Zootennis


Schedule a training visit to the prestigious Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, MD by clicking on the banner above

Sunday, May 20, 2018

11 US Men in Roland Garros Men's Qualifying; Opelka Wins Challenger in France; Nine US Boys, Eight US Girls Begin Play Monday in ITF Grade A in Milan; Three of Four D-I Men's Quarterfinals Go the Distance in NCAA Team Championships

The qualifying for the 2018 French Open begins Monday in Paris, with 11 US men vying for a place in the main draw.  Three of them are seeded: Donald Young[19], Denis Kudla[7] and Tim Smyczek[11].  The other eight are: Evan King, Kevin King, Ernesto Escobedo, Stefan Kozlov, Bradley Klahn, Dennis Novikov, Reilly Opelka and Christopher Eubanks.

The draw is here, and the order of play for Monday, which includes Young, Escobedo, Novikov, Smyczek, Evan King, Eubanks and Kudla, is here.


Opelka has the day off Monday, after he won the second ATP Challenger title of his career at the  106,000+H tournament in Bordeaux France. The 20-year-old came back to defeat the unseeded Gregoire Barrere of France 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-5 for his first pro title on clay. Klahn also will be starting his quest for a main draw berth in Paris with a title, as he and Peter Polansky won the doubles title in Bordeaux, beating the Argentinian team of Guillermo Duran and Maximo Gonzalez 6-3, 3-6, 10-7.

Also of note, 17-year-old Rudolf Molleker of Germany won the €85,000+H Heilbronn ATP Challenger in his home country as an unseeded wild card. Molleker, who is among the Roland Garros junior entries, defeated No. 2 seed Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in the final.

At the ATP Masters event in Rome, former USC Trojan Rob Farah of Colombia and his partner Juan Sebastian Cabal won their first Masters title, beating Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain and Joao Sousa of Portugal 3-6, 6-4, 10-4. Farah and Cabal are the first Colombia team to win a Masters event, and are now No. 3 in the ATP's doubles Race to London.

At the $15,000 Futures tournament in Mexico City, former TCU star Gerardo Lopez Villasenor of Mexico defeated former Texas A&M star Harrison Adams 6-4, 6-2 to claim his first pro singles title. Lopez is in his first year on the Pro Circuit, while Adams' last season as an Aggie was 2015-16.

The qualifying for the ITF Grade A Trofeo Bonfiglio in Milan is complete, with Siem Woldeab winning two matches today to advance to the main draw.  Woldeab joins eight US boys in the main draw: Tristan Boyer[6], Drew Baird[9], Andrew Fenty[15], Emilio Nava, Tyler Zink, Govind Nanda, Keenan Mayo and Cannon Kingsley.  Kingsley, who won the Grade 1 in Santa Croce yesterday, received entry via a special exemption.  The US girls in the main draw include just one seed, No. 3 Alexa Noel.  The other seven American girls in the draw are Caty McNally, Katie Volynets, Lea Ma, Gabby Price, Natasha Subhash, Peyton Stearns and Kacie Harvey.  Top seeds are Sebastian Baez of Argentina in the boys draw and Xinyu Wang of China in the girls draw.

Tommy Hemp has more coverage from today's two rounds of qualifying in Milan at Tennis Underworld.

The ITF Grade 4 in Plantation, scheduled to be completed on Saturday, was plagued by rain throughout the week and has been using short scoring from very early in the tournament. The singles were completed today after numerous walkovers, etc. with unseeded Briana Crowley winning the girls title, with a 4-1, 4-2 decision over No. 6 seed Ariana Arseneault of Canada and unseeded Hunter Heck winning the boys title with a 4-1, 4-0 decision over No. 2 seed Blu Baker of Great Britain.


It was an exciting day of men's quarterfinals at the NCAA Division I Men's Team Championships, with three of the four matches coming down to a final match with the teams tied at 3. All four matches were completed outside, without an interruption due to rain, the first time that has happened in this tournament.

No. 2 seed UCLA earned its fourth win of the season over crosstown rival USC, the No. 10 seed, with Martin Redlicki defeating Brandon Holt 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 at line 1 to clinch the victory for the Bruins. UCLA won the doubles point and four first sets in singles, but they needed that cushion, with the Trojans pressuring them on every court.

