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Sunday, October 23, 2016

Potapova, Watanuki Win ITF Grade A Osaka Mayor's Cup Titles; Bellis Beats Andreescu in $50K Final; Giron, Koepfer Claim Futures Titles; Ymers Capture Stockholm Doubles Crown


No. 2 seed Yosuke Watanuki of Japan and No. 1 seed Anastasia Potapova of Russia won singles titles Sunday at the ITF Grade A Osaka Mayor's Cup in Japan. Watanuki avenged his recent US Open boys semifinal loss to top seed Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia, coming back to post a 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory. The 18-year-old, who has won two Futures titles this year, both in Japan, adds a second Grade A title to his junior resume, having won the Grade A in Brazil this spring.

Potapova defeated No. 4 seed and defending champion Mai Hontama of Japan 6-2, 6-4 in the final, and with her title, the 15-year-old Wimbledon girls champion should reclaim her No. 1 spot in the ITF junior world rankings from Kayla Day when the new rankings come out on Monday.

Kecmanovic did take home a winner's trophy in doubles, with he and Ergi Kirkin of Turkey, the No. 2 seeds, beating top seeds Toru Horie and Yuta Shimizu of Japan 6-2, 4-6, 10-2.  Potapova fell short of sweeping the titles in Osaka. The top-seeded team of Potapova and Emily Appleton of Great Britain lost to No. 4 seeds Yang Lee of Taiwan and Xiyu Wang of China 6-4, 7-5.

For more on the Osaka Mayor's Cup, see the ITF junior website.

Seventeen-year-old CiCi Bellis won her first event as a professional today and her first at the $50,000 level, defeating 16-year-old Bianca Andreescu of Canada 6-4, 6-2 in the final at Saguenay, Canada.  Bellis, who has said improving her serve is a goal, has to be happy with her numbers in that part of the game today.  She had seven aces, just two double faults and got 72.5% of her first serves in play.  Andreescu, who had such a grueling semifinal win over Jennifer Brady on Saturday, managed to earn just one break point, which she converted early in the first set, but she couldn't pressure Bellis, who had a walkover on Saturday, after that.

Bellis will move up to around 102 in the WTA rankings with the title, meaning she is likely to receive direct entry into the main draw of the 2017 Australian Open.

At the $25,000 Futures in Berkeley, California, former UCLA Bruin Marcos Giron won his first Futures title since March of 2014, two months before he claimed the NCAA singles title.  Giron, who had surgery on both hips this winter, defeated wild card Andre Goransson of Sweden 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-4, the third straight match he had come back from dropping the first set.  Goransson, a senior at Cal, served for the match at 5-3 in the second set, but never got to a match point in that game or in the tiebreaker, although he was up 5-4 in tiebreaker before Giron won the last three points. At 4-4 in the third set, Giron saved a break point and then broke Goransson, who had never won more than one match in a Futures tournament until this week.

At the $25,000 Futures in Harlingen, Texas, unseeded Dominik Koepfer, the former Tulane star, won his first Futures singles title, defeating No. 6 seed Luke Bambridge of Great Britain 6-4, 6-4.  Since completing his eligibility in May, the 22-year-old German had reached three Futures quarterfinals and one semifinal, all in the US, before this week.

The doubles title in Harlingen went to top seeds Evan King and Bambridge, who defeated juniors Evan Zhu and John McNally 6-4, 6-4 in the final.

Unseeded Sam Groth of Australia won the $50,000+H ATP Challenger in Las Vegas, defeating No. 4 seed Santiago Giraldo of Colombia 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-5 in today's final.  Top seeds Matt Reid of Australia and Brian Baker won the doubles title, beating unseeded Bjorn Fratangelo and Denis Kudla 6-1, 7-5.

At the ATP 250 in Stockholm, Sweden, Jack Sock fell to Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina in the final 7-5, 6-1. Brothers Mikael and Elias Ymer, 18 and 20 years old continued their dream run at their home ATP event, winning the doubles title with a convincing 6-1, 6-1 victory over Michael Venus of New Zealand and Mate Pavic of Croatia.

3 comments:

Any inside scoop? said...

Today's article on Tennis recruiting is very out-dated. I wonder when the reporter wrote the article or if any research was done. Altick & Dolehide have committed. Dolehide is even listed as verballed o n the Tennis recruiting site. Swan turned pro. With all the players that have "open" listed, have they been asked which schools they are considering? Seems generic and common knowledge what is listed.

Colette Lewis said...

I did let TRN know about Dolehide and Swan inaccuracies, but am not aware of Altick's decision.

Any inside scoop? said...

Thank you for that information Colette. I forgot to add that Tatum Rice(Arkansas)even verbally committed through social media. And thought Abrigail Chiu already Harvard.