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Sunday, June 22, 2014

Donaldson Claims Second Straight Futures Title, Stewart Wins Bethany Beach; US Juniors Post Mixed Results in First Round at Roehampton

Seventeen-year-old Jared Donaldson and 16-year-old Katerina Stewart gave the United States two winners on Sunday in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Bethany Beach, Delaware.

Seventh seed Donaldson, who won a $10,000 Futures in Turkey earlier this month, defeated top seed and 2013 NCAA finalist Jarmere Jenkins 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the $15,000 Tulsa Futures final, after trailing 3-0 in the third set.  Donaldson, a finalist in the Kalamazoo 18s last year, has now won ten straight Futures matches on two continents, on both clay and hard courts.


Stewart, also a No. 7 seed, did not lose a set in her five wins at the $10,000 tournament in Bethany Beach, and conceded only four games total in her semifinal and final wins. Stewart, who won the $10,000 Pro Circuit event in Orlando in March, defeated unseeded Jose Kuhlman 6-0, 6-3 in today's final. 

At the Buffalo $10,000 men's Futures, No. 2 seed Ashley Hewitt of Great Britain came back to defeat No. 3 seed Henrique Cunha of Brazil 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 to take the title.

Louisa Chirico fell short in her attempt at a second consecutive $25,000 ITF Women's Circuit title, losing to Australian Open champion Elizaveta Kulichkova of Russia 7-5, 6-2 in today's final in Switzerland.

The first round of play at the ITF Grade 1 Nike International in Roehampton was not a particularly good one for the US juniors warming up for Wimbledon, with the boys going 3-4 and the girls 5-4. Two seeded US players, No. 8 Michael Mmoh and No. 14 Sofia Kenin lost, Mmoh to Marc Polmans of Australia 6-4, 6-1 and Kenin to Eddie Herr champion Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 6-3. No. 4 seed Stefan Kozlov defeated Jordi Arconada 6-1, 6-3 and No. 5 seed Francis Tiafoe squeezed by Joao Menezes of Brazil 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(3). Taylor Fritz was the third US boy to advance to the second round.  Alex Rybakov, Logan Smith and Henrik Wiersholm lost their openers.

Top seed CiCi Bellis and No. 2 seed Tornado Alicia Black advanced in straight sets, and qualifier Raquel Pedraza also reached the second round.  Kaitlyn McCarthy trailed Easter Bowl finalist Katie Swan 5-2 in the third set, with Swan serving for the match, but won the final five games to earn a 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 victory. McCarthy had beaten Swan 6-2, 6-1 at the Carson ISC Grade 1 back in April.  Usue Arconada, the No. 16 seed, won a thriller, beating Tami Grende of Indonesia 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(12). 

In addition to Kenin, Katrine Steffensen, Dasha Ivanova and Raveena Kingsley lost their first round matches today.

A total of five boys seeds lost, including No. 2 seed Orlando Luz of Brazil, who was beaten by Lucas Miedler of Austria 6-2, 7-6(5).  No. 3 girls seed Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov of Spain was one of only two girls seeds to fall, beaten by 15-year-old Canadian qualifier Katherine Sebov 6-2, 6-0. 

Because I am leaving for Europe on Monday, and spending a few days in Germany visiting friends before flying to London to cover the Wimbledon Junior Championships, I won't be following the Roehampton tournament (or the first week of Wimbledon, for that matter) as closely as I usually do. But the draws can be found at the LTA home page, and there is live scoring available at this site.

The order of play for Monday's start at Wimbledon can be found here. Twelve of the 23 Americans are scheduled to play Monday: Ryan Harrison, Venus Williams, Sloane Stephens, Alex Kuznetsov, Bradley Klahn (v) Sam Querrey, Vania King, Steve Johnson, Donald Young, Lauren Davis, CoCo Vandeweghe and Varvara Lepchenko.

9 comments:

Joe said...

I'm surprised Jared Donaldson isn't playing Wimbledon. Does that mean he's not one of the USTA's "chosen ones?" Based on Tiafoe's latest results, or lack thereof, it appears they should be looking for a different poster child for American tennis. But with the latest state of the USTA's "Inclusion" doctrine, Donaldson wouldn't fit the model they are looking for.

Colette Lewis said...

@Joe:
The USTA doesn't have any control over who gets in to Wimbledon. Donaldson would have had to be at 550 ATP to just get into the main draw of the juniors at Wimbledon, and I don't believe he was as of the cutoff date.

Joe said...

Colette,

I'm talking about the group of juniors the USTA has taken to Europe to play on clay and now grass. Seems to me Jared should have been one of the chosen few to travel along with the squad.

Get Educated said...

Joe

Did you read Colette's response to you? Jared CANNOT get into those junior tournaments in Europe. so it does not make sense to pick him. Also, Tiafoe travels with Frank Salazar from the JTCC.

If you want to rip randomly on the USTA, please do it accurately. It is not difficult which shows your true intent, just to complain randomly.

Unknown said...

Actually Jared was asked by USTA, Nicolas Todero, to travel with them. He would have had to play qualies like Noah did as Jared's ranking was not below 550 ATP when the tournament cut offs were used for entry. However 2 weeks before they were finalizing plans Jared had a recurrence of his Lyme disease and was unable to commit to the trip. In fact he had to pull out of AK future he was scheduled to play. He went back on medication and is feeling better now. For the record the USTA has included Jared in everything we have requested and more. They have been an important part of his development from camps in Boca, training with Sam, Steve and others in Carson, lining up hits with Gulbis, sending him to Dubai to train with Roger for 3 weeks, choosing him to play Jr Davis Cup, offering him the chance to train with the Davis Cup team in San Diego (but he was in Turkey playing futures at the time) providing WC's into tournaments when he was training in Argentina and didn't have a US ranking. They have given him financial grants, provided coaching, set up training with Ryan in Boca, and offered many more training opportunities although they don't always fall into place because of tournaments such as last falls camp in Boca. He has an open invitation to train in Carson when he is in Irvine. I have had long conversations with Jay Berger about Jared's development and he has offered Jared the opportunity to go to Palm Springs and work with Jose. So I just wanted to make it clear Jared has had a lot of support from USTA and we work with them and are very appreciative of their support for Jared. I always get e mails or texts from Jay, Steve, and Nicolas during Jared's success and tournaments.

russ said...

Hooray! Thanks for the straight scoop Mrs. Donaldson. So refreshing instead of all the endless speculation. Good luck, and most importantly, good health to Jared.

Marty Collins said...

Thank you Mrs. Donaldson. You do not understand how much you have cleared up in my mind about how USTA member families could possibly work with national collaboratively.

OOPS…. said...

Martyn

Courtney Donaldson is Jared's father NOT mother and does an amazing job!

Marty Collins said...

Thanks Oops! Appreciate the correction.