WAR BY THE SHORE TOURNAMENT:Rhodes’ furious comeback falls short

NEWPORT BEACH — Parker Rhodes’ spirits were down, and so was his game.

The Corona del Mar resident, playing in a boys’ 18 singles semifinal match at the War by the Shore tournament, was losing so badly that onlookers already considered the match over. They waited for Rhodes to lose so the desirable main court at the Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club could open up for doubles matches.

Rhodes, who will be a junior at CdM High, had other ideas.

He gamely fought back only to fall, 6-1, 6-4, to Henrique Norbiato of Brazil.

So what changed after Rhodes was down a set and 5-0 in the second set?

“What changed?” Rhodes repeated the question. “I don’t know. I started trying. I thought I could come back.”

He almost did. Serving at 4-5 in the second set, Rhodes went up 40-0 before a disputed call led to Rhodes calling for an umpire.

But they couldn’t find one. Minutes passed, and when the umpire was finally on the court, Rhodes seemed to lose all the momentum that he had once had.

“I probably should have kept on playing,” Rhodes said. “I had a lot of momentum.”

He lost three straight points to bring an ad-out score. After Norbiato missed an overhead, it was deuce again, but the match eventually ended when Rhodes couldn’t get to another Norbiato overhead.

Then, expletives started flowing from Rhodes’ mouth as freely as his long, red hair from underneath his cap.

Rhodes apologized for that, but he remained upset after the match. It was understandable, considering how hard he had worked to get back in the match after nothing seemed to work in the first set.

The No. 3-seeded Rhodes kept trying to charge the net, but the unseeded Norbiato fired off passing shots at will. Rhodes’ unorthodox style of using extensive lobs — “moon balls” — during rallies wasn’t really working either, as Norbiato kept flattening them out for winners.

It wasn’t until late in the second set when the CdM player could find his momentum, getting everything back with slices and forcing the Brazilian to miss.

In his earlier match of the day, Rhodes defeated No. 7-seeded Patrick Szeremeta, 6-3, 6-3.

“I probably should have won [the tournament],” said Rhodes, who had lost the previous two years at the Balboa Bay Club junior tournament in the boys’ 16s championship match.

Norbiato, meanwhile, will play another CdM resident, Omeed Ghassemi, in the boys’ 18 singles final today at 9:30 a.m. Ghassemi survived a 6-3, 7-6 (11-9) match against Chad Sigler of Irvine in the other semifinal.

In an earlier quarterfinal on Thursday, Ghassemi topped No. 8-seeded Andrew Frisk of Seal Beach, 6-3, 6-3. Ghassemi, who is seeded No. 10, has yet to drop a set this tournament. Against Sigler, Ghassemi broke twice in the opening set to take it. Then, he said he survived a second-set tiebreaker which included four match points for Ghassemi and four set-points for Sigler.

“It was just staying consistent,” Ghassemi said. “It was not getting frustrated when he hit a winner, because I knew he could hit a winner from anywhere on the court.”

How much does he know about Norbiato?

“He’s from Brazil,” Ghassemi said. “That’s about all I know about him. It should be fun, though.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or at [email protected].