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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Min Upsets Top Seed as First Round of Wimbledon Juniors Begins; Keys Reaches Final in Pro Circuit Event in Cleveland


The big story in the Wimbledon Junior Championships came early today, with Grace Min of the U.S. taking out No. 1 seed and 2010 Roland Garros girls champion Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 2-6, 7-5, 6-3. For more on the match, see the story on the Wimbledon website, which sees a resemblance that I don't when describing Min.

Other U.S. girls who advanced to the second round are Ester Goldfeld, who beat wild card Katy Dunne of Great Britain 6-4, 6-2 and No. 5 seed Monica Puig, who posted a tough comeback win over 19th ranked but unseeded Cristina Dinu of Romania 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Lucky loser Lauren Herring fell to Doroteja Eric of Serbia 1-6, 7-5, 6-1. The only other seed to fall on Saturday in either the boys or girls draw was No. 7 seed Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada, who lost to British wild card Eleanor Dean 3-6, 6-0, 6-0. Stephanie Myles of the Montreal Gazette is at Wimbledon and has more about Dabrowski's struggles this summer in this article.

The U.S. boys went 3-2 on Saturday, with Denis Kudla(7), Mitchell Frank and Raymond Sarmiento winning in straight sets. Kudla defeated Ben McLachlan of New Zealand 6-1, 6-4, and there is a brief story on the match on the Wimbledon site and more on Kudla's preparations for a deep run can be found at the ITF junior site. Sarmiento beat British wild card Kyle Edmund 6-4, 6-4 and Frank downed Jeson Patrombon of the Philippines 6-1, 7-5. Dennis Novikov lost to Oliver Golding of Great Britain 6-4, 6-2 and Nick Chappell was beaten by Justin Eleveld of the Netherlands 6-2, 6-4.

The remaining 31 first round singles matches are on Monday's schedule, which can be found here.

Arguably the biggest upset of the tournament was recorded today in the second round of men's doubles, when two-time defending Wimbledon champions Daniel Nestor of Canada and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia were beaten by British wild cards Dom Inglot and Chris Eaton 7-5, 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-7(3), 8-6. Inglot, who won the 2009 NCAA doubles title with Michael Shabaz as a senior at Virginia, has been playing with Eaton regularly the past year. For more on that match see the Wimbledon website article. Ken Skupski, the former LSU All-American, has reached the second round of the men's doubles with partner Colin Fleming, after the pair defeated the French team of Arnaud Clement and recent hero Nicolas Mahut 7-6(4), 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(4) today in a match delayed due to the marathon match between Mahut and John Isner. Skupski and Fleming will play the Bryan twins in the second round.

In the $10,000 Pro Circuit tournament in Cleveland, unseeded Madison Keys has reached Sunday's final after a 6-3, 6-4 victory over 2008 US Open girls finalist Gabriela Paz of Venezuela. After a three-set win over Kaitlyn Christian in the first round, Keys has been cruising. The 15-year-old from Florida will play No. 3 seed Piia Suomalainen of Finland in the final, Keys' first as a professional.

Caitlin Whoriskey and Sanaz Marand will play Eleanor Peters and Emily Harman for the doubles title Sunday.

Lauren Davis was originally scheduled to play in the Cleveland event, but was held out due to an injury. For more on Davis and her recent move to the Evert Academy, see this News Herald article.

For complete results, see the Pro Circuit page.

2 comments:

College10is said...

Did anyone else see recent USC grad Farah win the challenger in Venezuela pretty handily? Looks like he's going to be having a quick rise in the pro ranks from that performance and his big game. Any thoughts?

payne said...

was actually a weak future