The finals of the Shape Invitational are set, with Vanderbilt senior Frances Altick and Duke freshman Kaitlyn McCarthy earning a chance at a main draw wild card into next month's WTA Volvo Car Open in Charleston. The runner-up will receive a qualifying wild card, so both know they will be competing on the pro level regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's final.
Altick was something of a lucky loser, because she was beaten in the final round of round robin play by Duke's Beatrice Capra, but Capra had an ankle sprain, so Altick took her place in the semifinals and defeated Lauren Herring 7-5, 5-7, 10-7. Initially the semifinals were to be best of three standard sets, but today the format was changed to a match tiebreaker in lieu of a third set, a change that was agreed to by all four players. McCarthy defeated Alabama recruit Makenna Jones 7-6(4), 6-2 to reach the final.
Round Three:
Group #1: Lauren Herring (B) defeated Jacqueline Pelletier (C) 7-6(5), 6-2
Group #2: Beatrice Capra (B) defeated Frances Altick (C) 6-1, 6-7(4), 1-0(6)
Group #3: Kaitlyn McCarthy (C) defeated Liza Fieldsend (B) 1-6, 6-2, 1-0(10)
Group #4: Paige Cline (C) defeated Sydney Campbell (B) 7-5, 4-6, 1-0(7)
Semifinals:
Frances Altick def. Lauren Herring 7-5, 5-7, 10-7
Kaitlyn McCarthy def. Makenna Jones 7-6(4), 6-2
Three of the four players in the doubles final, which will also take place on Thursday, are University of South Carolina players. South Carolina junior Caroline Dailey and Georgia graduate Lauren Herring will play South Carolina freshman Paige Cline and sophomore Hadley Berg for a main draw wild card.
At the
Grade 1 Asuncion Bowl in Paraguay, Caty McNally defeated top seed Ma Hontama of Japan 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday and today beat fellow 14-year-old Natasha Subhash 6-2, 7-6(3) to advance to the quarterfinals. Other US girls in the quarterfinals are qualifier Chiara Lommer, Ellie Douglas, Morgan Coppoc(3) and Victoria Emma.
McNally's brother John got a big win today, defeating No. 4 seed Toru Horie of Japan 6-2, 6-3 and is joined in the boys quarterfinals by No. 7 seed JJ Wolf and No. 2 seed Nathan Ponwith.
The ITF Junior website has been slow to update, but the
COSAT site has the draws.
The acceptances for the
ITF Grade 1 International Spring Championships in Carson, California, which I will be covering for the 12th straight year later this month, were released today. Kayla Day and William Blumberg, both ranked in the ITF Junior Top 10, are entered as of now, although both are
scheduled to play in the ITF Junior Masters in China the following week. Other Top ITF Top 25 players entered are Ulises Blanch and Alberto Lim of the Philippines on the boys side and Wimbledon girls champion Sofya Zhuk of Russia and Amanda Anisimova on the girls side.
The
ATP announced today that the Lacoste U14 Invitational will return for a second year at its World Tour Finals in London in November. As the Les Petits As champion, American Stefan Leustian is the first boy to receive an invitation to compete in the six-player event. There has also been talk of a 21-and-under event in conjunction with the World Tour Finals, but nothing official has yet been released on that competition.
5 comments:
Who is the incompetent disgrace that is in charge of the BNP Paribas Prequalifying tournament. The flaws in the draw are glaring and inexcusable.
2d Seed Clay Thompson had to play the 4th seed in the ROUND OF 16, but then 3d Seed Evan Song did not have to play any seed to get to the quarters, nor did any of the other seeds.
If I was Clay Thompson I would not be happy, particularly because he lost to the 4th seed who is an excellent player.
Even a third grader could not make this mistake. Does anyone have an explanation?!
It looks like here are only 2 spots into qualifying, so it doesn't really matter. You only move on if you get to finals, player is almost better off losing early or winning spot, no points or $$ unless you get to finals.
@Alex Ho, that doesn't make any sense. The Number 2 Seeded player has a much better chance of making the finals if he doesn't have to beat the Number 4 Seed in the freaking Round of 16 even before he must also beat a seed in the quarter finals, and then also beat another seed in the semis. Not only is this a harder challenge to win against more top players in more rounds, but the other disadvantage to the Number 2 seed is that he is likely to be a lot more fatigued and sore in the later rounds (usually the next day) vs. his competitors.
Under your skewed logic, why have any seeds at all?!
If you had to win the entire tournament to qualify then perhaps your logic would make a little bit more sense, but not a lot, because it would still be a disadvantage to be set up to play more top players in more rounds than your competitors.
Wow, "skewed logic", I am hurt. Obviously Clay Thompson as #2 should should not play #4 seed in round of 16, but the winner of that match had only non seed and winner of 5/7 match for chance at finals. My point was that this tournament only means anything if you get into qualifying, no points or no $$ for quarters, semis, finals, all that matters is winning and getting into qualifying. The point of seeding obviously is to spread out best players, which they mostly did (also odd to have only 8 seeds for 128 draw).
Its actually a moot point because it looks like only winner of pre qualifying gets into qualifying. There was a great story when I was in college at SF ATP tournament, and freshman at Cal (Steve Devries) won 10 matches in pre qualifying and qualifying to make it to main draw, where he lost to Ivan Lendl in the first round of main draw.
@Alex Ho. I'm glad that you admitted that Clay Thompson as the #2 Seed should not have played the #4 Seed in the Round of 16. I understand your point about only 1 winner qualifying, but it's still a huge disadvantage to have to play tougher matches earlier in the tournament. In any case, I am looking for an explanation of how the draw maker could be so incompetent to not understand such a basic concept of how to make a draw.
I do appreciate your Steve Devries story though. That must have been the old SAP tournament that you're talking about.
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