INDIANAPOLIS
The third time Quinten Gillespie went to the ground, he knew he wasn’t getting back up.
Cramps in both legs conspired to end what had been a spirited run through the state singles tournament for the Whiteland senior, who led North Central’s Ajay Mahentiran in the third set before being forced into injury retirement nearly three hours into their semifinal match on Saturday afternoon.
Mahentiran was credited with the win, 5-7, 6-4, 3-3 (retired) on his home courts at North Central.
“It’s definitely disappointing,” Gillespie said, “but when I look back I’ll be like, ‘Man, that was a great match to play, a great match, probably, to watch. We both fought hard, and I give him credit.”
Gillespie (27-3) had just broken Mahentiran’s serve to take a 2-0 lead in the decisive third set when he went down for the first time holding his right leg and had to take a medical timeout. Moments after returning to the court, he again went to the ground, this time stretching out his left quadriceps. The chair umpire first issued a delay of game warning and then awarded a game to Mahentiran to make it 2-1.
Though noticeably slowed and stopping to stretch every chance he got, Gillespie kept battling, winning four straight points on his own serve to regain the lead for the last time at 3-2.
With Mahentiran on serve in the next game, though, Gillespie fell to the asphalt again. The umpire first penalized him a game for delay again, and when Gillespie still couldn’t get up, he then called the match for Mahentiran.
“It was to a point where my leg felt like I couldn’t move it, and I knew,” Gillespie said. “It’s disappointing to lose like that, but if there’s one player I’d want to lose to it would be him.”
Mike Gillespie, Whiteland’s coach and Quinten’s father, noted that this was the first time in his many years of tennis that his son had had to retire from a match due to cramping.
“It’s unfortunate, because he’s never really dealt with this, ever,” the coach said. “He’s athletic and he’s done so many things in basketball and tennis. He was here this summer and played like six matches in two days in 90-degree temperatures and had no problems. It is what it is.”
The injury retirement truncated what had been an epic back-and-forth match with several big momentum swings.
Mahentiran (24-2) was reeling early, being forced to take an injury timeout of his own after hitting the ground hard chasing a Gillespie winner that made it 5-2 in the first set. But when he returned to the court, he returned with a vengeance, taking the next three games to tie it and then setting up a break point that would have put him up 6-5.
Gillespie, though, bounced back, fighting to hold serve and then breaking Mahentiran to claim the set.
“I came out in the first set and just played to win, really,” Quinten said. “I didn’t want to play defensive the whole time; I wanted to play to win, and I think I did that.”
Mahentiran then grabbed a 3-1 lead in the second set and held the upper hand the rest of the way, twice answering service breaks by Gillespie with his own.
Having lost the momentum and the set, Gillespie again gathered himself.
“Really just kind of refocus, work on your feet — and you know you’ve got to work three times as hard since it’s the third set,” he explained.
Gillespie then won the first game of the third set on his serve and broke Mahentiran one last time to get all the momentum going his way again — only to have his body betray him at the wrong time.
By the time he picked up the second delay penalty to even the set at 3-3, Gillespie figured he’d had enough — and with a basketball season and a collegiate tennis career still in front of him, he decided it wasn’t worth risking an even more serious injury.
“I just was like, ‘You know, this is a great match and I really want to finish,'” he said, “but in the long run it’s better to take it easy and make sure you’re not going to hurt yourself even more than you are.”
Despite the disappointing exit, Quentin Gillespie firmly established himself among the state’s upper echelon with his march through the tournament, which included a sectional win over longtime nemesis Ethan Gray of Greenwood as well as a 6-3, 6-4 quarterfinal win Saturday morning against previously unbeaten Daniel Pries of South Bend St. Joseph.
His father couldn’t be any prouder.
“He’s always been a fighter,” Mike Gillespie said of his son. “And I give Ajay a lot of credit — he’s a fighter as well. We knew going into the season that there’s a handful of kids that can win the whole thing, and definitely Ajay’s one of them. The other kid that’s in the final, Petar (Petrovic) from Brownsburg, is one of them, and we always felt that Quinten was one of them as well and people just didn’t see it.
“It was nice just to kind of let people see, ‘Oh, this kid’s pretty good.'”
