Already acknowledged as one of the strongest boys tennis players in school history, Davis High junior Glenn Hull cemented that reputation in stone on Friday.

After surviving an intense semifinal match against Bijan Origel of Modesto, the Blue Devil racquet wizard made relatively short work of Napa’s Stuart Miller, 6-3, 6-3, to capture the Sac-Joaquin Section singles championship.

A DHS doubles duo, made up of Sean Mishra and Isaac Zhang, made it to the semis of the doubles tournament, which also was contested at the Brenda Athletic Club in Turlock on Thursday and Friday.

With his victory, Hull became the first Devil singles player to win a section title since Scott Sigerseth won back-to-back crowns in 1986 and ’87.

“There have been a lot of great players at Davis High School over the last 25 years, so this is really special,” said Davis coach Dale Hersch.

Hull, who was the section runner-up in each of the past two seasons, won two matches on Thursday to set up the contest against Origel. In a semifinal match that was far from easy, Hull eventually prevailed, 6-2, 7-6, then dispatched Miller for the title.

“(Origel) had a great forehand so Glenn was actually forced to play defense more than he would have liked,” Hersch said. “Miller doesn’t have one great (stroke) so that type of player is a perfect matchup for Glenn. He really controlled the match.”

Mishra and Zhang, the Blue Devils’ actual No. 1 doubles team advanced to the semifinals of a section tournament for which most teams paired up their top two singles players.

But after bouncing back from dropping a first set 6-0 in Round 2, the local squad couldn’t pull off the feat again when facing Jesuit’s Bobby Fretz and Anatoly Beinars. The Marauder pair — two of Jesuit’s top four singles players — won the first set by that lopsided score, then finished the second set 6-3.

“They had a couple of good opportunities to win the second set, but they’ve just been starting out too slow and against Jesuit it was too much to overcome,” Hersch said. “But they played really well and if they play like that in the next few matches (they will be tough to be beat).”

Those next few matches are the section team playoffs. DHS hosts Oak Ridge on Monday (3:45 p.m.) in the quarterfinals and is expected to move on to the semis Wednesday and probably Friday’s Sac-Joaquin finals.

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DHS junior Glenn Hill, shown here hitting a backhand during the DVC individual championships, won the Sac-Joaquin Section singles title on Friday with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Napa’s Stuart Miller. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise file photo

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