Christ’s Church star Chase Healey makes history, wins 3rd straight state tennis title

Just call him Chase History.

Christ’s Church Academy star Chase Healey won his third consecutive Class 1A state tennis championship with a sterling performance on Wednesday afternoon in Orlando. Healey beat True North’s Brennon Chow, 6-2, 6-6, (7-2) to make history as just the seventh boys player to end his career with three titles.

As far as Healey’s dominance locally, it is unmatched.

Only Duval’s George Yenawine, who won back-to-back singles titles in 1922-23, has more than one singles championship to his credit. Healey ends his career unbeaten in singles in high school. His only defeats came in middle school (one in sixth, seventh and eighth grade). The two-time All-News4JAX player of the year and UNF signee is probably would have had a shot at becoming the only player in state history to win four in a row, but the pandemic wiped out the 2020 spring season.

Healey beat Circle Christian’s Ben Moore, 6-2, 6-1 in the quarterfinals on Monday, then topped Doral’s Alejandro Urdaneta, 4-0, 4-1 in the semis and beat Max Pettingell, 4-2, 4-2, in the individual final on Tuesday. Weather forced the tournament to change the format to two sets of four and delays pushed his final against Chow back nearly two hours on Wednesday.

Scott Suhrer of Bolles (2A in 1984), Amer Delic of Wolfson (5A in 1999), Matt Schimmel of Bolles (2A in 2005), Joey Burkhardt of Menendez (2A in 2007), Nease’s Yannick Yoshizawa (3A in 2008) and Bartram Trail’s Brandon Pham (3A in 2018) are the only other local boys to win overall championships. On the girls side, six area players have won individual championships.