiting.net.
MORE: Trinity tennis player headed to CIF-SS Round of 16
“I obviously wanted a better score but sometimes it doesn’t go how you want it to,” Kua said. “Everyone is good here, so one small misstep and they take the opportunity to beat you.”
The junior was the only player from the SCV to surpass the CIF-SS individual sectionals. His results there earned him a bye for the Round of 32 and a trip straight to the Round of 16.
The Round of 16 is the same stage that ended his season last year.
“If I took away anything, I think I’ve done a lot better,” he said. “But I think the people I played this year were on a different level than the people I played last year. So I feel distinguished getting to where I am.”
The Knight depended on his strong serve throughout the season to win matches, but wasn’t feeling comfortable on Friday.
“My serves were okay today,” Kua said. “They weren’t great. But I was able to win some games off my serve but I think my serve was just average today. Not enough to carry me through to win.”
Kua has a handful of tournaments on deck for the summer, including the 115th Annual Southern California Junior Sectional Championships, which are held June 17-19 and June 21-26.
He’ll also continue training at Tennis Mechanix Academy in Burbank in the offseason.
A four-star recruit according to tennisrecruiting.net, Kua ranks 16th in the state of California and 105th nationally amongst all players in the class of 2018.
