Querrey and Ball Meet for Boys 18 title; Glatch and Heinser Battle For Girls 18s Crown

Querrey and Ball Meet for Boys 18 title; Glatch and Heinser To Battle For Girls 18s Crown--
©Colette Lewis 2005--
Palm Springs CA--

Southern Californians Sam Querrey and Carsten Ball will meet on Saturday for the ITF Easter Bowl Boys 18s singles championship but their routes to the finals have been distinctly different.

Querrey, seeded 10th here, is riding the crest of the wave that took him to the ITF International Spring Championship title last week in Carson and has not lost a set in the tournament. Ball, seeded second, has dropped the first set in three of his five wins, including Friday, when he outlasted fellow left-hander Jesse Levine 5-7, 6-3, 7-5.

"I don't think it's a pattern I can get comfortable with, always losing the first set," Ball said while having his left knee wrapped before the doubles final. "But in this match I got off to a good start in the second set and changed the match around."
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And although Ball, from Newport Beach, ran out to a 5-0 lead in the second set, Levine gave notice that he was not going anywhere when he fought back to 5-3 before succumbing. The third set proceeded on serve, with flat, deep and heavy groundstrokes from both players. But the key point in the match turned not on power, but on touch. After Levine had broken Ball at 4-5, he found himself at deuce in his service game. A backhand just wide gave Ball a break point, and after a series of blazing ground strokes, Ball hit a delicate drop volley, leaving the lightening-quick Levine unable to even more toward it.

Asked about that shot, Ball smiled and made eye contact with doubles partner Michael Venus outside the trainer's room.
"It's working on the dubs," he laughed. "I'll be bringing that out today -- I hope."

And when presented with his second opportunity to serve for the match, Ball made no mistake. He popped three first serves to give himself some breathing room and finished the job. Ball, who won an ITF grade 1 in Australia earlier this year, knew it might be a long day.

"Jesse's a tough player to play, and I was 0-2 against him, so I'm happy," Ball said.



Sam Querrey has played a lot of tennis matches in the past three weeks, and from his Easter Bowl results it is obvious that it suits him. Alex Clayton taking Querrey to a second set tiebreaker was as much jeopardy as the seventeen-year-old has faced, and Michael Shabaz, who had set the tournament abuzz with his win over top seed Donald Young on Thursday, saw firsthand just how devastating Querrey can be.

The 6-3, 6-3 win for the tenth seed from Thousand Oaks appeared routine, but there was a history in their match last year in the B1 in Tulsa that didn't allow Querrey to relax. Up 6-0, 4-0 there, Querrey found himself escaping with the win in a third set tiebreaker. When Shabaz broke Querrey for the first time in the match in the second set, perhaps a bit of doubt crept in.

" I knew he could come back," Querrey said, "and I was almost thinking he was starting to there, when he broke me back for three all. But then I got the break back. That was the key game."

And as he has consistently done throughout the tournament, Querrey was able to hit outright forehand winners, even when on the run. With surprising movement for one so tall, Querrey never allowed Shabaz to set up for his top-notch backhand, and Shabaz began to second guess his decision to try to move Querrey around.

"I knew if I didn't change my strategy, it would be over pretty quick," Shabaz said, "because he was hitting the ball pretty well." But by then it was too late, as Querrey held at love and broke, earning his place in the finals against Ball.



In the girls singles semifinals, top seed Alexa Glatch, who has been cruising through the draw, was expected to get a tough test from friend and fifth seed Yasmin Schnack, but Glatch is playing so far above her peers right now that she has lost a grand total of four games in her last four matches. This time it was 6-0, 6-1 and the disappointment of her straight set loss to Vania King in Carson last week seems in the distant past.



Second seed Jenni-Lee Heinser faced not only practice partner Melissa Saiontz in the semifinals, but an obtrusive car horn.
At 3-1 in the first set, at one of at least ten deuce points, Heinser prepared to hit her second serve.

"A honk started going, so I stopped and it stopped," the second seed said. "Then right as I go to hit the ball, someone honks again, and I missed it."

And although she lost the game, Heinser recovered to take the set and the match 6-3, 6-1. The last time Glatch and Heinser met, two years ago, Heinser, 18, prevailed in three sets, a result that definitely give her hope for Saturday's final.