Three winters ago, Lenox coach Phil Cohen thought Taconic's Andrew Dorr needed some serious practice.
Dorr, one of the county's most talented young tennis players, sprayed an unusual number of shots long or wide. They didn't have as much pace or spin as Cohen was used to seeing.
Of course, Cohen wasn't used to seeing Dorr, a natural right-hander, trying to re-learn the game with his left hand over the course of a winter, either.
"He told me I looked rusty," said Dorr, who had suffered an overuse injury while squeezing both baseball and tennis into his summer schedule. "But he didn't realize right away that I was playing with my left hand."
Dorr played
With an undefeated county season, a share of the league title as a member of Taconic and a three-set loss to the top seed in the quarterfinals of the Western Mass. Individual Tournament, Dorr is the MVP of this year's All-Eagle boys' tennis team. The rest of the team, as chosen by The Eagle, includes Dorr's teammate Will Larkin, Pittsfield's Sam Campoli and Dan Nesti, Monument Mountain's Jem Kogen and the Lenox
While Dorr was a vastly different player this season than the one that appeared during his freshman season, his physical abilities have rarely been put on better display.
Dorr, an all-star shortstop in the Pittsfield South Little League and a switch-hitter, had been throwing curveballs since he was 11. The stress of playing two sports that put pressure on his elbow eventually caused the joint to stiffen. Even now, Dorr is unable to fully extend his arm and the stiffness occasionally returns — most recently this winter, when Dorr had to return to serving left-handed for a few months.
"I'd always been good, so it was interesting to go back and not really be that good," Dorr said. "I probably lost like four times."
Of course, while Dorr considers that a down year, there are plenty of others that would take that as a high-point for their careers.
"I can't hit a kick-serve with my right hand, and he was out there, after six months, doing it with his left," said Larkin, who teamed with Dorr to make the Western Mass. semifinals as a doubles team last year. "That blew me away."
Taconic head coach Tom Voisin remembers a moment that season when he realized just how uniquely talented Dorr was.
During a team huddle, Dorr cracked a joke while Voisin was talking, prompting the coach to toss a tennis ball at the player's chest. From just four feet away, Dorr reached up and snatched the ball before it reached his body.
"He has some of the quickest hands I've ever seen," Voisin said. "His hand-eye coordination is amazing. He was saying something wise. Not malicious, but cute, so I just threw a ball at him, and Dorr, he just plucked it out of air."
Apart from his obvious physical gifts, much of Dorr's success stems from an innate ability to remain calm.
Even during his most trying moments, Dorr displayed minimal frustration. He beat Campoli in a three-set match with a perfect season on the line and took Amherst's Atticus Brigham to three sets in the Western Mass. Individual quarterfinals. Dorr had just taken the second set from Brigham when a pad in his sneaker fell apart, causing cramps in his foot and allowing Brigham to make quick work of the third set.
No matter how he's feeling, Dorr meanders over to the ball and calmly takes his position, seemingly always in control of the match's pace, even when he's not dominating the points. Such was the case even during his meeting with Campoli in the regular season's final match, where Dorr trailed 3-5 in the third set and nearly watched his perfect record disappear.
"He just looks so relaxed when he plays," Larkin said. "You never know what he's thinking. It's hard to play against that."
Voisin credits part of Dorr's inner strength to his upbringing, which led Dorr to be nicknamed "Opie," after the character from the "Andy Griffith Show."
The Dorrs go to church every weekend and eat dinner together nearly every night. Dorr's mother, Judy, introduced tennis to her children so that she could combine one of her hobbies with her passion for her family.
"He could be in a position where you or I would (use profanity), and he'll just say 'gee,' " Voisin said. "He's living in Mayberry, a different world than the rest of us."
Like the folks from Mayberry, though, one of Dorr's biggest challenges is to remain unsatisfied with being the biggest fish in a small pond. Dorr will go to weekly clinics at Hampshire College and play regional tournaments at least once a month this summer in an effort to help his game grow
"He could switch right now and play left-handed and beat most kids twice," Voisin said. "Last year, he was close to as good a doubles player as I've seen and that includes my time as Western Mass. tennis director. I don't think he realizes how good he is. Dorr (challenged) Longmeadow's Matt Himmelsbach in the Western Mass. team final, and (Himmelsbach) lost 7-5, 6-0 at states. He is that close."
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