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Friday, June 6, 2014

May Aces; Bellis Reaches French Girls Doubles Final; Smith Receives Wild Card for July's ATP Tournament in Atlanta; Donaldson Makes Futures Final

May was a busy month in tennis, and it resulted in 18 aces for my monthly Tennis Recruiting Network column.  As always, current and former college players as well as juniors are represented, some for the second straight month, some for the first time ever.  While you're there, check out the commitment announcement of blue chip Kyle Seelig, who will be an Ohio State Buckeye in the fall of 2015, and the spring recruiting class rankings, where the Stanford men and Florida women topped the lists.  TRN also had a question and answer session with New Balance on the inaugural High School Championships they have organized for next month in Boston. If you played high school tennis this past school year, you can enter. For more information, click on the ad to the left.

Three US juniors began the day still alive at the French Open championships, but only CiCi Bellis advanced to Championship Saturday.  Bellis and Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic, seeded seventh, reached the girls doubles final, defeating unseeded Luisa Stefani of Brazil and Renata Zarazua of Mexico 6-4, 6-3. They will face the unseeded Romanian team of Ioana Ducu and Ioana Rosco, who beat No. 4 seeds Naiktha Bains of Australia and Tornado Alicia Black 6-3, 6-3.

Top boys seeds in the doubles, Stefan Kozlov and Andrey Rublev of Russia, lost to the unseeded French team of Benjamin Bonzi and Quentin Halys 6-3, 6-0.  Bonzi and Halys will play another unseeded team in the final, Lucas Miedler of Austria and Akira Santillan of Australia. It will be the second straight junior slam final contested between Miedler and Halys, who met in the Australian boys doubles final in January, with different partners.  Miedler and Bradley Mousley of Australia defeated Halys and Johan Sebastien Tatlot of France 6-4, 6-3 in the final.

The girls singles title will be decided between top seed Ivana Jorovic of Serbia and No. 8 seed Darya Kasatkina of Russia. Jorovic defeated No. 10 seed Francoise Abanda of Canada 6-4, 6-0, while Kasatkina downed Vondrousova 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

Rublev, the No. 4 seed in singles, will play Juame Munar Clar of Spain in the boys singles championship. Rublev defeated No. 2 seed Orlando Luz of Brazil 7-5, 6-3, while Munar Clar beat Halys 6-4, 6-2.  Munar Clar has a recent win over Rublev in an April Grade 1 final in Spain.

For more on the singles semifinals, see this article from the ITF Junior website.

For complete draws and Saturday's schedule, see the Roland Garros website.



The University of Georgia announced today that rising junior Austin Smith has been awarded a main draw wild card into the ATP's BB&T Atlanta tournament next month.  The tournament has traditionally provided wild cards, usually in qualifying, for both Georgia and Georgia Tech student-athletes.

In Turkey, 2013 Kalamazoo finalist Jared Donaldson has reached his second Futures final, both in the past four months. Donaldson, the No. 3 seed, will meet top seed Nikola Milojevic of Serbia, who turns 19 later this month.

In South Africa, Nik Scholtz, a rising senior at Ole Miss, and Tucker Vorster, who played at Ole Miss until 2011, will decide that $10,000 Futures title in their home country on Saturday. They've already collected the doubles title there this week.

Eighteen-year-old Allie Kiick has reached the semifinals of the $100,000 Challenger in Marseille unseeded.

2 comments:

AR Hacked Off said...

Collette if you can confirm it sounds like Bradley has just dropped their men's program, another slap to the men looking to play in college

Colette Lewis said...

You are correct. Announcement is here. Can't help but think David Markin's death last year--tennis courts are named after him--played a role in the decision.