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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Wimbledon Acceptances; Larcher de Brito Advances In Paris; Lauren Embree's Blog

The Wimbledon Junior Championships acceptance list was posted today, with four U.S. girls and seven U.S. boys receiving entry into the main draw.

The boys, in order of their ranking at the time of the cutoff, are: Denis Kudla, Tennys Sandgren, Evan King, Alex Domijan, Devin Britton, Harry Fowler and Mitchell Frank. Bob van Overbeek and Jordan Cox are in the qualifying, and JT Sundling is the first alternate, so he is likely to also make the qualifying field.

The girls accepted are Lauren Embree, Beatrice Capra, Christina McHale and Madison Keys. In the qualifying are Sloane Stephens, Nicole Gibbs, Mallory Burdette and Alex Cercone. Gibbs, by the way, is playing the $50,000 Pro Circuit event at Carson this week, and Steve Pratt, who is doing publicity for the tournament, reports that she beat No. 1 seed and 190th-ranked Lindsay Lee-Waters 7-5, 6-4 in a first round match today.

For the complete Wimbledon acceptance list, see the ITF junior website.

Qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal has reached the third round of the French Open, upsetting No. 15 seed Jie Zheng of China 6-4, 6-3. Despite her win, most of the talk surrounding her performances centers on the noise she makes when she's striking the ball. Christopher Clarey writes about that, and her game style, in this story for the New York Times.

Lauren Embree, who is a regular blogger for the USTA, is posting daily on her experience in Paris. Embree, who lost 6-1, 6-2 to No. 11 seed Nadia Petrova of Russia in the first round, is now sightseeing and preparing for the Junior Championships, which begin on Sunday. See usta.com for her blog.

9 comments:

gsm said...

In looking at the tennisrecruiting rankings for 2009 commitments, does any one really think Stanford should be ranked #1 ahead of UVa? I'd like to hear the thinking of the voters who would rather have Stanford's class

Austin said...

Its because Stanford got three really good Americans(Kandath,Lin,Kehrer) who will all compete for a spot in the lineup. UVA got Jenkins and then some non-Americans that we dont know much about. The depth of Stanford probably won out over the one huge recruit of UVA.

iluvtennis said...

Austin you must be joking. Some non-Americans that we know nothing about? I don't know, but when I see a kid ranked #4 in the world I'm pretty confident he's going to be a good college player, not to mention another guy ranked in the top 100 ITF.
In my opinion UVa got 2 guys better then any one guy Stanford got, perhaps you differ with this but if I had my choice I would choose UVa's class over Stanford's.....only time will tell.

Tom C said...

What happened to John Isner and The French Open? He won the US wild card tournament but did not play the French Open, any reason why? And was he replaced in the draw by another American? Thanks.

Colette Lewis said...

@Tom C:

You should read ZooTennis more often!

As I reported last week, Isner has mono and could not play in French Open. Due to the timing, his wild card reverted back to the French federation.

Austin said...

iluvtennis,

Grigorov of Texas A&M was ranked 5th in the world at one point. He struggled to play #4 as a freshman for a decent team this season. So excuse me if I dont quite believe junior world rankings. I mean come on, Ytai Abougzir was ranked 6th one year.

justthefacts said...

To Austin

Both Jenkins and Urigan are world class juniors. Denis Lin has crashed out on any high level ITF he has ever played, which is why is not at the French. Kandath is good but so far not quite the level/results of either Urigan or Jenkins. Dont know much about Kehrer. Stanford will have to get at least two of top ranked Americans in 2010 to really compete against those schools who are mixing in some of the best international players in thier line-up and the only US boys in 2010 at that international level are Domijan, but I think he will probably go pro, or next down Van Overbeek, Cox, Fowler and Sarmiento( he if grows). Kudla has already gone pro. Also none of those player have Stanford as a choice on tennisrecruiting except VanOverbeek. So not sure how Stanford will compete against those schools who mix both top Amerian and top international players. Their top player Alex Clayton, who is technically a senior, just got beaten by a player who is technicially a senior in high school at the NCAAs. Like the concept of an All American team but not sure how realistic that is if you goal is to be number 1.

iluvtennis said...

I agree with you regarding Grigorov, he didn't have a great semester but he also started half way through the semester and that is tough for any freshman, my guess is he'll be much better next year. Ytai on the other hand was an excellent college player and played #1 singles and doubles at FSU.
Lin and Kehrer are both very good players but I don't think either are good enough to be top 50 ITF more or less top 10. Certainly the junior rankings are not completely accurate but I would say it's pretty much a given that if you are ranked top 10 ITF at any point that you will do really well in college.

tennis said...

nobody beat that SENIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL in the tournament, so not just clayton.