After day one of the boys high school state tennis tournament, Kennedy’s Riley Galbraith remains the only Metro player still in the chase for a title and he’ll likely have to beat two tough opponents from Des Moines Roosevelt Saturday to claim the championship.

The top-seeded doubles team of Tyler McCann and Brady Anderson from Linn-Mar survived a scare in their first match Friday, but lost the second for their first defeat of the season.

For second-seeded Galbraith, meanwhile, it was a relatively smooth ride to Saturday’s singles semifinals as he beat West Des Moines Valley’s Andrew Jensen 6-1, 6-2 and Bettendorf’s Bobbie Slavens 6-2, 6-0.

“The first match I just sort of went about my business,” Galbraith said. “But I picked it up in the second one and played pretty well against a real good player.

“Overall, I was happy with my game.”

He knows he’ll face a tough opponent in the semifinals when he goes up against Roosevelt No. 2 player Will Hemminger, a state doubles champion in both 2009 and last year.

Hemminger concentrated on singles this year. His only loss in a 12-1 season was to teammate and tournament top-seed Naveen Nath. They met in the district finals.

Nath beat Galbraith in the singles semifinals last year and came in second.

“(Hemminger) looked really good,” said Galbraith, who was fourth a year ago. “I know I’ll have to play better Saturday than I did today in order to win the tournament.

“But I’m confident. I’m still well in the hunt.”

Friday’s matches started at the Veterans Memorial Tennis Center in the morning but were halted by rain.

The singles competition moved indoors to Coe College.  Doubles play was shifted inside at Westfield Tennis Center, resumed later back at Vets but was concluded at Westfield after a second bout of rain.

The tournament concludes Saturday at Vets. Consolation semifinals are scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m., championship consolations at 10 a.m.