Jesuit Dallas is no stranger to the spring state tennis tournament.
An underclassman taking the court has been, however.
But that is no longer the case as sophomore Van Davidson punched his ticket to the Class 6A Championships May 7-8 at the Northside Tennis Center in San Antonio.
Davidson earned his way to state following a third-place finish Saturday at the 6A Region I Championships at The Courts at McKinney.
It is the third consecutive year Jesuit will be represented at state in boys singles after Connor Cole qualified in both 2024 and 2025.
Despite his status of an underclassman, Davidson played with the poise of a veteran, rallying from a one-set deficit in the third-place match against Coppell’s Kasi Kavalli to pull out the win. In fact, Davidson dropped the opening set, 6-0, and the opening game of the second set before rattling off six consecutive games to force a decisive third set that he took in a tiebreaker, 7-2.
“We knew it would be a tight match,” said Mallory Wainwright, Jesuit head coach. “They had played a couple of times before and both went to tiebreakers. We didn’t expect to drop the first set, 6-0, though. My blood pressure was all over the place. But Van knew Kasi would be hungry for the win, too, and that he was going to have to fight and that’s exactly what he did.”
Jefferson had opened the tournament Friday with a pair of straight-set victories, topping Luis Carlos Ochoa of El Paso Coronado in the first round (6-2, 6-3) before downing Plano West’s Dev Mansingka in the quarterfinals (6-4, 6-4).
Davidson returned to the court on a rain-delayed Saturday where he was defeated in the semifinals by Southlake Carroll’s Rushil Rajpal (6-1, 6-1) before bouncing back against Kavalli to punch his ticket to state.
Davidson will now gear up for San Antonio, where the competition figures to be stout.
“Van is so excited,” Wainwright said. “He’s going down with a great attitude. He’s going for the experience and to have fun. It’s a big stage and it can be overwhelming with all the fans and coaches down there watching. But his head is in the right place and I’m so excited for him and proud of him.”
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