April Aces; Rogers Beats Dubois in Florida 50K; Brooke Austin, Mikael Pernfors Updates
My first Thursday of the month feature is up today at the Tennis Recruiting Network, and it's a XXL edition of aces, with 15 players getting their due from their April accomplishments.
In Pro Circuit action today, 17-year-old Shelby Rogers scored her biggest win on the professional circuit when she defeated No. 2 seed and 115th-ranked Stephanie Dubois of Canada 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the second round of the $50,000 women's event in Indian Harbour Beach, Fla. The Charleston, SC teen won three matches to qualify, then defeated No. 197 Lindsay Lee-Waters in the first round before taking out Dubois today. Rogers will play unseeded Alexandra Stevenson in the quarterfinals on Friday. Wild card Julia Boserup also reached the quarterfinals, having defeated No. 3 seed Evgenyia Rodina of Russia in the first round. The tournament website, which promises live video of matches, can be found here.
In the men's $10,000 Pro Circuit event in Orange Park, Fla., No. 8 seed Alex Domijan cruised past Denis Kudla 6-2, 6-1, to earn a quarterfinal match with top seed Matteo Viola of Italy. Junior Ore, Mitchell Frank and Bjorn Fratangelo all picked up first round wins on the Orange Park clay, but fell in the second round today. Andrea Collarini, the Argentine 18-year-old who recently began playing under the U.S. flag, defeated No. 4 seed Blake Strode to advance to the quarterfinals. Collarini will be the only non-College Park, Md.-trained teen in the doubles final. He and Kudla will play Frank and Ore in a battle of unseeded teams.
For complete results and draws, see the Pro Circuit page at usta.com.
The Indianapolis Star caught up with 14-year-old Brooke Austin after her whirlwind month. Austin reached the singles quarterfinals and won the doubles in Carson 16s, made the singles final at the Easter Bowl, went to the Fed Cup camp in Birmingham, Ala., and helped the U.S. qualify for the 14-and-under ITF world team competition in Boca Raton last week. The article explores her training regimen, her goals and her game style, with comments from both her longtime coach Jeff Smith and Kathy Rinaldi and Troy Hahn, USTA national coaches she has worked and traveled with.
And if you've wondered what two-time NCAA champion Mikael Pernfors is up to these days, see this Ray McNulty feature in the TC Palm. The former Georgia Bulldog, who had a court named for him in Athens after his two titles in 1984 and 1985, is now coaching in the Vero Beach area, and it's a career path he did not expect to take. Pernfors, who still plays on the senior tour, is working with Florida recruit Andrew Butz and Latvian Karlis Lejnieks, who won the Pro Circuit event in Vero Beach last week.
0 comments:
Post a Comment