Australia to Play for Both Cups; Young Crushes Levine; ITA All-American Prequalifying Underway
The Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup finalists were decided today in Italy, and both of Australia's teams will be there. The top-seeded boys, who easily defeated Chinese Taipei in today's semifinals, will meet the No. 7 seeded team from Argentina; the girls, seeded sixth, meet No. 5 seeded Poland. Both Aussie girls saved match points in their victories over the home-crowd-supported Italians, according to this account from Eleanor Preston at the ITF junior website. (There is a mistake in Holland score in the story; it should be 6-7, 7-5, 6-3). In last month's World Junior Tennis Competition for 14-and-unders in the Czech Republic, the Australian boys won the championship. Three out of the four world team titles would be amazing, especially since the surface is clay, not a prevalent surface Down Under.
The U.S. teams will play for fifth on Sunday; I had thought those matches were being played today. I hope they had an opportunity to see some of Italy on their day off.
One match I was really interested in that was being played today was Jesse Levine vs. Donald Young in the semifinals of the Tulsa Challenger. Finally we would see the two 2006 Kalamazoo finalists actually play, after the disappointment of Young's walkover win due to Levine's virus. I was expecting a close match; I would never have imagined Young would win 6-0, 6-1. He will be a lot more rested for Sunday's final than his opponent Jesse Witten, who needed three sets to get past Alberto Francis.
Also in Tulsa, the men's prequalifying for the ITA Polo All-American began today. With a 256 draw, they might still be playing, but the results of today's two rounds are here. The women are in Pacific Palisades, Calif. for the Riveria All-American, and they have a much more manageable 64 draw. The results from today are available here.
4 comments:
I had the pleasure of watching the Young-Levine match. Young has a beatiful touch and had control throughout the match. He had Levine on a string: Young would hit about two or three balls to Levine's backhand and then swing it wide to Levine's forehand for a winner.
I saw Levine at the Open. He seemed overwhelmed by the situation so maybe I'll cut his lackluster game some slack, but I saw nothing that portends a successful career. Serve was piddling, averaging in the low hundreds to the mid teens with a second in the low eighties with not much bite. (On the plus side his placement was good.) Nothing special about the groundies except the unforced errors and the inability to hit big when the opportunity presented itself. But seeing how he had a successful college career, maybe this match was an aberration and Davydenko just too tough.
who would not be overwhelmed with the siuation at the open! haha i mean the kid plays his first pro match against the number 4 player in the world on grandstand, i think thats pretty overwhelming in anyones situation. levine just got to his first semi final of a proffesional event thats pretty impressive, hes not john isner or kevin anderson with these bomb serves, he will make it its just going to take more time.
I thought I would give your readers a first-hand account of the Young-Witten final at the Tulsa Challenger: the word on Witten is that he gets down on himself and has the look of a defeated player as the match progresses. In this match, Witten controlled his emotions; it was Young who was yelling, throwing - and eventually breaking - his racquet. Both sets were close throughout (7-6, 7-5, Witten) but on the money points Witten was hitting winners and Young was making errors.
Post a Comment