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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Stosur Breezes Past Davis; USTA Junior Girls Beat Miami; Puig Wins Traralgon; Teen Tennis Update

By now I'm sure most of you know that Lauren Davis lost her grand slam debut to No. 5 seed Samantha Stosur 6-1, 6-1 Tuesday in Melbourne. Davis seemed understandably nervous, but it was a shame she wasn't able to show the form she exhibited in her impressive junior run and in the USTA wild card tournament. Since turning pro, she's obviously gotten a sponsorship deal from Nike, as she was on the Adidas team the last few years in the juniors, but it seemed, from what I saw on espn3, that she had trouble with the shoes, losing her footing often. There is no question that Stosur had much to do with Davis's poor play, but with Davis serving so poorly, only 41 percent first serves, she was fortunate to win the two games she did manage. For more on the match, and Davis's reaction to the loss, see this story from foxsports.com.

In a makeup of the rainout from yesterday, the USTA girls National Junior team defeated the University of Miami women 5-2, avenging a loss by the same score that the Hurricanes had posted over the USTA team last March. The USTA won the doubles point, and four of the six singles matches. There were a couple of additional matches played as well, which I'm including in the scores below:

DOUBLES:
Lauren Herring and Chanelle Van Nguyen (USTA) def. Bianca Eichkorn and Anna Bartenstein 9-8(4)
Vicky Duval and Krista Hardebeck (USTA) def. Gabriela Mejia and Bolivar 8-4
Mia King and Taylor Townsend (USTA) def. Brittany Dubins and Danielle Mills 8-4
Samantha Crawford and Caroline Doyle (USTA) def. Kayla Rizzolo and Bistra Otashlyska 5-3 ret.

SINGLES:
Hardebeck def. Eichkorn 6-2, 7-6(3)
Bartenstein def. Herring 6-4, 6-7, 6-3
Mills def. Van Nguyen 2-6, 6-3, 6-3
Duval def. Mejia 6-3, 5-7, 6-0
Crawford def. Rizzolo 6-2, 6-0
Townsend def. Bolivar 6-1, 6-3
Dubins def. King 9-8(3)

The National team heads to Gainesville on Wednesday to play the No. 2-ranked Florida women at 4 p.m. I will be covering my first USTA National team-college team dual match on Thursday, when the Alabama men play the USTA boys team in Boca Raton.

Miami's Monica Puig, who plays for Puerto Rico, has captured the singles championship at the ITF Grade 1 Loy Yang in Traralgon Australia. Puig, the third seed, beat top seed and ITF world junior champion Daria Gavrilova of Russia in the semifinals and No. 4 seed Yulia Putintseva of Russia in the final. Puig had lost to Putintseva in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open juniors last year, a loss that left her very disappointed, so the 6-2, 6-4 win over the fiery Russian must have been a satisfying one. Puig, who didn't lose a set in her six wins, is also in the doubles final with Canadian Eugenie Bouchard. The scores of the doubles finals and the boys final between Andres Artunedo Martinavarr of Spain and Luke Saville of Australia, both unseeded, have not yet been posted. The draws can be found at the Tennis Australia site.

At the Aegon International Teen Tennis competition in England, the United States players continue to advance, with seven of the eight who made the trip reaching the singles quarterfinals. Unseeded Kenadi Hance defeated the No. 5 seed, unseeded Nicole Frenkel beat the No. 7 seed and the two American seeds, No. 4 Julia O'Loughlin and No. 9 Carolyn Xie had no trouble. All four girls are in different quarters, so the possibility of an all-American semifinal remains. Unseeded Eduardo Nava is the only American boy out, losing today to the No. 8 seed, but Henrik Wiersholm, Francis Tiafoe and defending champion Stefan Kozlov have reached the quarterfinals. The teams of Kozlov and Wiersholm and Frenkel and O'Loughlin have reached the doubles semifinals. For complete draws, see the LTA website.

10 comments:

stanford said...

I assume Florida will be without Allie Will as she is playing in the 25K Lutz, FL ITF. It will be interesting to see if/where Embree plays in the lineup.

