Day Six at the Nats: A big upset and more great weather
Wednesday is always a busy day at the Zoo, but the scheduling of the round of 16 throughout the day actually gives us an opportunity to pursue an ambitious goal--photographing, in action, all 32 players still playing in the main draw.
Please visit the photo archives for a shot and caption summary of all the day's matches.
For news of the big upset, see ustaboys.com.
4 comments:
I noticed that many of the 16s players who have been playing 18s all year but dropped down to play the Zoo 16s have already been ousted. Notably Waylon Chin, Kayvon Karimi, Bradley Klahn, Aba Omedele-Lucien, Austin Krajichek and Devin Britton have lost in the main draw. Apparently it's easier to play up where you have no pressure than to play in your own age group and expected to do well. Many of these players are USRA sponsored. That leaves Adam El Mihdawy and Jarmere Jenkins as the only two to survive into the quarter final round.
Devin Britton just turned 15, but I agreed with your comment
Even El Midhaway and Jenkins had many tough matches to reach the quarters. I agree that it is much easier to play an older player when the pressure is on them compared to players our age or younger where you are expected to win. However, Jenkins and El Midhaway had the match of the tournament today. 11-9 in the third set tiebreaker. One fo the best junior matches I've ever seen. It took Adam 6 match points while saving an unbelievable match point of Jarmere's. I have a lot of respect for both players.
I was just wondering, I keep reading about various takes on this on this subject among the diff topics on this board: Why, or why not kids play "up"? For the most part, it seems that many agree that it is less pressure to play the older kid, as opposed to playing your own age, or younger. There are many USTA players, especially in the girls that I remember were pretty successful in the 12's, and then made the jump straight to 16's, and in some cases, 18's. "If" these players were to play their former peers from the 12's (who now some are in 14's) right now, they would destroy them, just because they have played better players, seen a better ball to hit etc. Is the theory on this that, eventually the players that faced the pressure will catch up abilty wise, and then have the advantage because the players who went "up" never really faced the pressure of playing their own age groups (or younger)? And "if" this is true, why do many players do this?
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