Hills East Forfeits LI Tennis Title

Syosset Girls Tennis Coach Larry Levane scheduled a practice session Wednesday afternoon. But no one felt much like swinging a racquet once he delivered the news.

claimed the Long Island championship by default, one day after Suffolk champ left the courts in a rules dispute.

“It’s unfortunate because our girls just wanted to settle it on the court,” Levane said.

Suffolk Tennis Coordinator Pete Cesare said Hills East Coach Tom Depelteau technically forfeited once he pulled his team from the neutral courts at Cold Spring Harbor Tuesday afternoon. 

“Once they left it became a forfeit,” Cesare said. “We’re not going to reschedule. We’re done at this point.”

At issue, according to multiple accounts, was the fact that tennis is played using different formats in the two counties. Suffolk teams play using four singles players and three doubles teams while Nassau goes with three singles and four doubles.

Since Nassau was the host county, the teams were obliged to play by Nassau rules. An unwritten guideline in the Nassau system is you play your strongest players in singles, according to Levane.

“The coach of Half Hollow Hills did not want to do that,” said Levane, who has coached tennis for 26 seasons. “He wanted to switch his lineup around and play his stronger players in doubles and play his weaker players against my stronger players in singles, which I objected to. We couldn’t come to an agreement.”

Moving more skilled players to doubles is a numbers game. If there are four doubles teams, clearly the match will be decided on the weight of those four matches. When on Monday, Depelteau told Patch his team’s strength was its depth.

It’s clear he was trying to exploit that depth by reconfiguring his lineup.

Levane was having none of it. “I looked at his lineup,” Levane said. “I knew his three singles players from seeing the write-ups in the paper. I said that’s not right. That’s not our rules here...I did catch that.”

Cesare, a veteran athletic director and longtime sport chairman, was matter-of-fact.

“Right off the bat the way you play all year is totally different,” Cesare said. “But knowing that, you go to Nassau you play by Nassau rules. You go to Suffolk you play by Suffolk rules.”

Depelteau did not return a call seeking comment.

Levane said he reached out expressing interest in rescheduling the match, but the decision was made at the county level that Hills East had forfeited.

Nassau has won every meeting in the six-year history of the Long Island championship in girls tennis. Syosset won the previous two seasons, beating district rival Half Hollow Hills West.

Hills East played in the first Long Island championship in 2006, losing to Jericho. 

A state champion will be crowned in singles and doubles play this weekend in Syracuse, but the LIC is the final stop in the team tournament.

Cesare said the rules will be amended next year so the language and expectations are more clear. 

“We’re all disappointed,” Cesare said. “It’s a shame. We’d like to see them play. It’s an exciting thing for Long Island.”