Corleys complete their magnificent prep careers

The unique Corley family slam is complete.

Capping nearly a decade of brilliant tennis from the same family, senior twin sisters Vivica and Vianca Corley of Eldorado on Thursday afternoon completed a fantastic state tournament as they combined to win the Class 5A doubles title at the Jerry Cline courts.

The top-seeded Corleys whipped No. 2 seed Carmen and Siena Valentino of Santa Fe, 6-2, 6-0 in the championship match, as they overwhelmed the rest of the 5A bracket.

The Corleys only surrendered four games total in their four victories Wednesday and Thursday.

And the aforementioned special slam is complete.

Even before this year’s postseason started, the four Corley sisters — Ivana, Carmen, Vivica and Vianca — each already had won a state singles crown for the Eagles.

And three of the four coming into this week also had at least one doubles title. Everyone but Vivica. So the sisters bypassed singles this week to play doubles together, and now all four have a doubles championship medal, too.

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Vivica said. “I just really wanted to win a doubles title because I didn’t get one yet.”

The Corleys also will be staying together beyond Eldorado; the duo has committed to play for the hometown New Mexico Lobos.

“We thought it would be really cool to play for our hometown,” Vianca said. “We’ve grown up here our whole lives.”

Carmen and Ivana played together at the University of Oklahoma, and competed in their first Grand Slam last year at the U.S. Open.

“We had some other interest,” Vianca Corley said. “But UNM had our hearts.”

The Corleys weren’t the only siblings winning a doubles title Thursday.

Cristian and Julian Olson from Albuquerque High, seeded second, won all eight of their sets in the tournament, the last of the four being a 6-3, 6-4 victory over No. 1-seeded Jimmy Evans and Isaiah Mayes from Hobbs.

“We trained a lot before this, this is our first time playing as brothers together in a really big tournament like this,” said Cristian, a freshman. “We played well throughout the whole tournament.”

Julian is an eighth-grader for AHS.

“We knew that we were really good together and we have really good chemistry because we’re brothers,” Julian said. “We felt like we could get the state title.”

Said Cristian: “It’s just, like, a loss for words for now. Awesome experience. It was really fun.”

From Class 1A-4A, Albuquerque Academy’s second-seeded team of Amelia Bosch and Shay Villegas won each of their four matches in straight sets. In Thursday’s final, Bosch and Villegas slayed the top seed, Gabriela Fulgenzi and Mariana Armijo, 6-2, 6-4.

The Bosch/Villegas duo overcame a tough semifinal challenge, taking a three-setter from another team from Academy, Emeline Doscher and Michelle Deng.

Los Alamos’ headline-writer nightmare of a duo, Aditya Viswanathan and Michael Witkowski, the No. 3 seed, rallied for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 triumph over No. 4 Jackson and Noah Friedland.

The state team tennis competition begins Friday at Albuquerque Academy, Jerry Cline and the Sierra Vista courts on the West Side. The first two rounds are Friday, The title matches are Saturday at Jerry Cline.

State tennis Thursday highlights