Zootennis


Schedule a training visit to the prestigious Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, MD by clicking on the banner above

Friday, May 30, 2014

NCAA Individual Recap and All-Tournament Team Slideshow; Rubin and Kingsley Qualify for French Open Junior Championships

My recap of the NCAA Division I individual tournament titles won by Marcos Giron of UCLA, Danielle Collins of Virginia and the doubles teams from Alabama and Tennessee can be found today at the Tennis Recruiting Network.

For more on the NCAAs in Athens, check out Lisa Stone's thoughts at Parenting Aces. Stone covered the NCAA tournament as credentialed media and wrote this piece on what she learned during her long days there.

As is often the case when I'm doing back-to-back tournaments, the slideshows and recaps get a bit out of sync, but I will have the individual tournament slideshow and videos up in the next week or two. Below is the All-Tournament Team from the Men and Women's Team Championships.



In French Open main draw action today, wild card Taylor Townsend was beaten by No. 14 seed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-2, 6-2, yet she got the attention of most of the established tennis press. Here is Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim on Townsend, with a direct discussion of her body type. Chris Clarey of the New York Times contents himself with a passing reference to her "fitness," while Peter Bodo of tennis.com addresses and more or less dismisses it as a factor in her tennis. There's been talk of a main draw wild card for Townsend at Wimbledon now, and after reaching the girls final there last year (and winning the girls doubles the year before), she has proven herself on grass, which obviously suits her game. But as long as she gets into qualifying (she's four out of qualifying right now), Townsend might be better served playing that, unless she gets additional matches in grass events in the coming weeks.

In the French Open junior qualifying, Noah Rubin and Raveena Kingsley earned places in the main draw with wins today. Rubin, who was unseeded in qualifying, getting in due to his ATP ranking, lost a grand total of two games in qualifying, today beating No. 11 seed Makoto Ochi of Japan 6-0, 6-0.

Kingsley, the No. 7 seed, defeated French wild card Alice Rame 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 to earn her spot in the main draw. Kingsley, 15, also qualified for the US Open junior championships last year, losing to ITF No. 1 Belinda Bencic of Switzerland in the first round.

Both Taylor Fritz and Katrine Steffensen lost their semifinal matches today at the Grade 1 Astrid Bowl in Belgium.  The unseeded Fritz was beaten by No. 13 seed Petros Chrysochos of Cyprus 6-3, 6-3. Chrysochos will play No. 2 seed Duck Hee Lee of Korea, who received a walkover from No. 4 seed Bradley Mousley of Australia. Steffensen, the No. 15 seed, lost to No. 14 seed Helen Ploskina of Ukraine 6-4, 7-5.  Ploskina will play No. 3 seed Iryna Shymanovich of Belarus in the final.

0 comments: