SMASH Column, Early Wimbledon Edition
My weekley SMASH online column is available now. With the long holiday weekend, a few of the items seem to have happened some time ago, but I was also able to incorporate the beginning of Wimbledon Junior competition. And again, you can play the "who's that player in the photo?" game.
Speaking of Wimbledon, the semifinals in singles are set and the chances are good that we'll have our sixth straight unseeded boys Grand Slam champion. Of the four players remaining, only Thiemo de Bakker, No. 1, had the benefit of a seed. The girls event is again following closer to form, but Caroline Wozniacki at No. 4, is the highest of the three seeds remaining. Eleanor Preston features Wozniacki in her article for the ITF. Whatever you do, don't read this wimbledon.org story. It gives the wrong winner in the Roshardt/Konecny match.
Kellen Damico and Nate Schnugg have reached the quarterfinals in the boys' doubles as have Julia Cohen and Kim Couts on the girls' side. Lindsay Burdette, who is partnering Roxane Vaisemburg of Brazil, has also advanced to the quarterfinals.
11 comments:
Guess you haven't heard that Ryan Sweeting has made the official switch to the USA....he is a dual citizen as you may know. Won Futures in Vero Beach a few months ago (only his 2nd or 3rd futures from what I gather) - and reached semi's last week in Buffalo. Keep an eye on this one.
I heard last month that he was applying to the ITF to change his status from the Bahamas to the U.S., but I hadn't heard that it was official.
Wow!! How cool is that. He left the Bahamas. Why didn't he stay and represent his country?? He would have had a much bigger impact there then he will in the US.
Well, the US is his country too! His mother is American and his father has never been in the picture. Seems to make sense that he does the best for his tennis and makes an impact in that way.
I have two things here. FYI: Ryan Sweeting played in the 14's in 2001 here in the U.S. He played in all the Super Nationals, I guess he switched back over to the Bahamas as his nationality after that. He wasn't all that good back then.
The other is, whatever happened to Justin Montgomery from California? He was highly ranked all throughout juniors until the 18's, did he quit tennis or what? If anybody knows, I've been curious for a while where he went.
One more comment, you said in your SMASH column that clay isn't suited for Marcus Fugate's all-court game. Doesn't having an all-court game mean he is a versatile player who's game transitions well to all surfaces? To me that means he can serve and volley on grass, rally with the dirtballers and bang away from the baseline with powerful groundies on hard courts.
And on a side note, I really hope having that one good result in a Futures event doesn't lead him to think he should turn pro because the rest of his results prove he needs to get to college immediately. If you can't make it past the opening rounds of a grand slam in juniors then you shouldn't even be considering turning pro. Just look at what the 2004 group has accomplished(Jenkins,Evans,Oudsema,Kryvonos,Simmonds,Odesnik), none are in the top200. That doesn't bode well for them becoming the next great American crop of pros when other kids their age(Nadal,Murray,Djokovic,Almagro) are all already becoming big time players. I just hate seeing another extremely talented crop of Americans being used by me and others as examples of why kids should go to college. Everyone pray Sam Querrey keeps developing because he seems like the only 17-20yr old who has a dominating game on the pro level right now.
His father must have been in the picture long enough to help create little ryan. I heard he helped ryan learn how to hit a dropshot and how to break his racket properly. And what difference does it make to his tennis if he is American? What do you think the USTA is going to help a kid who switches nationalities because they don't have many prospects? Actually don't answer that.
Justin Montgomery is playing college tennis at UC-Riverside.
Do you know why he is at UC-Riverside? Is that just where his talent level is at these days or is he just not serious as he was about it and just wants to compete in college for fun while he goes to school and doesnt feel like taking it as serious as the Pac10 schools make it? I say that because he was on track to play at UCLA, USC or Pepperdine based on his tennis skills in the juniors. I'm not knocking his choice if that's what he wants, it's just that 5yrs ago he looked like a kid who would be a really good college player at an elite program.
That's because he was booted off the Bahamas Davis Cup team for his DUI..... Hello
It will be interesting to see how many kids choose american citizenship so they can play at the USTA training facility being built at the Evert Academy.
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