WAIMEA, Hawaii >> Nothing came easy in this year’s HMSA/HHSAA Tennis State Championships. That only made victory sweeter in the intense heat of the Fairmont Orchid Hawaii Tennis Center on Saturday.

Jessalyn Lopez of Kihei Charter and Ryo Minakata of Hawaii Preparatory Academy won singles championships in straight sets. Both matches still lasted 2 hours and 10 minutes, finishing within seconds of each other.

The only final less than two hours was girls doubles, won by Lexie Matsunaga and Megan Flores, 6-3, 6-2 over Punahou teammates Jacqueline O’Neill and Cosette Wu.

The all-Buffanblu doubles final clinched Punahou’s 17th consecutive girls team championship. It finished with 19 points. Waiakea was next with 14, led by Maile Brilhante’s runner-up finish in singles.

Mid-Pacific Institute and Kihei Charter, fielding a team at the state tennis championships for the first time, tied for fourth. The Tiger Sharks had a dynamic finalist on both the boys and girls draws.

The ‘Iolani boys captured their third straight team title — after 26 years of Punahou dominance — with 19 points to the Buffanblu’s 14. HPA rode Minakata’s hard-fought victory to a third-place finish, just ahead of Kihei.

Minakata, a senior from Japan, is planning to play on pro tours over the summer while searching for a college. After losing just four games over the first four rounds, he outlasted and out-blasted Kihei Charter junior Hobbes Wilstead 7-6 (5), 6-3 in the boys final.

Wilstead, who said he thoroughly enjoyed himself in the tense final, showed up to the trophy presentation in a Tiger Shark costume to celebrate his school’s mascot, and its stunning state tennis debut.

In contrast, Lopez did her best impression of a wall to reach out and grab the girls singles title. She fought off break points and moon balls, then finally wore down Brilhante with sheer relentlessness.

“I’m best at getting everything back,” she said, then grinned. “Just be a wall.”

Brilhante was up 5-3 in the first set before Lopez reeled off three straight games. In the tiebreaker, she scored the first three points and cruised home. She never trailed in the second — sprinting, slicing and lobbing her way to a win.

“I was hitting too much pace early,” said Lopez, who has won three MIL titles. “When you hit with more pace you make more mistakes. I slowed it down and started hitting more lobs.”

She is the first state singles champ from Maui since Kari Luna of Baldwin in 1994. Minakata is the first from the island of Hawaii since St. Joseph’s Fernando Aguirregomezcorta in 2008. He did it on his home court, with an animated crowd behind him and a great baseline game groomed to look like his favorite player, Novak Djokovic.

But flurries of errors, and Wilstead’s power and perseverance, kept their match close throughout the opening set. Minakata won the first four points of the tiebreaker, then needed four set points to finish.

Almost an hour later he clinched the second set and his family’s first state title. Brother JJ won two BIIF championships.

“I do really well when I have to focus, and that’s what I did today,” Minakata said. “That was good.”

Punahou tennis director Ikaika Jobe called Matsunaga and Flores’ 10-8 tiebreaker win over Waiakea in doubles Friday “huge” in his team’s march to another title. Doubles dominance helped compensate for Annika Alcon’s upset of top-seeded singles player Clarise Huang of Punahou in the second round. Huang had won the last two state doubles championships and beat MPI’s Alcon for this year’s ILH title.

‘Iolani’s Gabriela Siaosi and Mari Kwee won the marathon girls third-place match, grinding on more than 21⁄2 hours before finally silencing Mililani’s Allena Wong and Kylie Hull, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-4.

Doubles also fueled the ‘Iolani boys’ latest success, with three teams in the final four.

Top-seeded Robert Chang and Scott Yamamoto won the title, fighting off three set points in the first tiebreaker to beat Punahou’s Kailuhia Lam and Cade Fujitani 7-6 (9), 6-4.

Third-seeded Genki Kadomatsu — headed to Tufts — and Andrew Somerville got third with a 7-6 (5), 6-4 win over teammates Gabriel Kwock and Riley Visaya.

“We knew it was going to come down to doubles,” said ‘Iolani tennis director Henry Somerville — Andrew’s dad. “We were really detail oriented on doubles strategy and learning how to play different types of positions. They know what we did in the regular season, so you’ve got to throw in different wrinkles.

“I think that also helped bring the team together even more. They knew what all we had to do to solidify the victory.”