During his final full month in Sedona, Kamil Khayrullin made it an April to remember — all the way into May.

A week after the Sedona Red Rock High School exchange student made it to the doorstep of the Division III singles quarterfinals, Khayrullin teamed up with senior Sarah Hermosillo to defeat Mingus Union High School in the 41st Sedona National Tennis Ratings Program tournament Monday, May 2.

The junior will take home a tournament trophy to his native Kazakhstan after defeating MUHS seniors Olivia Galluzi and Jerry Hernandez, 6-4, 6-4, in the division for mixed doubles players 18 years old and younger.

“Before this game, I thought, ‘I have to play gentle [and] hit to the girl,” Khayrullin said. “Then, when I saw that this girl was actually better, we just hit to the guy.”

Although sad to leave SRRHS freshmen like host brother Tommy Trujillo and teammate Kai Zimmerman — who went undefeated until his April 26 loss at Thatcher High School in the Division III team tournament — Khayrullin is ready to return to his home in Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan.

“It’s nice and cheap, but I don’t think I could live in Phoenix; it’s kind of hot,” said Khayrullin, who lives near the banks of the Irtysh River with his businessman father and his mother, an information technology specialist. “She’s kind of helping father with [the] online bookstore we just opened.”

At the Paseo Racquet Center in Phoenix, Khayrullin went 2-1 in postseason singles matches after winning 11 of his 14 in the regular season.

“I liked the bus trips and the atmosphere of State, which is kind of like a lottery,” Khayrullin said. “You might play against [a] really easy guy who just got the second day only because he played more easy guys before. You might play No. 1 — the guy who’s going to win State.”

In the first round, Khayrullin happened to draw a player he had beaten March 29 in a 9-0 home shutout — Barry Goldwater High School senior Kobe Salang.

“My first game with him I won, like, really easily,” Khayrullin said. “He tried to strike balls, but he hit them out all the time.

“But [the] second game, he had improved a lot. Tennis feels different, because of altitude, when you play in Phoenix.”

Next was Paradise Valley High School junior Paxton Tomooka, who had to rally from a first-set loss to win his first-round matchup.

“I saw his first game, and I thought it would be real easy to win,” Khayrullin said. “With me, he played much better than he was before.”

Through the fourth set, he struggled with Tomooka’s sidearm serve, as he was tied at 2.

“Then I decided it was time to win,” Khayrullin said. “I just decided to play tough — not to do these experimental shots.”

After that, he had little more difficulty handling Tomooka’s backspin, winning 6-2, 6-0.

But the next day proved a harsh reversal of fortune for Khayrullin, as Cholla Magnet High School senior Francisco Sotelo sent him home in a 90-minute match.

“That’s pretty long for a State match,” Khayrullin said. “They were always close games — deuce, 40-30.

“Four or five times, I had only one ball to win a game. I just couldn’t do it.”

Sotelo only gave up one game point to Khayrullin before advancing to the quarterfinals — his last match — in straight sets.

“He wasn’t seeded, but he was [a] really good player, with [a] really nice record,” Khayrullin said. “I have pretty much the same game style: Just try to keep [the] ball in play and wait for a moment to strike.

“So it was like, who will be more athletic? He definitely was.”

Despite losing, 5-0, in the first round at Thatcher after finishing second in Section II, Khayrullin doesn’t know how his time with the Scorpions [9-5] could have been any better.

“I look back at my experience, and sometimes I think, ‘What could I change?’” Khayrullin said. “I realize everything was perfect, how it was — especially sports like tennis, where people are friendly. I don’t know what I could do better.”

Hermosillo and her twin sister, Sarah, made their first state tournament appearance a memorable one April 22.

They would need a third-set tiebreaker, but they scored a first round upset of Northland Preparatory Academy’s sixth-seeded girls doubles team before falling, 6-4, 6-1, to Kaitlyn Clink and Courtney Sauder of Scottsdale Christian Academy in the second round.

After splitting the first two sets, 6-4 and 2-6, with Spartans freshmen Kate Bailey and Brianna Biddle, the Hermosillos won the tiebreaker, 7-6.

For more photos, please see the Friday, May 6, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.