Midwest Wins USTA Boys 18s National Team Championships, Girls Team Semifinals Wednesday; More Kalamazoo Withdrawals; Kudla's Parents Take Loss in Stride
The USTA Boys 18s National Team Championships concluded today in Champaign, Illinois, with the Midwest section defeating the Southern section for the title. Texas, the two-time defending champions, lost to Southern Cal in the quarterfinals.
The draw shows the final score as 4-3 for top-seeded Midwest, while the results, in the screenshot below, show Southern winning the doubles point and number six singles, which would make it 5-2. The live scoring wasn't working, which I assume meant rain sent the matches into the Atkins Indoor Tennis Center.
In the semifinals, both teams had 4-3 victories, with Midwest beating No. 4 seed Northern California despite losing at the top three singles positions, while Southern just squeezed by Southern Cal. Both were 5-8 seeds, with Southern responsible for defeating No. 2 seed Florida and Southern Cal beating No. 3 Texas.
The TennisLink site has the results, in the format above, of all the matches, as well as the results for each individual player.
The USTA Girls 18s Team Championships have gone more to form, with the top four seeds reaching Wednesday's semifinals. Top seed Southern will take on defending champion Southern Cal, the No. 3 seed in a rematch of last year's final, while second seed Midwest will meet No. 4 seed Texas.
See the TennisLink site for results from the first two days of competition in Claremont, California.
The Boys 18s Nationals at Kalamazoo have been hit hard by withdrawals, with Thai Kwiatkowski and Spencer Papa dropping out prior to the draw, and three more high-profile players withdrew today. Eighth seed Michael Mmoh, who was to make his Kalamazoo debut, is out with a abdominal injury, while JC Aragone and Christian Langmo, two of the more highly regarded unseeded players, also withdrew.
Speaking of withdrawals, in this Tennis Grandstand interview with Eugenie Bouchard and Taylor Townsend, who won their first round doubles match at the CitiOpen yesterday, Townsend says she may not play the US Open Junior Championships, but is committed to playing the Girls 18s Nationals next week in San Diego. Townsend, who received a wild card into the CitiOpen in singles, lost her first round match to unseeded Monica Niculescu of Romania today 6-3, 6-0.
Yesterday, big-serving Australian qualifier Samuel Groth defeated local wild card Denis Kudla 7-6(2), 6-2, and the Washington Post's Liz Clarke was there with Kudla's parents, brother and friends. She not only chronicles their reactions to the loss, but also delves into the dedication and determination Kudla and his parents displayed when he was a junior contemplating his future as a professional tennis player.
9 comments:
Colette
With Michael Mmoh's withdrawal, does that mean Mckenzie moves into the #8 seed spot?
No. There is no change in the draw. The alternate simply goes into Mmoh's place.
Colette
Thank you for the explanation.
But with 3 days before the tournament, wouldn't putting the #9 up to #8 be logical and fair to the draw and not have a HUGE gap in the draw? All you have to do is move one spot.
That decision does not seem right. I understand if the tournament has started but we are still 3 days away.
Now Kozlov does not have to face a seed higher than #11 seed to reach quarterfinals and the favorite for Mmoh's old bracket to reach the quarterfinals is a #16, #25, #32? That is really, really bad.
This tournament is so prestigious, a real shame to have this tournament start so poorly.
@Seeding. The way this tournament has done it is exactly how professional tournaments do it. Keeping the rules so similar to professional tournaments, including the best of five final like in grand slams, is part of the reason this tournament is so prestigious.
They should not release the draw so early, only your first start time. They can find out who they play the day before the tournament starts, no need to screw up the draw for no reason.
Kalamazoo is professional in many ways but they still blew it on this situation. This is an easy fix with an easy solution. Now 2 days before the tournament, there is a completely broken bracket.
I agree with the solution of not releasing the draw until the day before the tournament or until after the players have all checked in.
Lets be honest, The only reason why this tournament is so prestigious is because of the US Open Wildcard attached to it. You remove that from this tournament and they will have a field like Winter Nationals and Clay Courts.
When did they start releasing the draws so early? When my son played as a junior it was not released until the day before play, I believe.
The draw has been released on the Sunday before play begins for at least 15 years, and probably much longer.
Bill, I disagree with your position on the importance of the US Open wildcard. It is certainly part of the story and, everything else equal, may draw in a player or two that otherwise wouldn't participate. But, the prestige of winning your country's national championship along with the unique history of Kalamazoo set it apart from 'lesser majors' at rotating sites like Clays or Winters National. Having said that, the draw of these remaining factors is clearly less amongst current players than 10 or 20 years ago - which, while real, is both sad and ridiculous but I've beat that drum too many times already.
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