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Monday, August 10, 2009

Monday Belongs to 16s Division in Kalamazoo



©Colette Lewis 2009--
Kalamazoo, MI--

With rain the first four days of the tournament, the USTA boys 18 & 16 National Championships have resembled a professional grand slam as far as scheduling goes--a day of play, then a day off.

On Monday, it was the 18s who had the day off, with the 16s division having exclusive use of Stowe Stadium, and seeded players taking the courts for the first time. Early morning rain set back match times an hour or so, but skies cleared and humidity dropped, allowing all 64 matches to be completed by 8 p.m.

The top four seeds advanced easily, although top seed Jack Sock would probably disagree with that adverb. Although he strolled through the first set against Quoc-Daniel Nguyen 6-1, early in the second set he began to regularly bend over at the waist between points and was not showing any energy.

"I felt weird and uneasy," said Sock, who won the second set 6-4. "I could start feeling it in the middle and end of the first set and then in the second set it got bad. When I went up for my serve, my stomach just felt uneasy."

Sock didn't think it was anything he ate beforehand, so he was at a loss for an explanation.

"I usually don't have any problems when I play, and that was kind of random. I just had to try to finish as fast as I could, so something worse didn't happen."

Sock, who turns 17 next month and is top-ranked in the USTA 18s, admitted that the wild card into the US Open juniors was the reason he chose to play the 16s.

"I thought I could probably do pretty well in the 18s, because I've been playing well, but I really want to play the US Junior Open, and I thought the 16s would be a better way to get in, rather than trying to get a wild card. I know I can do well if I keep playing well, so the Junior US Open is probably why I played (16s)."

No. 2 seed Shane Vinsant and No. 3 seed Bjorn Fratangelo won their matches 6-1, 6-1, and No. 4 seed Jackson Withrow also earned a straight-set victory, but the seeds right below them didn't fare as well.

No. 5 seed Hunter Harrington withdrew from his evening singles match with an illness and was replaced by an alternate, and No. 6 seed Dennis Mkrtchian was dismissed by Texan Andrew Korinek 6-3, 6-1. Mkrtchian, who won the International Spring championship in Carson in April, was down 4-0 in a matter of minutes on Stowe's court 3. He showed some signs of life midway through the first set, but Korinek served too well to allow Mkrtchian back in the match, and once Korinek got a second break in the second set, the end came quickly.

Korinek had lost to Mkrtchian in the Kalamazoo 16's consolation draw 6-4 in the third last year, so getting such a convincing win on the show courts was very gratifying for him. He bounded up the stairs of the Tower to talk to Pam Shebest of the Kalamazoo Gazette, and was obviously delighted with his performance, displaying an infectious enthusiasm throughout the brief interview.

Korinek wasn't the only unseeded player to have an impact Monday; in all, there were seven seeds defeated, not including Harrington. No. 11 Ace Matias lost to Van Damrongsri 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(0) in a long and crowd-pleasing match that spanned several lunch hours; Brandon Fickey was defeated by Emmett Egger 6-3, 7-6(3) in a match marred by a serious ankle injury to an umpire that required hospitalization. Other seeds losing were: No. 22 Tyler Gardiner to Alex Sidney 6-4, 6-2; No. 32 Vikram Hundal to William Spector 6-3, 6-7(0), 6-1; No. 28 Shaun Chaudhuri to Jason Luu 7-5, 6-4, and No. 24 Robbie Mudge to Anthony Delcore 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.

For complete scores, see ustaboys.com.

19 comments:

tennisplayer said...

colette
what happened w/ fowler. saw the match he was playing very tight from the start then the trainer came out and he played 2 great games then had trouble serving in the tiebreaker. when he retired 3 trainers were looking at him. any idea?

late entry said...

