Girls individual state tennis championships: McCandless triumphs

Wayland, MA – May 27, 2024:Kyra McCandless of Lexington in the championship tennis match. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

WAYLAND – With Massachusetts individual state tennis tournaments cancelled for the last four years, former Lexington boys star Kyle McCandless didn’t get much of a crack at winning an individual state title before graduating. Younger brother Joel McCandless didn’t get any chance at all.

So once their sister, Minutemen junior Kyra McCandless, qualified as the top seed in the United States Tennis Association’s Massachusetts individual state championship tournament this year, she was sure to take advantage of the opportunity.

After gutting out a three-set win Monday morning over Natick’s Grace Zhang in the tournament’s semifinal, McCandless surged past a slow start in the final later that afternoon to defeat Wellesley’s second-seeded Bella Gopen, 6-4, 6-0.

She marks the first individual girls tennis state champion since 2019.

“My second older brother never got to play states, my first one only got to do it a few times,” McCandless said. “So even just playing this tournament was a huge opportunity for me. But winning it, it just feels great.”

The Raiders freshman put McCandless to the test early on inside the Longfellow Tennis and Health Club, staving off powerful hits with well-placed returns for a 3-0 lead in the opening set. Three of the first four games went to deuce as Gopen didn’t waver in need of several outreached, backhanded shots McCandless challenged her to; including a couple to rally from a 40-love deficit and win Game 2.

Gopen nearly did the same in Game 4, but a composed McCandless emptied her tool box and sprayed the ball well to earn her first win of the match.

From there, momentum flipped. The junior won 11 of the next 12 games to secure the title, including each of the last 10. Gopen somehow returned a wealth of shots from difficult angles and answered with several of own, but McCandless forced too many tough spots to fight off all of them.

“I always try my best, obviously,” McCandless said. “But I think the momentum just shifted. … After I got that start I just kept going.”

While the second set didn’t look as close as a 10-game first set, the 6-0 finish doesn’t reflect the challenge Gopen gave.

“(Gopen) is a really good player,” McCandless said. “We actually practice together a lot. I played her just a few weeks ago and our match was really good. It was like two and a half hours long.”

After serving as the No. 2 single for Lexington last year, this win is just another reflection of her rise over the last year into a leading role for the undefeated Minutemen – who enter the Div. 1 state tournament as the No. 1 seed.

“I feel I rose to the occasion pretty well,” she said. “I trained really hard over the summer. Instead of going to a lot of tournaments, I just stayed on the court. Like three hours a day. Put in a lot of work and I think it really paid off.”

McCandless also said she hopes she inspired and helped her younger sister, Mia McCandless, this season. The two played against each other in the quarterfinal round, which the older sister won 6-0, 6-1.

Acton-Boxboro’s Maya Muhunthan took Gopen to three sets in the semifinal round, falling 6-3, 3-6, 3-6. Zhang finished the tournament in third place by default