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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Reed Ousts No. 3 Seed Collins in Girls 18s Clay Courts Third Round


©Colette Lewis 2010--
Memphis, TN--

With temperatures in the 90s and high humidity, the third day of the USTA Girls 18s Clay Courts certainly had its challenges.

Catherine Harrison, the No. 5 seed, who is from suburban Memphis, had the most benign conditions, with an 8 a.m. start time on Stadium Court. After barely an hour, she had powered past Madeleine Hamilton 6-2, 6-3 and could go home to the air conditioning, but the rest of the field wasn't so fortunate.

There were main draw matches played at two other sites in addition to the main site, the Racquet Club of Memphis, where I stayed throughout the day. While the day's first round of consolation matches occupied nine of the ten RCM courts, the Stadium Court was reserved for main draw matches, and following Harrison's win another Tennessee player took the court, Caitlyn Williams, a No. 17 seed. Williams and Indiana's Katie Klyczek battled for two hours and 45 minutes before moving to a third set tiebreaker to decide it, but that ended quickly, with Klyczek winning every point to earn a 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(0) victory.

Klyczek, who had plenty of power on her serve and her ground strokes, got the only break of the third set at 5-5, but she was unable to serve it out, making an unforced error at 30-40. That was the last unforced error Klyczek would make, as Williams simply could not keep a ball in the court or over the net in the tiebreaker.

As the temperature continued to climb, the remaining main draw matches began to reclaim the other courts. Top seed Whitney Kay looked as if she might be an upset victim when she dropped her serve at 5-5 in the first set on a double fault, and Hailey Johnson held in her service game to claim the lead. That would be the last time Johnson would hold her serve in the match, as Kay eliminated the uncharacteristic errors that popped in the first set, and won ten straight games before Johnson finally ended the streak by breaking Kay. The players were required to take a heat break after the second set, but it didn't change the momentum, with Kay rolling to a 5-7, 6-0, 6-1 win.

While I was watching the end of Kay's win, No. 3 Danielle Collins was falling behind Rachael Reed 5-0 in a match played on one of the three lower courts. Collins, who had barely escaped Laura Wiley 7-5 in the third on Monday, fought back to force a tiebreaker in the first set, but when Reed won it, the wheels fell off for Collins and she was beaten 7-6(7), 6-1.

Reed blamed her nerves and Collins's improved play for the disappearance of her big lead in the first set.

"I started getting really nervous and she started playing much better," said the 16-year-old from The Woodlands, Texas. "She was striking the ball more. In the tiebreaker, I just wanted to get off to a good start and keep doing what I was doing that got me to 5-0. I started putting pressure on her and moving into the court."

Reed had no trouble matching Collins's power and Collins became increasingly frustrated with her own errors. Although she finished sixth here in 2009, she never looked comfortable on the clay and was not able to find any rhythm in the second set.

"I wasn't expecting to do so well playing on clay," said Reed, who was a finalist at the 16s Winter Nationals in January. "I'm more of a hard court players and I don't have a lot of experience playing on clay courts. I played the Intersectionals, but I usually don't play on clay. I'm more of a one-two punch sort of player, take a lot of balls on the rise, go for more and be in the court. This, you can't hit every ball as hard as you can. It's really about placement and working the point."

Collins was not the only Top 8 seed to lose on Tuesday. No. 6 seed Elizabeth Begley was beaten by Ashley Dai 6-2, 6-2 and No. 7 seed Hanna Yu lost to Aria Lambert 7-6(3), 7-6(1). Of the 32 seeds who should be playing on Wednesday, only 14 are.

For complete results, see the TennisLink site.

8 comments:

athens said...

So Domijan has entered the Binghamton Challenger instead of the Zoo ( for an Open WC) Why do that if you're going to college?

John said...

Points he earns will help him maintain his ranking during college so that he doesn't have to totally rely on WC's to get entries while in school.

Or, maybe he will get that Open WC without the Zoo??

Both of those just speculation.....

Junior Tennis Player said...

I just saw on the draw sheet that Dante Terenzio was thrown out of the B18s National Clays. He was defaulted during his main draw match and then disqualified in the back draw match.

I recall that this also happened to him at the Easter Bowl a few years ago.

Does anyone know what happened?

Tennis Guru said...

If Domijan was so concerned about ATP points after college then he wouldn't be playing World Team Tennis for 3 weeks.

Alex can also enter Binghamton without penalty because he will definitely not get in the main draw.

I would hope that Alex would play Kalamazoo. He would one of the top favorites.

Having our players skip Kalamazoo is a trajedy and I'm putting Ryan Harrison in that mix as well. None of them are that much better to be skipping it.

Lastly, great post by Eric Amend about women's players who didn't go to college or using some of college for development.

Athens said...

Just meant that there will be plenty of challengers to play in the future. Are the points that big a deal to miss one more Zoo.

Farah has shown (as did Isner & Somdev) that if you're good enough, you can build plenty of points quickly

Alex is an alternate for Binghamton. Was just assuming (don't know) that he's getting a WC there.

McLovin said...

Oh no, Dante, not AGAIN!

Brent said...

Don't know that I have seen 'cond' as the explanation for a default before. Have certainly seen 'inj' for injury, 'wd' for withdrawal, and 'ns' for no show. I am sure I am missing something, but what does 'cond' stand for? Something related to code violations?

John said...

Cond = Conduct (guessing)