Lisa S said...

i watched the davis/stosur match after having watched davis win the wildcard playoff in atlanta. i wonder why she decided to turn pro instead of going to college. given her small stature, it was obvious while watching her play stosur that she has a long way to go before she can be competitive on the pro circuit. why not use college to further develop her game and then join the tour when she's more mature? i'm really curious to hear your thoughts on this, collette!

best wishes said...

Lisa S, could not agree with you more. Saw Davis play at Orange Bowl, thought her serve was very weak and her size does not allow her for a powerful serve. Great retriever and mental toughness. I thought she would go to college. Being a great junior is not a garentee to being a successful top pro. Just do not see her in top 30 or 50. Best of luck to her!

Texastennismom said...

I thought that too, Lisa. Her jump to pros seems premature and I hope it doesn't turn out to be a pity. Very little in the way of pro results to justify it and lots of junior success, as we have often seen, is a very weak indicator of ability to transition to a pro career - especially when the player isn't even playing up. I wish they would have let her try the pros a few months and retain her college eligibility because it seems like she could have a fantastic college career.

love-tennis said...

Yes, except what money is she getting from those contracts? She might be getting way more than what a college education would cost. I am always a strong "go to college" proponent, but we don't know how much $$ she might be getting from the endorsements.

I am surprised that she did turn pro. She seemed like more of a kid that would be more inclined to go to school. However, she can still go to school--just not play tennis!

She must be incredibly tough mentally.

* I have to say though, my daughter is playing college tennis and is having the time of her life

Jon in PBG said...

I agree, Davis had the perfect junior/college game but not a pro game. Her size and below average serve and forehand power just won't cut it. She might be a 70-150 ranked pro player some day though as she is scrappy.

Tennis said...

Yes because womens tennis gets 8 scholarships. Who wouldn't have the time of their life when there is no reason or pressure to play 1 or sit on the bench at eight?

love-tennis said...

Sort of..that is if your daughter was from a foreign country. Take a look at the UGA Invitational held in Athens last week.

The UGA roster was almost all Americans. The other 3 teams (Troy, U of Indiana, Kansas State) were all foreigners except 3 girls. There were 3 token Americans total on the 3 teams.
So roughly 3 out of roughly 18 girls (from the other teams) were from the U.S.

Colette Lewis said...

@Lisa S
The decision regarding college or pro is a very personal one that is between the player and his or her family to decide. But I certainly won't second-guess the decision to turn pro by someone who has won the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl back-to-back and had notable success against professionals this fall as well.

getreal said...

Agree w/ Collette…

Davis certainly had the results to seriously consider going pro and after that it’s a personal decision. If she got some contracts and USTA funding why not give it a go, she can always go to college. In my opinion while it’s easier for women to go pro right out of juniors then on the men’s side, it’s not out of reach on the men’s side either. If you look at boys who made that decision-- Harrison, Tomic, Berankis, Raonic, Dimitrov all are getting some impressive results and cracking into the ATP. Of those I don’t think Raonic was much touted as a junior and now the tennis talking heads are talking about top 10 potential. On the flip side Britton, Cox, Kudla and and a bunch of foreign players are still hanging out in the futures. What is clear it’s definitely a crap shot, but it’s still easier to make those leaps both on the men’s and women’s side if you go pro right after juniors. Because it’s to tough to make that leap it’s not surprising so few make it. I know there is a lot of talk about college being a more practical path but when you look at the results kids who are making it are still going pro right out juniors. While a lot point to Isner, hey they guy is 6’9“ with a rocket for a serve. If the goal is to be a top 50 ATP or WTA player the path most take, success or fail, is going pro right after juniors. The real issue, as I see it, it’s a tough path that so few make it that the player better have the commitment to hang in there.

What I do though find particularly out-of-line is Patrick McEnroe’s blasting of Donald Young’s work ethic on national TV during the Aussie Open and, on other occasions, his parents, on how much better Young would be if he were under the USTA’s guidance. Well, it’s not exactly like the USTA has or is producing anyone, or has this magic formula. I suppose his parents could have stood over him with a whip every day to train more, but at some point that has to come from the individual and not every individual is wired that way. I don’t know Donald , or his family, but if Young gets there , its not about his parents or the USTA, it’s more about what he wants. I’ve met Donald a couple times though and it seems to me his parents have done an outstanding job of bringing up a very well manner young man. I understand McEnroe has three young daughters, he will eventually get it.