Kyrgios Wins Australian Boys Title; Bellis Reaches Les Petits As Final; Capra Dismissed From Duke
I spent the morning at the Tennis Plaza Cup watching some of the boys 18s, spent the afternoon at Miami's exciting 4-3 win over Arizona State, and spent the evening writing about that match for an article on the Tennis Recruiting Network next week.
But I want to catch up on the news in college and junior tennis today, which starts with Nick Kyrgios' title at the Australian Open. Kyrgios, the No. 3 seed, defeated friend Thanasi Kokkinakis, a wild card, 7-6(4), 6-3 to become the fourth boys champion from Australia in the past seven years. Brydan Klein won the title in 2007, Bernard Tomic in 2008 and Luke Saville last year. Kyrgios, who won the Grade 1 the previous week to take over the No. 1 spot in the ITF rankings, now has an 18-match winning streak in the ITF juniors, just as girls champion Ana Konjuh of Croatia does. This is Kyrgios' first singles title in a junior slam, but he won the doubles championships last year at Roland Garros and Wimbledon with Australian Andrew Harris.
The ITF junior website's article on the girls and boys finals is here. For more on Kyrgios' title see this article from the Australian Open website. More on Konjuh's win is here.
CiCi Bellis will attempt to sweep the singles and doubles of the two prestigious 14-and-under Tennis Europe Grade 1 events when she plays for the Les Petis As singles championship on Sunday against top seed Andreea Rosca of Romania. Bellis, who won the singles and doubles at Teen Tennis last week, won the doubles today at Les Petits As, with the same partner, Jaeda Daniel. Bellis and Daniel, the top seeds, defeated No. 8 seeds Magdalena Pantuckova and Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5. Bellis, the No. 3 seed in singles, defeated No. 2 seed Sofya Zhuk of Russia 6-2, 6-3 in the semifinals.
The boys final features top seed Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia and No. 2 seed Samuele Ramazzotti of Italy. Artem Dubrivnyy of Russia and Ergi Kirkin of Turkey won the boys doubles. For the complete draws, see the Tennis Europe website, or for live scoring, see the tournament website.
On Friday, Duke University head women's coach Jamie Ashworth released a statement saying that sophomore Trice Capra had been dismissed from school for a violation of school policy, but would be eligible to return in the fall. I am hoping to relay a statement from Capra about this in the next few days, but I currently do not know anything beyond what appears in the announcement.
At the Tennis Plaza Cup, top boys 18s seed Christian Langmo had a tough first round match, needing nearly two hours to defeat Nile Clark 7-6(5), 6-4, but won his second round match as well to advance to the quarterfinals. No. 2 seed Chase Perez-Blanco, who took the SAT test in the morning, won his first round match, but fell ill during his second match and retired to Jake Stefanik after winning the first set 6-1 and trailing 4-3 in the second.
Katerina Stewart, the top seed in the girls 18s, had no difficulty advance to the quarterfinals.
The TennisLink site for the Tennis Plaza Cup has the updated draws.
6 comments:
Disastorious story for Capra who is a genuine person. Sadly she will have this story with her forever and another dark cloud on Duke womens team. Hopefully she can return to College Park for great training during this suspension. I wish her the best.
Alfredo Perez with a match default - isn't it a bit ironic that his coach is the tournament director and playing at his hometown club?
After reading the Jamie Ashworth's quote, unfortantely he seems like he is more concerned if Beatrice will go back to Duke, then the nature of her actions and the serious violation in which she committed.
College Tennis: what do you mean 'another dark cloud'?
leadership?: yes, I got the same impression.
Absolutely nothing ironic about alredo Perez default. My guess is that these umpires know him. He's been a disgrace to the sport for years,. Kudos to theses umpires.
What was Capras rule violation?
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