View 15 photos

AUBURN — The quarterfinals of the tennis doubles state tournament nearly turned into a day of upsets on Friday.

Instead, two top seeds in the boys division stayed alive by winning in three sets, and a possible all-Falmouth High final is still a possibility.

Eli Sidhu and Luke Kusel, the No. 1 seeded team from Falmouth, edged Yarmouth’s Christopher Auger and John Nicholas, 7-6 (1), 5-7, 6-1 at Edward Little High School.

“It’s good (to win), man,” Sidhu said. “We’ll see how it goes (Saturday), but today was good. I’m feeling hyped. We showed a lot of energy in that last set.”

“It felt good to win the last set that well,” added Kusel.

The semifinals and finals have been moved from Bates College in Lewiston to Colby College in Waterville because of a forecast of bad weather Saturday. Semifinal matches are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.

Sidhu and Kusel will play Thornton Academy’s duo of Chan Park and Yuta Sato, who beat Gorham’s Owen Spera and Jacob Shvets, 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-3.

“We’re very excited,” Park said. “It was a tough match over an opponent that is very strong. After the first set, we said, ‘OK, we can’t go down (now) in the quarterfinals.’ We locked in, encouraged each other. To get that win is really good.”

Here are three other takeaways from the quarterfinal round.

Falmouth presence heavy in late rounds

Last year, Falmouth swept the doubles titles as the tournament was revived for the first time since 1980. Both finals, in fact, featured two teams from Falmouth, as Sidhu and Charlie Wolak held off Raymond Li and Karl Chamberlain, and Gracyn Mick and Gwen Long topped Jenna Nunley and Mary McPheeters.

This time, three Falmouth teams advanced to the final day of competition. Falmouth’s No. 2 boys team, Dante Iannetta and Nick Roediger, beat the Brunswick tandem of Blake Belanger and Evan Williams, 6-4, 6-3.

Roediger and Iannetta will face Faustino Arango and Jose Vela of Thornton in the semifinals. The Falmouth duo is hoping for a showdown in the final against Sidhu and Kusel.

“We definitely want to play our first doubles in the finals,” Roediger said. “We think we’ll be able to beat them.”

“We’ll go with no comment, but I will say, last year (we won),” Sidhu said. “We try to keep (smack talk) respectful, we’re all on the same team, it’s not too much. There’s a good, competitive environment around that.”

On the girls side, Long and Carley Iannetta are the No. 1 seed, and moved on to the semifinals by beating Arden Kondracki and Haley Blake of Medomak Valley, 6-1, 6-2.

Young duo moves on

One of the youngest duos to reach the semifinals was Olivia Link and Calli Juhring of Scarborough, who moved on with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Anika Manning and Mao Saito of Thornton Academy. They’ll play Long and Iannetta on Saturday.

“Making our shots (was key), getting a ton of our serves in and volleying to open areas,” Link said. “Just making sure we were looking at the open areas to make our shots.”

Link, a freshman, and Juhring, a sophomore, had quite a cheering section. With every point, teammates and family were could be heard throughout the courts at Edward Little.

“It was a little nerve-wracking (throughout the match),” Juhring said. “But it’s nice to have (fans cheering).”

The other girls semifinal is Payton Thibodeau and Hadley Foster of Gorham against Rana Abess and Olive Van Hoewyk of Camden Hills.

Heat wave

Though temperatures in Auburn were in the low 70s, it was a noticeable change in weather for several players who have been playing under overcast skies and cooler temperatures for much of the season.

“It is very hot,” Link said. “You get pretty sweaty and pretty gross. But you’ve just got to push through.”

Overall, players managed to fight through the conditions.

“We got here early to watch some of the earlier matches to get used (to the heat), Roediger said. “There were some considerations, but nothing too crazy.”