edictions 18s

rnd 64

domijan over huang
king over jackman
bertha over chen
bangoura over brown
king over federhoffer
shane over fang
sarmiento over bader
vick over mcmaster
kudla over davis
brasseaux over sundling
bernstein over balaji
spinosa over hammond
lipman over kreyman
thompson over noble
saba over reed
andrews over van velzer
hovhanissyan over silverman
frank over johnson
formentera over verzaal
cox over straus
lin over hardie
van overbeek over flores
berman over wolf
sandgren over parker
carelton over fife
ore over mccarthy
smith over cheung
jenkins over freeman
kosakowski over spindler
schafer over yermanos
schultz over richardson
buchanan over bazarnik

rnd of 32

domijan over king
bangoura over bertha
king over shane
sarmiento over vick
kudla over sundling
spinosa over bernstein
lipman over thompson
saba over andrews
frank over hovhanissyan
cox over forementera
van overbeek over lin
sandgren over berman
carleton over ore
jenkins over smith
kosakowski over schafer
buchanan over schultz

rnd of 16

domijan over bangoura
king over sarmiento
kudla over spinosa
lipman over saba
frank over cox
sandgren over van overbeek
jenkins over carleton
buchanan over kosakowski

quarters

domijan over king
lipman over kudla
sandgren over frank
buchanan over jenkins

semis

domijan over lipman
sandgren over buchanan

finals

domijan over sandgren

Austin said...

Am I the only one who has problems using the new ustaboys.com site? The formatting is off, the draws page doesnt have a scroll bar, etc.

I've tried three different computers with the same result. Anyone else having these problems?

Colette Lewis said...

@Austin;
I've passed along your comments, but it's working fine for me in Safari and Firefox browsers

Colette Lewis said...

@tennisplayer
I didn't see much of Fowler's match, but the medical reason for his withdrawal was abdominal strain.

Austin said...

Thanks Colette, maybe its just an Internet Explorer glitch, which is what Im using.

trying to follow@work said...

As of today, the website tells me my browser version is out of date. I work for a company that controls all downloads. Unfortunately if I don't upgrade I can't see the site at all now. Worked fine yesterday. Guess I'll have to wait till I'm home to visit the site now & just follow the Twitter

Ann Arbor Dude said...

Collette: Does anyone have an explanation for what happened to Bo Seal? Was he defaulted from his match yesterday? We saw him yelling at the umpire and then he ended up leaving the court soon after that. This was in the middle of the match.

Colette Lewis said...

@Ann Arbor Dude--
I was at Stowe and didn't see any of the match. He is listed as having retired with an injury.

tennisforlife said...

I'm having the same problem with the ustaboys page. Unable to scroll down the draw pages.

Brent said...

I have been having the same browser issues - tried to download the latest Explorer and that didn't fix it. The front page now loads correctly but the scroll bar doesn't show up on any of the draw sheets. Strange.

Big Daddy Goob said...

While its a bother, if you click on the page and highlight everything and move your cursor down, you can view the rest of the page, albeit it goes much slower.

love-tennis said...

Whoever decided to put that 'upgrade' item on the ustaboys.com, could you please take it off? Colette, could you please pass that on? It is so annoying. Now I can't look up any players who alphabetically start in the "A's" or "B's".

Why would someone put it in the middle of a tournament? I can't upgrade because my work controls everything that is loaded.

Colette Lewis said...

Thanks for notifying me about the problems. I do not have anything to do with the ustaboys.com website, so I can't do anything more than pass on your comments to the people who do. But I have done that, and I hope it will be addressed soon.

UStennis said...

Am I the only one who saw harrison beat tomic? is this not news worthy collete?

Colette Lewis said...

@USTennis--
the focus right now is on Kalamazoo

utahjazzwillwinitsomeday said...

"the focus right now is on Kalamazoo"
Geez. Does that mean if Harrison or any other promising U.S player does something big, it should all be put on a standstill on this board until this tournament is over? How bout if he ever beats Federer, could that possibly be news worthy? And poor Tomic, to think that his "loss" is not even fit for discussion..
Yes, I know a bit sarcastic..just trying to make a point that the world of tennis does not live and breathe solely with Kalamazoo, and one should not seem offended or bothered about that.

remember2check other day's comments said...

US tennis, you weren't the only one to notice. It was a topic in the previous day's comments. Btw Harrison played a tight 1st set before losing in straights to Istomin

tennis said...

the sight is called ZOOTENNIS buddy, for this site, the world does revolve around the zoo genius