Pasha on Choosing Georgia; Jack Sock's Blog; Puig, McHale Sign with Agencies; Harrison Qualifies for US Open,
During the Kalamazoo tournament, I had a few moments to talk with Nathan Pasha about his recent decision to verbally commit to the University of Georgia next fall. His comments on his choice can be found in my weekly article for the Tennis Recruiting Network.
If you missed it the other day in my deluge of tweets, Jack Sock is writing a blog on his U.S. Open experience for the Missouri Valley section's website. In his second installment, he reveals that he hit with Sam Querrey and went to the Nike party on Thursday night.
Two signing announcements were released today. Monica Puig has signed with Lagardere, and Christina McHale, who has been playing as a professional since the French Open, has signed with Octagon. 
Ryan Harrison was one of nine players to earn a spot in the main draw of next week's U.S. Open. After the accounts I read of his match last night against Rui Machado of Portugal, where he resorted to serving underhanded because of cramping, I wasn't sure how fit he would be for another match this afternoon. But he again overcame the loss of the first set and went on to earn a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Brazil's Ricardo Hocevar. With Bernard Tomic and Filip Krajinovic, the two other highly-touted players from the 1992 birth year, losing in the second round, Harrison will have most of the up-and-comers spotlight to himself.
Harrison's third and final round win was one of the few bright spots for the United States players today. Wild cards Krista Hardebeck, Chase Buchanan, Blake Strode and Nicole Gibbs lost their second round matches, as did Alex Bogomolov, Jesse Witten, Vavara Lepchenko and Julia Cohen. The only Americans still contending for a main draw spot are Kevin Kim and Robert Kendrick on the men's side and Irina Falconi on the women's.
The 25th seeded Kim defeated Caio Zampieri of Brazil 6-2, 6-3, while Kendrick, the 22nd seed, beat Nikola Mektic of Croatia 6-4, 7-5. Kim meets former world No. 1 junior Ricardas Bernakis of Lithuania on Saturday. Kendrick meets Tatsuma Ito of Japan, who has defeated Andrea Collarini and Chase Buchanan in straight sets in his first two matches.
Falconi, who turned pro last month after two years at Georgia Tech, beat No. 10 seed and 118th-ranked Anastasia Pivovarova of Russia 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-2. She will play No. 25 seed Stephanie Dubois of Canada for the main draw spot Saturday, and although Dubois holds a 2-1 edge over Falconi head-to-head, Falconi has the most recent win, last month in the quarterfinals of the Vancouver Challenger.
Falconi is joined in the final round of qualifying by fellow Campbell/ITA Player of the Year Robert Farah. Farah, the former USC Trojan, defeated No. 17 seed Josselin Ouanna of France 6-4, 6-2, and will play Dusan Lojda of the Czech Republic for a place in the main draw. Lojda, also unseeded, won the U.S. Open boys championship in 2006.
Teens Laura Robson and Michelle Larcher de Brito also advanced to the final round of qualifying.
The qualifying matches are not scheduled to start until 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
For complete draws and schedule, see usopen.org.
3 comments:
When you are already ranked #113 in the WTA world rankings like Christina McHale college may not be the best route to take. Congrats and best of luck to her. Collette, do you remember when I first introduced you to a young 13 year old Christina at the Easter Bowl at the Riveria? You were then blogging only about the boys and I said to you, "keep an eye on her, she's a great player and she's going places."
All the best to Farah:)
Colette, here is a link on the Collarini kid that I think your readers will find interesting. http://tinyurl.com/23p2w7v
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