Ronit Yurovsky was tired of finishing second.
She finished second to Latrobe's Joelle Kissell in the 2008 WPIAL Class AAA tennis singles championship match, was runner-up in the state finals a year ago and opened this season by losing to Sara Perelman of Shady Side Academy in the Section 3 title match.
All it took was one match to turn the tide, though, as the Plum sophomore avenged her loss in last year's WPIAL championships with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Kissell Friday at Norwin to win her first WPIAL title.
"It hasn't really hit me yet because I got used to getting second," Yurovsky said. "It's definitely a good accomplishment and better than last year and knowing I won it, it's just good."
Kissell, who won last year's championship 6-0, 4-6, 7-5 over Yurovsky, never really found a way to solve her opponent. The Wildcats senior was never the aggressor in the match even when she led 2-0 in the first set and allowed the younger Yurovsky to dictate the tempo throughout.
"She played great, and I just couldn't get it going," Kissell said. "I just wasn't stepping into the ball. I gave her more time, and she really capitalized on that and made me run. After those first games, I let my level of play drop a little bit."
Yurovsky was able to the one thing she couldn't do against Kissell a year ago; get her moving along the baseline. Kissell has tried to implement a more aggressive style to her play this season by following her shots and going to the net, but Yurovsky was able to take that completely out of her game by keeping her pinned along the line and running her back and forth with pinpoint corner returns.
"I was going out there and telling myself to be patient and to stay on offense, and I knew that I had to make her miss first," Yurovsky said. "If I start missing, I lose my focus, and and I had to keep in mind, especially when it was windy, to just keep the ball in and move her around."
This was, of course, after Yurovsky dropped the first two games of the first set. It wasn't as dramatic a comeback as in her semifinal match with Perelman when she trailed 5-3 in the first set and 5-1 in the second, but still came away with a 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-3) victory, but it still prompted her .
In Class AA, Chartiers-Houston junior Tanya Timko found a new way to win a championship.
Timko came from behind and defeated Logan Antill of Sewickley Academy, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3, to capture her first singles title. In 2007, she and sister Karli won the WPIAL and PIAA girls doubles title. Earlier this year, the twosome became the first females to win the WPIAL Class AA boys doubles championship.
"It's definitely more power to me that I won it by myself and I'm not trailing on my sister's behind," Timko said. "It just feels so good."
Timko is the first player to win three WPIAL titles in three different categories. If she wants to go 4 for 4, she would have to rejoin the Chartiers-Houston boys team in the spring of 2011 and win the singles title. Because she is playing on the girls team this year, she is ineligible for the boys next spring.
"That would be the only one I don't have," Timko said. "But, no, I think I'll stick with the girls game."
