Siwy Sweeps Amelia Island Futures Titles; Cako in USTA Spotlight; US Boys Sweep Qualifying at Yucatan Grade 1, Khromacheva Takes Wild Card
Former Fresno State standout Rudy Siwy swept both singles and doubles titles at the Amelia Island Futures, with today's singles match the final competition on the 2011 USTA Pro Circuit.
Siwy, who is from the Czech Republic, beat former Auburn All-American Tim Puetz of Germany 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in the final; both players were unseeded. Siwy also got the better of Puetz in the doubles final when he and partner Matteo Viola of Italy, the No. 1 seeds, beat the unseeded team of Puetz and former Florida All-American Alexandre Lacroix of France 7-6(3), 6-1.
At the $10,000 Brazil Futures this week, former Texas Longhorn Josh Zavala reached the semifinals in singles and won the doubles title with Clayton Almeida of Brazil. The No. 4 seeds escaped with a 6-7(4), 7-6(2), 12-10 win over the No. 3 seeded team of 18-year-old Brazilians, Gabriel Pereira and Joao Pedro Sorgi.
In Australia, 18-year-old Ben Mitchell, the 2010 Wimbledon boys finalist, continued his outstanding fall, winning his second Futures title with a 7-6(3), 6-7(2), 6-0 victory over former LSU All-American Michael Venus of New Zealand. Mitchell, the No. 1 seed, has reached five Futures finals since September, all in Australia, and his ranking, now at 250, will continue to climb once these points are added. His countryman Luke Saville, the 2011 Wimbledon boys champion, won the doubles title with fellow junior Andrew Whittington. They beat former Baylor star John Peers and his partner Dane Propoggia 4-6, 6-4, 10-5.
Arizona State's Jacqueline Cako, who was recently named to the US Masters'U BNP Paribas team, is the subject of this question and answer session at usta.com. Find out about her major, her aversion to a standard post-match routine for a tennis player, and how the Pacific Northwest resident ended up in sunny Tempe.
The qualifying is complete at the ITF Grade 1 Yucatan Cup in Mexico, and all eight qualifiers in the boys draw are from the US, the first time I can recall that ever happening. All but two were seeded in the top eight, so it's not a huge surprise, but congratulations to Nikko Madregallejo, Karim Arem, Roy Lederman, Thai Kwiatkowski, JC Aragone, Josh Hagar, Mackenzie McDonald and Luca Corinteli. In all there are 13 US boys in the 64 draw. The others are Noah Rubin, Trey Strobel, Connor Farren, Stefan Kozlov and Martin Redlicki.
Three US girls qualified--Chanelle Van Nguyen, Elysse Graci and Alexandria Stiteler--and they join a dozen other US girls in the main draw: Nadia Echeverria Alam, Camila Fuentes, Chalena Scholl, June Lee, Gabby Andrews, Kelsey Laurente, Cassandra Vazquez, Alexandra Morozova, Christina Makarova, Sachia Vickery, Samantha Crawford and Madison Bourguignon.
Defending champion Dominic Thiem of Austria is the top boys seed, and in a huge surprise, World No. 1 Irina Khromacheva of Russia has taken a wild card into the tournament and will of course be the top girls seed, bumping Canada's Eugenie Bouchard to No. 2.
The tournament has a website and a twitter account (in Spanish)@Copayucatan.
5 comments:
That was an interesting interview with Jacqueline Cako. I'm sure that she is a very bright student. I do find it a little bit amusing how so many college students take such great pride in how highly rated their college is. She states that Arizona State has the number one ranked honors college in the nation. I know students at about 500 colleges including Harvard, Yale and Stanford who probably believe that their honors college is higher ranked than Arizona State.
The reason that Jacquelyn Cako is doing so well in tennis, is not totally talent. She is good, but lots of kids are just as good. She has the extra mental toughness/"I am better than you" mentality--whatever you want to call it.
It is what makes her say that her ASU program is the best in the country, even though arguably the others would be superior.
She has had that mindset since she started in tennis. While it is a little offputting in social situations, it certainly gets you ahead in tennis.
Love tennis
Sounds insightful
Roger
love-tennis- you make an excellent point that unshakeable -- even if irrational -- confidence can help a player because they almost never get psyched out or intimidated by anyone. However, there are several drawbacks to being someone with this mentality. The first drawback is, as you mention, it can be very offputting and you make a lot of enemies.
The other problem is that such self confidence impedes growth in that someone who is always so overconfident usually brushes off losses as just someone getting lucky or some other excuse and so they often don't face and work on their weaknesses because they often have an inflated sense of how good they are and feel that all they have to do is focus more and their superior ability will win it for them.
In any case, I still believe that the better course is to show some sportsmanship and humility and that it is not worth putting people off just to get an edge. If you look at the top 10 pros there are very few who are overconfident to the point of being offputting. For example, only Serena Williams comes to mind on the women's tour and only Djokovic comes to mind on the ATP. It's nice to see that the vast majority of the top players have some humility and show good sportsmanship such as Nadal, Federer, Ferrer, Berdych, Klisters, Stosur, Schiavone and Wozniaki.
love-tennis- She's not doing THAT well. For example, she just lost 6-2, 6-4 to 17 year old Grace Min in the second round of the qualifier in her most recent Futeres Tournament and this was in her new home town of Phoenix.
Post a Comment