USTA Junior Girls Team Set for Three College Matches This Week; El Paso, Mansfield Winners; Harrison Blogs from Macau
USTA Girls National Team, clockwise from top: Lauren Davis, Grace Min, Breaunna Addison, Chanelle Van Nguyen, Monica Turewicz, Lauren Herring. Center: Kyle McPhillips (photos copyright 2009 zootennis.com)
A USTA national team of juniors will test their skills against three Division I women's college teams this week, a continuation of a program implemented earlier this year. In February, a USTA boys national team defeated the University of Miami men's team, and the University of Miami's women's team downed a USTA girls team. In late March, a USTA boys team played at USC, with the future NCAA champions winning the match. My story for SMASH magazine on that match can be found here.
The girls will be taking on the University of Alabama on Wednesday in Tuscaloosa, the University of Georgia on Thursday in Athens and Georgia Tech in Atlanta on Saturday. Jean Desdunes and Lori McNeil will be coaching the USTA team.
In the ITF Grade 5 in El Paso, 14-year-old Hayley Carter of South Carolina won the girls event as an unseeded wild card, claiming all of her victories in straight sets, including the final over wild card Spencer Liang. Carter is the reigning USTA 14s champion. Sixteen-year-old Eric Johnson of California, the seventh seed, won his second ITF singles title, defeating No. 2 seed Kyohhei Kamono of Japan in three sets. Niko Madregallejo and Mackenzie McDonald took the boys doubles title, and Juliana Gajic of Canada teamed with Alexandra Leatu to win the girls doubles championship. For complete results, see the TennisLink site.
Although the Pro Circuit draws have not been updated, Texas College Tennis is reporting via Twitter that Arnau Brugues, the former Tulsa All-American, won the singles, with Philip Bester and Jonathan Eysseric taking the doubles title. Donald Young won the Calabasas challenger. To read more about that, see this Steve Pratt story on Tennis Week.
Ryan Harrison is probably on his way back to Florida now after his whirlwind tour of Macau (there's no agreement on the spelling, so I'm going with the AP), but he filed two very long and interesting blog posts about his time on the Chinese resort island. The exhibition between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi was the main attraction, with Harrison and Yuki Bhambri serving as undercard and doubles partners for the two legendary U.S. stars. Harrison was able to talk with both players, appreciating the opportunity to get the advice of two of tennis's greatest champions. The first blog report, complete with photos, is here, the second can be found here.
1 comments:
Awesome blog by Ryan, he looks be a great future ambassador for US tennis.
Thanks as always for the site Collette
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