By Andy Hutchison

WESTPORT — FCIAC tennis tournament playoff matches are set to get underway. 

On Tuesday, No. 2 seed Staples boys — with a 14-1 season record — will host No. 7 Westhill of Stamford for a 2 p.m. quarterfinal match.

On the girls side, No. 3 Staples — with a 13-2 record — will host No. 6 Darien at 4 p.m.

Boys semifinals will take place Wednesday, and the girls semis are set for Thursday. Tournament finals are scheduled Wednesday, May 28, at Wilton High’s courts — boys at 2 p.m. and girls at 4.

The Staples boys won nine straight matches to close out the regular season. Tuesday’s playoff opener is a rematch of the final match of the slate, a rescheduled competition with Westhill that took place Sunday in Westport.

Staples won the shortened match 4-1 with the No. 2 and 3 singles players, Noah Wolff and Robert Jacob, prevailing. Top singles player Derek Hafiz retired during his match and No. 4 player Alex Cozzolino trailed in his match, 7-5, 1-0, when play was stopped.

Doubles winners were the top tandem of Brett Lampert and Lucas Ceballos-Cala, No. 2 Mattie Guadarrama and Shreyas Gorre, and No. 3 Aleko Vergakis and Kieran Anand.

Staples girls defeated Darien 6-1 during the regular season. Tuesday’s contest is a rematch of last year’s FCIAC quarters, when the seedings were reversed — Darien was the No. 3 seed and defeated the No. 6 Wreckers.

(Game schedules are subject to change; click for the latest CIAC updates.)  

Andy Hutchison has been covering school sports — including Staples athletics — as well as news and feature stories in Fairfield County, since the 1990s.