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Sunday, May 4, 2008

Buchanan and Gordon Win Pro Circuit Titles

Chase Buchanan and Alexis Gordon won titles on the Pro Circuit Sunday, and in doing so, once again reminded those of us who love the game that the pathways to success are as unique as the individuals who play it. Buchanan is 16-years-old, has played a lot of Futures qualifying in the past year or two, but until this week, hadn't gotten past the quarterfinals in any of those tournaments, which meant he needed a wild card into the main draw. Today he outlasted the 27-year-old Venezuelan Jose De Armas on the Vero Beach Har-Tru, winning 4-6, 7-5, 7-6(2). The Tennis Hacker blog has the details of the final here.

Former Florida Gator Alexis Gordon is 25 years old, has a three-year-old daughter and a very short resume in professional tennis. She needed to qualify for the $50,000 Boyd Tinsley Pro Circuit event in Charlottesville. Today she downed her second consecutive Top 130 player, upsetting No. 2 seed Olga Puchkova of Russia 6-3, 6-3. An excellent piece of reporting by Whitey Reid in the Daily Progress after Gordon's win yesterday over Yanina Wickmayer provides a look at her decidedly different path to professional tennis.

A new ITF junior event in Hawaii, a Grade 4, wrapped up yesterday and top seed Harry Fowler and No. 2 seed Ester Goldfeld were the winners, taking both singles and doubles titles. For complete draws, see the ITF junior website.

Thanks for the news from commenter t3nnis that the U.S. girls have advanced to the World group in Junior Fed Cup play in Canada. As of the time of this post (9 p.m. Eastern), there was no information posted about Day 3 on the Tennis Canada site.

1 comments:

scott said...

Couldn't be happening to a nicer person. She is a great inspiration. Congrats, Alexis.