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Saturday, June 18, 2016

Bellis into Sumter $25K Final; College Sophomores Fahey, Failla Vie for Victoria $10K Championship; Noel, Bauer Win ITF Grade 4 Grass Courts Titles

CiCi Bellis defeated wild card Francesca Di Lorenzo 6-2, 6-4 today at the Sumter South Carolina $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit event to reach her second final of the year at that level.  The 17-year-old, seeded No. 3, will face qualifier Valeria Solovyeva of Russia, who defeated wild card Caroline Dolehide 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 to reach her second $25,000 final of the year. Solovyeva, 23, won the Naples $25,000 event last month. Bellis, who lost in the semifinals in Naples, reached the final of the $25,000 Surprise tournament in February, losing to Jamie Loeb.

In the Sumter doubles final today, No. 3 seeds Ashley Weinhold and Caitlin Whoriskey defeated No. 4 seeds Loeb and Carol Zhao of Canada 7-6(5), 6-1 for the title. Weinhold and Whoriskey won two titles together, at a $50,000 tournament and a $25,000 tournament last year, and Weinhold won Sumter last year with Alexandra Mueller.


At the $10,000 ITF Women's Pro Circuit event in Victoria British Columbia, two college rising sophomores have advanced to the final, with USC's Jessica Failla and Michigan's Kate Fahey both reaching a final for the first time.  Failla, the No. 8 seed, outlasted top seed Alexa Graham 7-6(9), 4-6, 6-2 in a 3 hour and 15 minute battle, while Fahey had a much less taxing semifinal, beating Lorraine Guillermo 6-1, 6-3 in an hour and 11 minutes.  Fahey, 19, has no WTA ranking, having played in only three main draws on the Pro Circuit. Failla, 18, had been ranked in the 700s earlier this year, and won this year's USTA National Open Hard Courts earlier this month. For more on Failla's background, see this article.

In the two Men's USTA Pro Circuit finals Sunday, the No. 1 seed will face the No. 2 seed for the title.  At the $25,000 Futures in Winston-Salem, top seed Sekou Bangoura will face No. 2 seed Darian King of Barbados. Bangoura defeated No. 7 seed Alex Kuznetsov 4-6, 6-2, 7-6(1), with King advancing with a 5-7, 7-2, 6-0 win over No. 6 seed Peter Polansky.  It's Bangoura's first final of the year; King has now reached three finals in 2016, winning one.

At the $10,000 Futures in Buffalo, top seed Gavin Van Peperzeel of Australia will face Evan King for the title.  King, who won a Futures title last week in Japan, defeated No. 4 seed Tigre Hank of Mexico 7-5, 6-2. Van Peperzeel, who beat Ohio State No. 1 Mikael Torpegaard of Denmark 6-4, 6-1, will be looking for his first Futures title of the year.

In the Buffalo doubles final today, top seeds Kaichi Uchida of Japan and Hans Hach of Mexico defeated former Illinois teammates Farris Gosea and Tim Kopinski 6-2, 6-3.

The ITF Grade 4 International Grass Courts concluded today with the singles finals, with Alexa Noel and Zummy Bauer collecting the titles. Scores have not yet been posted, but tweets indicated that Noel defeated Gabby Price and Bauer downed Fletcher Scott. It's Noel's first ITF title and Bauer's second, with his previous one coming at a Grade 4 in Barbados last year. [Update: Bauer won 7-5, 6-3, Noel won 6-2, 6-2.]

At the ITF Grade 1 in Berlin, Ashley Lahey's run came to end at the hands of No. 2 seed Amina Anshba of Russia 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.  Anshba will face No. 1 seed Rebeka Masarova of Switzerland, the French Open girls champion, who will take over the No. 1 spot in the ITF junior rankings if she wins Sunday.  The boys final will feature No. 3 seed Daniel Altmaier of Germany against unseeded Constant de la Bassetiere of France.

In the doubles finals, unseeded En Shuo Liang of Taiwan and Anri Nagata of Japan beat Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine and Deniza Marcinkevica of Latvia 2-6, 7-5, 10-8 in the girls final. In the boys final, Ryan Nijboer of Netherlands and Ajeet Rai of New Zealand defeated Patrick Kaukovalta and Emil Ruusuvuori of Finland 4-6, 6-4, 10-8. None of the four teams in the finals were seeded.

