EDWARDSVILLE – Kyle Kang, who plays for Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., and is from Fullerton, Calif., pulled off a double over the weekend at the 14th annual Edwardsville Futures Tennis Tournament, presented by The EGHM Foundation, by winning both the singles and doubles championships.
He’s only the second player to pull the double, and the first since Gustav Hansson of Sweden in 2017, when he won the singles, and combined with Hunter Callahan of the United States to win the doubles. Kang defeated Aidan McHugh of Glasgow, Scotland, in the singles final 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, and teamed up with Stanford teammate Alexander Razeghi to take a 6-7 (3-7 in the tiebreak), 7-5, 10-8 win over American players Spencer Johnson and Nicholas Ian Kotzen.
It was a great weekend and week, indeed, for Kang, who lost the 2024 singles final to Gavin Young, and in a post-match interview, he expressed his joy and excitement about winning.
“It’s always nice to end the week on a win, and a lot of weeks outside of things,” Kang said. “So, it’s just good to be on top at the end of it.”
The first person to greet Kang after the match was his mother, Aeri, who is his traveling companion on the road and is always in his corner.
“It’s definitely great,” Kang said with a smile about his mother’s presence. “It’s fun traveling with someone on the road, especially in college. I travel with the guys, so you always have somebody. But in the Futures, you go by yourself. So, having someone there with me saves a lot of issues.”
McHugh controlled play in the first set and won, but from the start of the second set on, Kang took control and was able to win three service break games in both sets to win the match after a slow start.
“I’m dealing with a shoulder injury a little bit,” Kang said, and had his shoulder iced down after the match. “It took a little while to warm up early on, I was kind of engaging that a little bit. But definitely, I felt more comfortable as the match went on. The first set, he (McHugh) played well, but we were breaking each other a lot, and having some trouble on the serve, but I was able to figure something out in the second.”
Getting the singles-doubles sweep wasn’t easy, but Kang is very happy to have accomplished it.
“It’s not easy,” Kang said, “but I had fun this weekend. I just kind of put my head down, and we went to work.”
Winning the singles title at the Futures really meant a lot to Kang, and he sang the praises of the Edwardsville community.
“It means a lot,” Kang said. “It’s a great community here, and it’s a lot of fun to kind of play this one every week, no matter win or lose. But winning here is a little more special, especially after losing here.”
