Kudla & Ore Open for Sampras/Federer; Pacific Life Wild Cards Announced
Denis Kudla and Junior Ore will have the thrill of a lifetime Monday when the two 15-year-olds from the Junior Champions Tennis Center in College Park, Md. provide the opening act for the Pete Sampras vs. Roger Federer exhibition at Madison Square Garden. Richard Pagliaro of Tennis Week has an in-depth look at the boys' reactions to this opportunity and, through their coach Frank Salazar, explores their approaches to the sport in general. The USTA is offering free live streaming of the sold-out exhibition through usta.com. Click here for details.
The wild cards for the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, Calif. were announced Thursday, with Melanie Oudin and Madison Brengle, who plays Asia Muhammad today in the semifinals of the Pro Circuit event in Las Vegas, receiving main draw wild cards. Juniors Anastasia Pivovarova of Russia and Poland's Urszula Radwanska were also given main draw slots. Gail Brodsky and Coco Vandeweghe received qualifying wild cards, joining several former Stanford stars and UCLA's Riza Zalameda in that competition. Kalamazoo finalists Ryan Thacher, Jesse Levine and Michael McClune were recipients of men's qualifying wild cards.
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7 comments:
While it is a great experience for Denis Kudla and Junior Ore could someone explain how they were chosen instead of so many of our better juniors. These selections are very puzzling for their level of play.
the article said that the usta high performance staff chose them
i think that they were chosen because they have both shown good results and
maryland is not that far away from new york city in comparison to where some other candidates for the match might live
Also, some of the other top US juniors in their age group are currently playing G1s, GAs in South America and G1s in Asia, at USTA supernationals in Mobile. That said, dont know why Ryan Harrison, Domajon, Rhyne Williams, Chase Buchanan were not chosen though.
I think the other candidates might have no problem getting there for an opportunity like that. You would think High Performance would pay the kids way and try to get the best ones available. These kids are good but they are not even the best in their birth year of '92 which is why it is rather puzzling. Makes you wonder what kind of politics came into play for sure.
Who cares? Geez this isnt some exclusive team they were picking.
Austin, Who cares? Wake up. It should be an honor that is earned instead of politics to play at Madison Square Garden in front of Federer and Sampras. You are right it is not a team they were picking it is bigger than that so you would think we could have selected better players than this to show the future of American tennis. Why not use the '90's or '91's or even our best '92's for something of this magnitude.
Does the USTA live in a vacuum? Don't they realize that this was laughable? I really don't get it.
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