No. 3 seed Ohio State dropped the doubles point to No. 6 seed Mississippi State, but came back to win four of the six singles, with the match again coming down to line 1.  Mikael Torpegaard defeated Nuno Borges 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 to put the Buckeyes into the semifinals.

In the afternoon matches, host and top seed Wake Forest defeated No. 8 seed Illinois 4-0 to reach its first NCAA semifinal.  The Demon Deacons will face No. 5 seed Texas A&M, who also advanced to their first NCAA semifinal.  The Aggies led 3-1 for a long time, but the 13th-seeded Florida Gators were in good position, with first sets in the two remaining matches at lines 1 and 2 and having forced a third set in the third at line 4. Two of those matches went to Florida, with Oliver Crawford winning the battle of freshmen over Patrick Kypson 6-4, 7-6(2) at line 1 and freshman Andy Andrade coming back for a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Valentin Vacherot at line 4. But at line 2, Aggie senior Arthur Rinderknech fought back against Johanes Ingildsen, winning deciding point after deciding point in the final set to claim a 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 win and the 4-3 decision for the Aggies.

The weather forecast for Monday has again caused a schedule change, with the women's semifinals moved up to 10 a.m. and the men's semifinals scheduled for 2 p.m.

Women's Division I semifinals:
Vanderbilt[1] vs Georgia Tech[4]
Duke[3] vs Stanford[15]

Men's Division I semifinals:
Wake Forest[1] vs Texas A&M[5]
Ohio State[3] vs UCLA[2]

Live scoring and live streaming is available at the Wake Forest tournament page.

Bobby Knight has a men's quarterfinal recap and will have previews, I'm sure, at College Tennis Today, and Slam Tennis has their odds updated.  Below are the complete results from the men's quarterfinals, with recaps from the school's athletic sites available by clicking on the scores.

Men’s Division I Quarterfinals, May 20, 2018

#2 [2] UCLA (30-2) def. #10 [10] SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (20-9), 4-3 
Wake Forest Tennis Complex
Head Coaches: Billy Martin (UCLA) and Peter Smith (USC)

Doubles
1. #29 Martin Redlicki/Evan Zhu (UCLA) def. #10 Brandon Holt/Riley Smith (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) 6-3
2. #16 Conor Rapp/Keegan Smith (UCLA) def. #9 Jack Jaede/Laurens Verboven (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) 6-3
3. Maxime Cressy/Bryce Pereira (UCLA) vs. Daniel Cukierman/Tanner Smith (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) 4-4, unf.

Singles
1. #1 Martin Redlicki (UCLA) def. #11 Brandon Holt (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) 6-4, 4-6, 6-2
2. #74 Daniel Cukierman (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) def. #81 Evan Zhu (UCLA) 6-3, 6-4
3. #56 Keegan Smith (UCLA) def. Jack Jaede (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) 7-5, 6-3
4. #103 Logan Staggs (UCLA) def. Laurens Verboven (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) 3-6, 6-1, 6-0
5. Maxime Cressy (UCLA) def. Thibault Forget (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) 6-3, 7-6(2)
6. Riley Smith (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA) def. Connor Hance (UCLA) 6-2, 7-5

Order of Finish:
Doubles: (1,2) Singles: (3,2,6,4,5,1)
==========================================
#3 [3] OHIO STATE (33-2) d. #7 [6] MISSISSIPPI STATE (23-2), 4-3 
Wake Forest Tennis Complex
Head Coaches: Ty Tucker (Ohio State) and Matt Roberts (Mississippi State)

Doubles
1. #1 Nuno Borges/Strahinja Rakic (MISSISSIPPI STATE) def. Martin Joyce/JJ Wolf (OHIO STATE) 6-4
2. #38 Niclas Braun/Giovanni Oradini (MISSISSIPPI STATE) def. #61 Mikael Torpegaard/John McNally (OHIO STATE) 6-3
3. Matt Mendez/Hunter Tubert (OHIO STATE) def. Florian Broska/Trevor Foshey (MISSISSIPPI STATE) 6-4

