Stephens Wins in LA Qualifying, but Not a Good Day for U.S. Juniors in Pros; Boys National Team Competition Underway; Easter Bowl DVD
Late post tonight so that I could include the results from the west coast qualifying matches. Sloane Stephens ended the first round of qualifying for the WTA's Los Angeles Women's Championships on a high note, taking a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Lenka Wienerova of Slovakia, who is ranked 131. Melanie Oudin also advanced, defeating Alina Jidkova of Russia 6-4, 6-1. But earlier in the day, there wasn't much good news to report. Kristie Ahn lost in straight sets to Melanie South of Great Britain, while Danielle Mills and Nicole Gibbs barely won any games from Jill Craybas and Julie Ditty, respectively. Alison Riske gave veteran Kimiko Date Krumm of Japan a battle but ultimately fell in three sets. The other late wild card, Lindsey Nelson, the two-time NCAA finalist when at USC, came from a set down to defeat 107th ranked Elena Baltacha of Great Britain. Although the draws haven't been updated, the Live Scores button on this page provides all the results.
At the Legg Mason qualifying, wild cards Mitchell Frank and Junior Ore lost in straight sets to Santiago Giraldo of Columbia and Brendan Evans of the U.S. Denis Kudla won the second set against France's Sebastien De Chaunac, but fell behind early in the third and lost it 6-2. For complete qualifying results, see the tournament's website.
For first round qualifying winners, if not complete results, of the $100,000 men's challenger in Vancouver, see this article.
There is some junior tennis to follow this weekend, with the USTA Boys 18s National Team Championships in Champaign-Urbana. Southern California is going for its sixth straight title, and once again has a very tough team, with JT Sundling, Lawrence Formentera and Dan Kosakowski in the top three positions. They could be challenged by the Midwest section, whose top three are Chase Buchanan, Evan King and Greg Andrews. Texas, Southern and Florida could also make some noise in the next three days. See the TennisLink site for results from today's action. For a more comprehensible review, see the tournament website.
Steve Pratt, who was responsible for the publicity for the Easter Bowl, sends along word that a DVD of the one-hour television special produced at this year's championships is now available for $30.00 including shipping. If you are interested in purchasing a copy, please contact him at (310) 408-4555 or sprattt[at]aol[dot]com.
5 comments:
Querrey vs. Ball in LA Open final.
A rematch of the Boys 16's Kalamazoo 4th Qualifying Backdraw match, won by Ball 6-3,6-2.
And folks is the random stat of the day. Greg Sharko, Im coming for your job.
How is Ball considered Australian if he was born and lives in the US?
Great stat, Austin. What year?
Ball's dad is Syd Ball, former Australian player. Since his dad is Australian he automatically has duel citizenship rights. He decided to switch from representing that U.S. to Australia his last year of juniors. Im under the thought you play for where you stay, but whatever.
They played in Kazoo in 2003, the next year Querrey won the 16's. Sam had just won the 14's the year before.
I think Sam ROLLS today. Loses maybe 4-5 games.
It doesn't seem fair, does it, for a dual-citizenship player to benefit from USTA perks and wildcards as a junior and then switch allegiance when their junior days are over and they can then benefit more from claiming citizenship elsewhere.Sometimes they get a shot at playing Davis Cup for their "other" country. I've noticed a few examples of this like the Amritraj cousins and Treat Huey who now lists his citizenship as the Phillipines. Wouldn't be surprised to see Sean Berman go that route, he who has been the recipient of numerous USTA wildcards.
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