My National Spring Team Championships Recap; 12s Team Championship Winners; Day Defeats Lucic-Baroni to Reach Third Round at BNP Paribas Open

My recap of the USTA National Spring Team Championships is posted today at the Tennis Recruiting Network, with photos of the two winning teams and the two sportsmanship recipients. While the event is difficult to follow from afar, with its unique way of creating teams, the players obviously enjoy making new friends while playing on a team.

As I explain in the recap, the 12s had their own team event this year in Tucson, and their teams were named after candy brands, not the pro sports team names that were used in Mobile.

photo courtesy YourGameFace.com ©2017

Swedish Fish won the boys 12s team title, beating Fun Dip 5-2 in the final. Members of the Swedish Fish:
Garen Spicka
Nicholas Godsick
Jesper Ohlson
Hank Trondson
Alexander Frantzis
Alexander Kotarski

photo courtesy YourGameFace.com ©2017

M&Ms won the girls 12s team title, defeating Sweetarts 4-3.  Members of M&Ms:
Ariel Madatali
Naomi Katz
Ibifuro Clement
Emmi Kolyszko
Blake Matthews
Lucy Schmeil

At the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells today, 17-year-old Kayla Day picked up the biggest win of her career, beating No. 32 seed Mirjana Lucic-Baroni of Croatia 6-4, 5-7, 7-5.  The 35-year-old Lucic-Baroni, who reached the Australian Open semifinals this year, served for the match at 5-3 in the third, but was unable to close it out. Day broke again to go up 6-5, and she did finish the job, getting her first WTA Top 30 victory. Day will play No. 7 seed Garbine Muguruza of Spain in Sunday's third round. For more on Day's win and a video of match point, see this article from the WTA website.

Prior to today, Taylor Fritz was just 2-4 in ATP main draw matches this year, but the 19-year-old picked up a big win today, beating Benoit Paire of France 6-3, 6-2.  Fritz, who won the Easter Bowl ITF title two years ago at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, considers the BNP Paribas Open his home tournament, listing the reasons in this article from the tournament website.

Both Day and Fritz were given wild cards into the main draw. With
another young American wild card, Stefan Kozlov, losing his match tonight against Donald Young 7-5, 7-6(5), Day, Fritz and Bjorn Fratangelo are the only American wild cards remaining in the draw. Donna Vekic of Croatia received a wild card and has advanced to the second round with a win over Alison Riske.