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Friday, February 29, 2008

QuickStart Tennis Introduced; Pacific Coast Men's Doubles Tournament Underway; Oudin Reaches Second Semifinal on Pro Circuit


The USTA is rolling out the promotion for QuickStart Tennis, with the reduced-sized court and equipment for smaller children. The Orlando Sentinel spoke with Mary Joe Fernandez about it, and also provides some interesting statistics about how tennis stacks up against soccer as players age. The USTA's site dedicated to QuickStart can be found here.

The Pacific Coast Doubles tournament this weekend in La Jolla features most of the best college players in California, as well as coaches, teaching pros and juniors. The tournament was first held in 1890 and Ken Thomas will be providing streaming audio of the final two days at radiotennis.com. This is a free service; all that's necessary is a brief registration. For full draws, see the TennisLink site.

Sixteen-year-old Melanie Oudin took an extended break after her grueling and successful December ITF calendar, but she hasn't shown any signs of rust since returning to the courts at the Pro Circuit level. Last week in Clearwater's $25,000 event, she reached the semifinals, before losing to Yevhenila Savranska of the Ukraine, and Oudin gets her opportunity to avenge that lost in tomorrow's semifinal at the $25,000 tournament in Ft. Walton Beach. Because she reached the final, Savranska got a special exemption into the main draw; Oudin had to get through three qualifying matches, but she made it easier on herself by winning all in straight sets. For complete results of this event and the men's tournament in Harlingen, Texas, see the Pro Circuit home page.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been fortunate enough to watch most of the AVT Womans Tournament in Fort Walton Beach since it is my hometown. I have seen Oudin play all of her matches and I must say I am very impressed with the maturity of her game. Also playing in the tournament was Arantxa Rus, the Aus. Open Junior Champ. I think she has a game that is going to translate very well into the top ranks of the game.