Bishop Chatard High School boys tennis coach Dan McNally doesn't like pairing up a doubles team for the entire season and taking a chance the two players would grow sick of each other.

That's why he didn't match Steve Maniago and Pat O'Brien until the midway point of the 2006 season.

Even though they went 10-2 and advanced to the doubles sectional, McNally isn't playing the two together -- at least for now.

"I don't like putting a doubles team together too early in the season because the team can become stale late in the year," he said. "I'm not in a real hurry to do that.

"If two guys play together all season, they can start getting snippy with each other. This keeps things a little fresher."

In the season-opening match against Ben Davis, Maniago paired with Ryan Dorsey at No. 1 doubles while O'Brien played No. 3 singles.

O'Brien prefers doubles, but said he's willing to play wherever McNally says.

"For me, singles is a completely different mental game," O'Brien said. "I like to get hyped up and celebrate with Steve when we play well. In singles, it's just you, and you can't do that."

Maniago said he and O'Brien developed chemistry quickly last fall.

"I would probably say it only took one or two matches," Maniago said. "We practiced together every day with each other and got to know each other's tendencies pretty quickly. We really knew what the other person was going to do, which helps a lot."

Maniago thinks they could mesh right away if they team up again.

"I think we could play together and do really (well) if we were put together again," he said. "We called each other up and played together a few times this summer. It wouldn't take long at all."

McNally doesn't rule out reuniting the players, but acknowledges he has a bit of a dilemma.

"Ryan Dorsey is as good as any doubles player that we've had here, and he deserves to play No. 1, too," McNally said. "We really have three No. 1 doubles players, so we need to work that out, but it is nice knowing that if I put Steve and Pat together, they've already shown they can be very successful."

O'Brien looks forward to that opportunity.

"I think we could be really good together again, but we're going to do what the coach wants us to do," he said. "I'm kind of the odd man out right now, but that's OK.

"Steve and I played together during the summer, and we played really well together last year. It does feel good knowing we can fall back on that if we need to this year."