Querrey Gains First Grade 1 Final; Glatch and King To Vie Again Sunday

Querrey Gains First Grade 1 Final; Glatch and King To Vie Again Sunday--
©Colette Lewis 2005--
Carson CA--

Sam Querrey made a little change, but it made a big difference, leading to a 6-4, 6-4 victory over second seed Jesse Levine on yet another clear and breezy day at the Home Depot Center. In his three previous rounds, Querrey, seeded 15th, had dropped the opening set and was determined not to play from behind in Saturday's semifinal.

"I worked a little harder in the first set to try to get on top of the match early," said the six-foot five-inch righthander who is commuting to the tournament from his Thousand Oaks home. "I had a little talk with my Dad last night (about more positive body language)," Querrey said sheepishly, when he was asked about his more confident on-court demeanor.

Levine conceded that Querrey dictated play in the match. "Sam's the kind of guy that kind of lulls you down a little bit, because he doesn't play with much intensity." said the seventeen-year-old lefthander from Florida. "I kind of fell into his trap today...I would go intense, then drop, then go intense and drop again. But overall he played well today."

Querrey agreed. "I only got about ten first serves in, but other than that I played unbelievable."

Pavel Chekhov has also played three three-setters in the tournament, and like Querrey, he was able to advance in two sets on Saturday. The 14th seeded righthander beat Texan Jamie Hunt 7-6(4), 6-4, again proving his win over top seed Kellen Damico on Thursday was no fluke. Chekhov, who now trains at IMG Bollettieri, played flawless tennis in the tiebreaker, and at 3-4 hit a winner that had the crowd gasping. Hunt had Chekhov on the defensive, having seemingly won the point with a crisp volley behind the Russian, but somehow Chekhov reached back and flicked an angled cross court volley past the stunned Hunt. "It was luck, seriously," Chekhov said when asked about the point after the match. But whether fortune or skill, it certainly turned the tiebreaker in his favor, with Hunt making errors on the next three points to drop the set.

The second set was also tight, but Chekhov did not relinquish his early break and impressively closed out the match with four consecutive first serves that gave the tenth seed no hope of extending play.

Querrey and Chekhov have never met, but in the girls divison, the finalists are quite accustomed to seeing one another across the net. Just since March, Vania King and Alexa Glatch have met in the finals of two Grade 1 tournaments in Southeast Asia. Each has won once but King's victory in Thailand was the result of a walkover due to Glatch's bout with heat exhaustion.

King, from nearby Long Beach, had no problem dispatching Jennifer Stevens, though the 6-0, 6-1 win was closer than the score might indicate. "I felt she could have won, should have won, more games than that," said the sixteen-year-old third seed. "We had good rallies and she had a lot of chances to break me, but I was mixing up the ball well."

Top seed Glatch, who also calls Southern California home, dispatched fourth seed Andrea Remynse 6-4, 6-3, neutralizing the Michigander's power and capitalizing on her errors. But Glatch admitted that she never felt the match was secure.



"You can never relax against Andrea," said the lanky fifteen-year-old. "She's very tough and she fights really hard. Last year in the Easter Bowl I was up 4-1 in every set against her and lost in three, so you can't let up against her."

Glatch was unable to close out Remynse when leading 5-1 in the second set, but at 5-3, on her third match point, she secured her place in the final.

"It should be a good match tomorrow." Glatch predicted when asked about facing King again. "She's a very tough player."

King certainly proved that on Saturday, when she and partner Yasmin Schnack, the second seeds, took the doubles championship with a 6-3, 6-0 thrashing of the top seeded team of Jenni-Lee Heinser and Liz Plotkin.

In another instance of two seeds over one seeds, Philip Bester and Holden Seguso posted a convincing 6-3, 6-2 win over fellow Bollettieri students Jesse Levine and Michael Shabaz.


"We've been playing them since the 12s," said Seguso, whose father Robert, a former US Davis Cup doubles stalwart, witnessed the upset. "We've been in four or five finals together; it's a relief to finally win one," said Bester.

Bester, a Canadian, is not eligible for the Easter Bowl, where the other three finalists are competing next week, but he has a very exciting trip planned for later this month. As the top junior in Canada, he has been invited to accompany the Davis Cup team to Venezuela for their zonal tie.

In the girls 16s final, top seed and Carson resident Alison Ramos ended the run of unseeded Julia Boserup with her 6-2, 6-4 triumph.

Fifth seed Dennis Nevolo of Gurnee Illinois was crowned the boys 16s champion, eliminating unseeded Bozhidar Katsarov
7-6(2), 6-2.