In other ITF junior events, three American girls captured doubles titles. At the Grade 4 in Guatemala, No. 2 seeds Willa Bay Breunich and Jimena Rodriguez-Benito defeated Marina Figueiredo of Brazil and Maria Gabriela Linares de Faria of Venezuela 4-6, 7-6(5), 10-4 for the title.  At the Grade 4 in Tunisia,  Miranda Ramirez and her partner Dalila Said of Egypt, the top seeds, beat No. 3 seeds Mariam Dalakishvili of Georgia and Kseniya Yersh of Belarus 1-6, 6-3, 10-6 for the title.

9 comments:

Tyler said...

So let me get this straight, the NCAA and ITA worked together to change the scoring formats for both men's and women's college tennis to make it more exciting to televise on CBS close to one month later on tape delay? There's no other sport that is allowing administrators to tinker with their sport to such a large extent. Basketball, still four quarters, baseball still nine innings, college football smart with the overtime decision. Who does CBS think is going to watch month old tennis, the ratings are going to tennis fans who want to watch any kind of tennis until there are six commercials not after a changeover game and they realize it's not live. I watched both finals live, NCAA.com. ITA tennis has positioned itself to the fan that's going to watch tennis because "nothing else is on," bravo! More and more it's obvious to me the the ITA and USTA should start over from scratch with people who are not just trying to make it to one more paycheck. Find some people that really care about the game and are actively engaged towards making US tennis competitive again.

Flipper said...

I attempted to watch the ancient replay of the Women's NCAA finals this weekend. I think the ITA missed the boat by tinkering with the Doubles format. Based on what these eyes observed during the telecast, it would behoove the ITA and NCAA to simply delete doubles in their entirety. Watching these girls attempt to play doubles was laughable. It's amazing how crappy their volleying skills and doubles tactics are.

Singles wasn't much better. I can't believe the Stanford player won the match by hacking her forehand right down the middle of the court. Pathetic tennis to say the least. I can honestly say watching the Men's Senior tour event is more exciting than Women's tennis.

Across the Pond said...

Update from Quallies at Wimbledon....USA Men...Fratangelo over Ryan Harrison,...Novikov over Glasspool ...Smyczek over Ivaska.....Krajicek takes first set from JP Smith.....Tiafoe, Sarkissian, Stefan Kozlov fall in first round

Aross the Pond said...

Update from Quallies at Wimbledon...In the 1st round....USA, Austin Krajicek, Texas A&M , takes out Aussie, J P Smith, University of Tennessee, 11-9 in the 3rd...that's 11 games to 9 games folks....no tb's at Wimby:)
USA, Tommy Paul splits with Brit Ed Corrie, University of Texas.

Across the Pond said...

Update from Quallies at Wimbledon...1st round...Ed Corrie, GBR, Texas Longhorn, defeats Tommy Paul, USA, almost a Georgia Bulldog:), 7-5 in the 3rd...USA Deniel Nguyen, USC, defeats Marton Fucsovics, HUN, 3,3

Marty Collins said...

I enjoyed watching college tennis on CBS. Very glad the game is getting such airtime. That said the quality was iffy from a tennis viewer standpoint. It looked like the most tenacious women who do only what they do well, which was limited as I watched on television. I confirmed that umlike the NCAA men there is no pathway to the WTA from college tennis.

Living and Dying by the Serve said...

TCU's Cameron Norrie takes out Riley Opelka 2,4 in the 1st round of Tulsa $25,000 Futures # College

Alex Ho said...

You think all of sudden women (or men for that fact) are not good at volleying in doubles, because of the ITA doubles format change??? Maybe it's because most players just don't volley that well anymore (but serve and hit ground strokes way better), try watching junior doubles, it's even worse. They devalued the doubles in college when it became only 1 point out of 7 (vs 3 doubles out of 9 matches) In the old days a team could be down 4-2 and sweep doubles and win, or be tied 3-3 and have to win 2 best of 3 set matches, doubles was more important. The problem was that matches took over 5 hours, which is way to long.

Of course the level in college tennis is way below pro tennis, so is every other sport. What makes ncaa championship tennis exciting is that there is so much on the line for the players (and supporters). College basketball has become mostly unwatchable because the best players come out after 1 or 2 years, than develop in nba. The same thing happens for the top few college tennis players who have a chance to make it in top 50 to 200.

Across the Pond said...

Wimbledon 2nd round Quallies....USA Men....Novikov, Fratangelo, and Krajicek advance to 3rd round....Bjorn and Austin will have to play each other in 3rd round to advance to Main Draw