Matt Morneault was getting ready for his match in the Class A South team final when one of the strings on his racquet snapped during warmups.
No worries, he thought. He had another racquet. But then a string on that one snapped, too, forcing him to use a borrowed racquet.
“I just had fun with it,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t going to play as well. … I was just like, Matt, you’re going to lose a couple of games and you’re going to lose points. You’ve got to live with that, it’s fine.”
He was wrong. Even with assistant coach Mike Siminsky’s racquet, Morneault rolled to a 6-0, 6-0 victory as Falmouth repeated as regional boys tennis champion.
Purchase this image
Even with breaks as bad as equipment malfunctions, Falmouth’s junior star was head and shoulders above the competition. Morneault put together a nearly perfect season, repeating as state singles champion and going undefeated while leading the Navigators to the Class A title.
For his performance, he’s our choice as Varsity Maine Player of the Year for the second straight year.
“With him, it’s almost a complete package,” Falmouth coach Jamie Hilton said. “His serve’s good, his forehand’s good. Most people, you can play to their backhand, and that’s their weakness. His backhand is equally as good.”
Morneault didn’t play much — he went 4-0 during the season as the loaded Navigators frequently rested him to play others and develop their depth — but when he did take the court, he was dominant. In the singles tournament, he dropped only four games in four matches before beating Kennebunk’s Alberto Cutone in the final, 6-3, 6-4.
In the team tournament, he won his regional and state final matches, both against players who were seeded in the singles tournament, by 6-0, 6-0 scores.
Morneault’s matches were often over quickly, as he dispatched opponents with hard serves, perfectly placed winners and few displays of frustration or celebration.
“He is a cool customer,” Hilton said. “He’s always under control, he doesn’t get upset. He can put things that happen behind him.”
Morneault’s technical, consistent play is machine-like, but he’s subject to the same emotions that everyone else is. He was anxious heading into his matchup with Cutone in the singles final.
“I told myself there are a lot of expectations. (I) won last year, I’m supposed to do it again,” he said. “I was so nervous … way more than last year. Last year, I wasn’t expected to win. And Berto had beaten me in the winter, so I was a lot more nervous.”
He overcame those jitters, which provided a lesson Morneault is learning as he rises up the tennis ladder: the further you get, the more your mental game, rather than your physical one, makes a difference.
“I used to get so on myself after every error, every lost point,” he said. “I kind of just changed that into: ‘What can I do better?’ ‘Why did I lose that?’ ‘How can I prevent that?’”
The out-of-season tournaments he plays provide that lesson as well. When he traveled to Delray Beach, Florida, for the 18-and-under clay court nationals earlier this month, he was thrown into a field of 192 players and won two matches before being eliminated, all while dealing with heat indexes that shot over 100 degrees.
For a player with Division I college aspirations, that highlighted the mental toughness and confidence that will need to complement his impressive skill set.
“I realized, it doesn’t matter how good you are. It matters how badly you want it and how badly you’re willing to fight,” he said. “With tennis specifically … it’s how much you believe in yourself, and how much time and energy you’re willing to put into that.”