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Photo by Sam Harrel

FAIRBANKS — Lathrop High School seniors Drew Lanning and Tyler Loud had barely played doubles tennis together before they became the Malemutes’ first state champions last weekend in Anchorage.

“A person in the crowd commented (at the state tournament) that it looked like we had played together for three or four years,” Lanning said Wednesday during an interview at the Dan Ramras Community Tennis Courts. “My dad turned around and told her we’d only been playing together for like a month, and she was pretty surprised.”

Lathrop coach Milo Griffin paired the duo to bolster his doubles play for the Region VI Championships, and it paid off as Lanning and Loud topped West Valley’s Joe Sample and Nick Raugust for the title. Then as the No. 3 seeds at state, they swept through the boys doubles draw, winning four straight matches while only dropping 15 games. They beat the top seeds from East Anchorage in a three-set semifinal before dominating the fourth seeds from Juneau-Douglas 6-2, 6-2 in the final with strong serving and volleying.

Although Lanning and Loud had only been a team a couple times before regionals, it’s not like they were strangers.

“We’d been playing tennis together since we were 10 or 11, so we kind of knew each other’s games,” Lanning said.

Going into the tournament, Loud said he thought they had a “decent chance” of coming away with the crown.

“We’re both strong servers, so that’s kind of what you need in doubles,” said Loud, who turned 17 on Sunday, the day after the tournament ended.

Loud improved his game by playing local coaches in Fairbanks and by spending three months at the Advantage Tennis Academy in Irvine, Calif., two summers ago.

“It helped,” said Loud, who trains year-round up to six days a week, either outdoors or at The Alaska Club South. “Some of the competition (at Advantage) is a lot higher (than in Alaska).”

The victory was gratifying to Lanning in part because of two near misses. As a junior in the state tournament, he placed fourth in mixed doubles with Becca Gryder; as a sophomore, he joined Zach Fitzgerald and placed third in boys doubles.

A state championship in 2009 seemed unlikely after Lanning had surgery on his right shoulder following the 2008 tournament.

“I didn’t play tennis from November until pretty much April, so it was kind of a big deal to come back from that and be able to win,” Lanning said.

The road back took a while and came with considerable pain.

“Your arm is a lot stiffer once they fix it. You don’t have as much motion as you used to, and it hurts a lot more sometimes,” he said.

His serve was mediocre during the summer but solid at state.

“April-May I couldn’t even serve because it just hurt too much,” Lanning said. “Your shoulder isn’t strong enough, even after six months ... because (serving is) such a wrenching motion.”

Those struggles now seem a distant memory. As for their tennis futures, Loud and Lanning would like to play in college, but that probably depends on whether they attend a smaller school where they might make the team.

“I’m not going to base my college career on my tennis,” Lanning said.