What's Happening at Tennis Tournaments Without Whale Logos
It's been nice to watch tennis on TV again (no, still no Tennis Channel in Kalamazoo), even if Fox Sports Detroit did cut away from today's Tsonga/Nadal match with Tsonga leading 5-2 in the third, in order to do the Red Wings pregame. It was back to the computer to watch the Pacific Life Live Scoreboard as Nadal won the match's final five games.
But in addition to Indian Wells, there is tennis being played in other parts of the Americas and we have the Sun-Sentinel, the Redding, Calif. Record Searchlight and the ITF Junior site to keep us informed.
At the $25,000 Women's Pro Circuit event in Redding, Madison Brengle qualified and yesterday advanced to the second round. The Record Searchlight talked with Brengle about her three-set win over Maria-Fernanda Alves of Brazil. Since their photos don't include one of Brengle, I'll post my most recent one. For complete draws and results, see the Pro Circuit homepage.
Charlie Bricker has been posting early and often from the $100,000 BMW Challenger in Sunrise, Fla. and today weighed in with his estimation of the prospects of Ricardas Berankis, who lost in the final round of qualifying. (For complete results, see the tournament's website).
Bricker also revealed an imminent announcement from the French, which will next year go to the Super Tiebreak in lieu of playing out a third set. And finally, he makes public the unfortunate news, which I had heard a month or so ago, that the Luxilon Cup is no more, or at least will not be held this year at the Sony Ericsson.
The Grade A Copa Gerdau in Brazil is the big event this week in ITF junior tennis, and the American juniors there fared so poorly that even the ITF junior website used it as a basis for their wrap-up story. Last year's foray into South American clay also produced very few wins, and given the relative U.S. success on the European clay last summer and fall in the team events, I'm at a loss to explain it.
And finally, I would be remiss in not mentioning the results of the Blue Gray Tennis Classic, which was held last week in Montgomery, Alabama. Sixteen teams vie for the title at the prestigious event, with the surging Tulsa Golden Hurricanes emerging with the championship this year. Now at No. 8 in the current ITA rankings, the Tulsa men are making a push to be more than just hosts for the 2008 NCAAs. No. 9 USC visits the Michael Case Tennis Center on Saturday.
6 comments:
For those that don't have the Tennis channel or who aren't able to watch Pac Life on FSN, the next best thing is watching on the internet. The website is www.atpmastersseries.tv/page/Live/Men/. Viewing costs are about 14.95 for the entire tournament and the coverage has been awesome.
Hi Collette,
About your remarks about “I can’t explain it” on why US juniors have not faired well on S. American red clay this season but did OK in 16 under team events last summer/fall. Simple explanation. The 16 under team events are a different level of competition than the ITF 18s at Gerdau which gets the best clay court juniors in the world competing, as well as the lead-up tournament the Banana Bowl. Different levels of the game. Looked at the Gerdau and Banana Bowl draws from last year and the USA did terrible in this class of clay court players. Both Rhyne Williams and Chase Buchanan lost in the first round at both. Williams faired the same at the French Open juniors last year. This year at the Banana Bowl two of the four US players won singles but all lost in the first at Gerdau. Let’s take that a step further and make some comparisons. Trombetta, who got to the semis at the GA in Mexico City in December lost to Waitling at Gerdau on red clay who lost in the Rd of 32 at the same GA in Mexico City. Seal who lost in the first rd at Gerdau has had outstanding results on hard. At Gerdau Vazquez-Valenzuela, the # 3 seed who beat Fowler at Gerdau, lost in the RD of 32 at the last GA on hard in Mexico City in December and the first rd at the Coffee Bowl in Costa Rica, also on hard. In both tournaments Fowler got to the quarters. So why are US boys results so poor on red clay? How many red clay tournaments for juniors are there in the US? As far as I know zero. How much to our players train on Red Clay? Hardly at all. If you look at the ITF schedule for G1s in Europe/Northern Africa over the next few months almost all are on red clay. Clearly the US tennis has put zero emphasis on training/playing on Red Clay and results reflect that.
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delimna here. How can US players train and learn to play on red clay when there are not that many red clay tennis facilities in the US and no red clay tournaments.
I got Tennis Channel to watch all of the tournaments that arent on ESPN, ESPN2 or CBS. I wish I knew hardly any tournaments, nor Davis Cup was even on it, I wouldnt have bothered to get it. Trust me Colette, you're not missing much. They show the same reruns over and over AND OVER again.
Speaking of college tennis, just followed the online stats to see Florida's baby Gators pull off a huge win in Oxford, taking down #5 Ole Miss. It's 4-2 with 1 match still playing.
Ole Miss rolled through the doubles point, taking all 3 courts by an 8-4 mark. Florida started strong in singles and never looked back, taking straight set wins from Oullette over Wellerman at 1, Lacroix over Poole at 3, Hochwalt over Norberg at 5 and Corace(1st action in several weeks) clinching the match at 6 over Klaesson. Ole Miss picked up their 2nd point on court 4 as Berg took down Dadamo in straights. As I type this, Briceno-Tveit is in the 3rd set knotted at 1.
Huge win on the road for Florida, to beat a top 5 team in a hostile environment, esp. after dropping doubles and it's also big to keep them in the SEC race. Go Gators.
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