By Phil Jensen
Special to Chabot Athletics
Last season, Chabot College men's tennis star Darian Quinonez advanced to the round of 16 at the 3C2A state championships.
The sophomore is aiming for a higher finish this time around. His first singles match at that tournament will be on Thursday, April 25 in Ojai, and he will also be competing in doubles.
"Since then, I've changed things," said Quinonez, referring to the 2023 state tournament.
Besides doing more plyometrics, Quinonez has changed his diet to "mostly meats, fruits and dairy," and he is paying more attention to recovery, including using saunas and ice baths. "I'm sleeping way more now. I'm better prepared for things," said the 20-year-old.
Quinonez is the No. 1 seed from Northern California in the singles bracket at the state tournament, after winning his second consecutive Coast Conference title this season. Chabot's Arav Waghray – the conference singles runner-up this season and 2022 Coast champion, will also be in the state singles bracket, along with teammates Elijah Cho and Josh Fralick. The Gladiators will have three doubles teams: Cho and Fralick (the No. 5 seeds), Quinonez and Waghray, and Timon Nguyen and Nick Saquilayan.
Chabot coach Rick Morris describes Quinonez as probably one of the top athletes Chabot's program has ever had.
"He's in the top three to five in the 30 years I've been there," said Morris, who also talked about Quinonez's instincts on the court. "The essence of all good players is if they are really good, they are defensive players. …. That's one of his traits."
Quinonez, a 2021 Bellarmine Prep-San Jose graduate, started playing tennis when he was seven years old. His dad Michael watched YouTube videos about teaching tennis, then took Quinonez and his brother Izen to local high school and junior college courts to work out an hour before school. Quinonez also worked out after school and on the weekends.
He played in his first tournament at the age of 9. "And I got rolled pretty bad," he recalled. But Quinonez started going to Gorin Tennis Academy, and at the same tournament the next year, he advanced to the semifinals of his 10-year-old division.
At Bellarmine, he was part of the 2019 squad that won the Central Coast Section team title. But he broke an ankle at a tournament in the fall, competing as an individual, then rolled his ankle in February 2020 and stopped playing until the summer.
That's when he said he started getting trained by former National Basketball Association player Tariq Abdul-Wahad and Long Phan, a local tennis coach. "They kind of got me back in the sport," Quinonez said.
While he was a student at Evergreen Valley College in 2022, he also attended a junior tennis academy at Chabot run by Gladiators assistant coach Dmitry Dzyuba. Quinonez decided to transfer to Chabot in the spring of 2023.
Quinonez had car issues, so he used public transit five days a week to commute to Chabot in 2023. His two-hour commute included a 20-minute bike ride to a place where he could catch a bus to the Berryessa BART station.
Clearly, his hard work and dedication has led him back to CA's biggest stage in community college tennis.
Note: Chabot reached the NorCal finals of the team tournament before a 5-1 loss to No. 1 seed American River College on April 20.