Singles
1. #6 Mikael Torpegaard (OHIO STATE) def. #2 Nuno Borges (MISSISSIPPI STATE) 6-4, 3-6, 6-1
2. #23 Giovanni Ordini (MISSISSIPPI STATE) def. #41 JJ Wolf (OHIO STATE) 6-4, 6-3
3. #92 John McNally (OHIO STATE) def. #84 Strahinja Rakic (MISSISSIPPI STATE) 6-4, 6-3
4 #96 Kyle Seelig (OHIO STATE) def. Niclas Braun (MISSISSIPPI STATE) 6-1, 7-6
5. #112 Martin Joyce (OHIO STATE) def. Florian Broska (MISSISSIPPI STATE) 7-5, 6-1
6. Trevor Foshey (MISSISSIPPI STATE) def. Hunter Tubert (OHIO STATE) 6-2, 6-3

Order of Finish:
Doubles: (3,2,1) Singles: (6,5,3,2,4,1)
===========================================

#1 [1] WAKE FOREST (29-2) def. #9 [8] ILLINOIS (24-8), 4-0 
Head Coaches: Tony Bresky (Wake Forest) and Brad Dancer (Illinois)
Wake Forest Tennis Complex

Doubles
1. #21 Borna Gojo/Skander Mansouri (WAKE FOREST) def. Alex Brown/Caleb Chakravarthi (ILLINOIS) 6-3
2. #35 Petros Chrysochos/Bar Botzer (WAKE FOREST) vs. Aron Hiltzik/Aleks Kovacevic (ILLINOIS) 4-3, unf.
3. #46 Christian Seraphim/Ian Dempster (WAKE FOREST) def. Aleks Vukic/Vuk Budic (ILLINOIS) 6-3

Singles
1. #7 Borna Gojo (WAKE FOREST) vs. #13 Aleks Vukic (ILLINOIS) 2-6, 6-4, 3-1, unf.
2. #4 Petros Chrysochos (WAKE FOREST) vs. #87 Alex Brown (ILLINOIS) 2-6, 6-2, 5-4, unf.
3. #38 Skander Mansouri (WAKE FOREST) def. Aron Hiltzik (ILLINOIS) 6-4, 6-3
4. Bar Botzer (WAKE FOREST) def. Aleks Kovacevic (ILLINOIS) 6-4, 7-5
5. Alan Gadjiev (WAKE FOREST) vs. Zeke Clark (ILLINOIS) 6-7(4), 4-3, unf.
6. Christian Seraphim (WAKE FOREST) def. Caleb Chakravarthi (ILLINOIS) 6-4, 7-5

Order of Finish:
Doubles: (3,1) Singles: (3,4,6)

===========================================
#5 [5] TEXAS A&M (26-5) def. #13 [13] FLORIDA (19-10), 4-3 

Head Coaches: Steve Denton (Texas A&M) and Bryan Shelton (Florida)
Wake Forest Tennis Complex

Doubles
1. #3 Juan Carlos Aguilar/Jordi Arconada (TEXAS A&M) def. #5 Alfredo Perez/Johanes Ingildsen (FLORIDA) 7-5
2. #42 Chase Perez-Blanco/Oliver Crawford (FLORIDA) def. AJ Catanzariti/Arthur Rinderknech (TEXAS A&M) 6-3
3. Patrick Kypson/Valentin Vacherot (TEXAS A&M) def. #36 Duarte Vale/McClain Kessler
(FLORIDA) 6-2

Singles
1. #49 Oliver Crawford (FLORIDA) def. #5 Patrick Kypson (TEXAS A&M) 6-4, 7-6(2)
2. #12 Arthur Rinderknech (TEXAS A&M) def. #28 Johanes Ingildsen (FLORIDA) 5-7, 7-5, 6-2
3. #48 Jordi Arconada (TEXAS A&M) def. #14 Alfredo Perez (FLORIDA) 6-3, 6-4
4. Andy Andrade (FLORIDA) def. #72 Valentin Vacherot (TEXAS A&M) 2-6, 6-3, 6-4
5. Juan Carlos Aguilar (TEXAS A&M) def. Chase Perez-Blanco (FLORIDA) 6-2, 6-3
6. McClain Kessler (FLORIDA) def. AJ Catanzariti (TEXAS A&M) 7-5, 6-2

Order of Finish:
Doubles: (3,2,1) Singles: (5,3,6,1,4,2)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not one American in singles for Wake Forrest, there should be an asterisk if they win. That is really pathetic.

Bid for the Nationals in Minnesota in 2019 said...

The "National Indoor II, are drying their outdoor courts. Play could ressume soon:)

B J Thomas said...

California Dreamin'? National Indoors II...2nd rain delay.. Enough of the Rain Drops!! Let's Play Ball!!