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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Four US Men Reach Wimbledon Main Draw, Glatch, Vandeweghe Make Final Round of Women's Qualifying; US Boys Take on Great Britain; ITF Grade 1 in Roehampton Qualifying Starts Thursday

Brian Baker will play in his first Wimbledon (although he did play there as a junior) next week after winning his final round qualifying match over Maxime Teixeira of France 5-7, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 today at Roehampton. For more on Baker's win, see wimbledon.com.

Baker will be joined in the main draw by Jesse Levine, who beat Wayne Odesnik 7-6(3), 6-1, 6-2, Michael Russell, who battled through Yuichi Sugita of Japan 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 and Ryan Sweeting, who had an inspiring comeback win over Peter Torebko of Germany, saving a match point in his 3-6, 1-6, 7-6(3), 7-5, 6-4 victory.

With four qualifiers, the US has the most of any nation, with France and Spain the only other countries with multiple qualifiers, with three and two respectively. Adding the seven direct entries, there will be at least 11 US men in the main draw (there is still a lucky loser position to be filled with the Monfils withdrawal).

According to this ATP news release, which features interesting information about all the American qualifiers, Estonia will now have its first male participant in a slam main draw, with Jurgen Zopp qualifying today.

In the women's qualifying, Madison Keys and Alison Riske fell in today's second round, but Alexa Glatch and CoCo Vandeweghe reached the final round with straight-set victories.  The unseeded Glatch beat No. 17 Aravane Rezai of France 7-6(5), 6-2, and No. 14 seed Vandweghe defeated Germany's Katherin Woerle 6-4, 6-4.  Glatch meets unseeded Camila Giorgi of Italy and Vandeweghe faces No. 11 seed Lara Arruabarrena-Vecin of Spain in Thursday's final round of qualifying.

Eighteen-year-old Annika Beck, who won the French Open girls title a few weeks ago, remains alive for a main draw spot after a win today. She will play Petra Rampre of Slovenia, who is 32, in Thursday's final round.

For results and draws, see wimbledon.com

At Eastbourne, the site of the joint WTA and ATP event, a team of boys from the United States will play a team of British boys in a new event, called the LTA Junior Challenge Trophy. Great Britain, which won the Junior Davis Cup last year, will be represented by Luke Bambridge, Liam Broady, Joshua Ward-Hibbert, Peter Ashley and Kyle Edmund, which is a formidable team.  The United States will counter with Alexios Halebian, Mitchell Krueger, Mackenzie McDonald, Spencer Papa and Noah Rubin, which is also a very strong team. A photo of the US team is available at this link.  For more on the British team, see the LTA website.

The qualifying for the ITF Junior Grade 1 at Roehampton begins on Thursday and there are four Americans participating: Thai Kwiatkowski, Stefan Kozlov and Austin Siegel in the boys draw; Catherine Harrison, who also qualified at Roehampton last year, in the girls. The qualifying for Roehampton, by the way, is not at Roehampton, but at another site. Typically the draws for this event are very strong, as nearly all the juniors coming to play Wimbledon enter there to begin adapting to the surface.

4 comments:

Mark Carpenter said...

The ATP must have forgotten Zopp's loss to Gasquet at the French Open a few weeks ago...

Colette Lewis said...

Good catch, Mark. I missed that. I'll try to get word to the ATP.

Austin said...

I think they meant Wimbledon, not grand slams overall, or at least that's what they should have said.

TALLY HO said...

Roehampton Juniors Main Draw and Qualifying Locations:
MAIN DRAW - Bank of England Sports Ground, Bank Lane, Roehampton QUALIFYING - Kings House School Sports Ground, Riverside Drive, Dukes Meadow, Chiswick Roehampton GREAT BRITAIN