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Friday, July 19, 2019

My Wimbledon Juniors Recap; USC's Peter Smith Resigns; Semis Set in Iowa City, Berkeley Pro Circuit Events; USTA Clay Courts Results

My recap of the Wimbledon Junior Championships is available today at the Tennis Recruiting Network, with coverage of all four finals, including Shintaro Mochizuki's run to the boys singles title, a first for a Japanese boy at a junior slam. The US has had a girls doubles team in the final for four consecutive years now, with unseeded Savannah Broadus and Abigail Forbes winning the second title for Americans in that span. Unseeded Daria Snigur of Ukraine added the girls singles title to her championship the previous week in Roehampton, beating American Alexa Noel in the final. The only top seeds to win a title were the Czech pairing of Jiri Lehecka and Jonas Forejtek, who beat American Govind Nanda and Canadian Liam Draxl in the boys doubles final.

The big news in college tennis today is the shocking announcement that University of Southern California's Peter Smith is resigning after leading the men's program for 17 years. Smith, who won five NCAA titles, including four in a row from 2009-2012, is resigning August 1, "to pursue opportunities outside of college coaching," according to the release sent out by USC Sports Information Director Tim Tessalone. The timing and bare-bones nature of the release are unusual for a coach of Smith's stature; but I don't know what other factors, if any, are behind his resignation. Associate coach Kris Kwinta will take over as interim head coach while a national search is conducted. USC had a Top 10 recruiting class this year, with Stefan Dostanic, Ryder Jackson and Smith's son Colter set to join the team this fall.

The semifinals are set at the two USTA Pro Circuit events this week, with two current collegians and two recent collegians making the final four at the men's $25,000 tournament in Iowa City and three Americans reaching the semifinals at the women's $60,000 tournament in Berkeley.

No. 5 seed Aziz Dougaz of Tunisia, a senior this past season at Florida State, will take on recent TCU graduate Alex Rybakov, the No. 3 seed, in one semifinal. In the other, Stanford rising junior Axel Geller[6] of Argentina will face Ohio State rising junior John McNally[4].

In California, top seeds Madison Brengle and Sachia Vickery are through to the semifinals, with Brengle taking on No. 6 seed Kristie Ahn(Stanford) and Vickery playing unseeded Mayo Hibi of Japan.

At the ATP Challenger 110 in Kazakhstan, 2018 Australian Open boys champion Sebastian Korda has advanced to his first Challenger semifinal, where he'll play former Illinois star Aleks Vukic of Australia. The unseeded 19-year-old, currently 385 in the ATP rankings, defeated No. 2 seed Lorenzo Giustino of Italy in the second round and No. 10 seed Matteo Viola of Italy in the quarterfinals today.

The results of the quarterfinal matches at the USTA Clay Courts are below; the girls 12s final Saturday will feature the No. 1 seed versus the No. 2 seed. Reigning Eddie Herr 12s champion Maximus Dussault has advanced to the boys 12s final, but there is no result posted from the other 12s semifinal (updated now, as of 8:30 am Saturday). Click on the headings to go to the TennisLink sites, where all draws and results are posted.

B18s:
Leighton Allen[1] d. Theo Winegar[17] 6-2, 6-2
Aryan Chaudhary[15] d. Welsh Hotard[9] 6-7, 6-4, 7-6
Evin McDonald[3] d. Alejandro Quiles[10] 6-1, 7-5
Logan Zapp[2] d. Jacob Bickersteth[17] 6-4, 6-0

B16s:
Samir Banerjee[1] d, Louis Cloud[5] 6-3, 3-6, 6-2
Jack Anthrop[7] d. Adit Sinha[12] 6-1, 6-2
Braden Shick[9] d. Ben Shelton[4] 6-7, 6-3, 6-1
Luke Casper[2] d. Ozan Colak[17] 6-3, 6-2

B14s:
Nishesh Basavareddy d. Yannik Rahman[1] 6-1, 4-6, 6-3
Learner Tien[3] d. Kaylan Bigun[34] 6-3, 7-5
Nicolas Godsick[4] d. Payton Young[24] 7-5, 6-3
Dylan Tsoi[6] d. Cooper Williams[2] 6-4, 4-6, 7-5

B12s:
Semifinals:
Maximus Dussault[12] d. Abhinav Chunduru[4] 6-2, 6-1
Abhishek Thorat[3] d. Roman Sancilio[8] 6-0, 6-3

G18s:
Jaedan Brown[17] d. Vivian Ovrootsky[33] 6-2, 6-1
Gabby Price[17] d. Emma Charney 4-6, 6-2, 7-5
Hadley Doyle[6] d. Sarah Hamner[12] 7-6(1), 3-6, 6-2
Karina Miller[7] d. Gianna Pielet[10] 3-6, 6-4, 6-3

G16s:
Grace Levelston[33] d. Kida Ferrari[17] 6-1, 7-5
Carrie Beckman[3] d. McKenna Schaefbauer[17] 6-2, 6-3
Qavia Lopez[8] d. Clervie Ngounoue[17] 7-6(5), 6-3
Aubrey Nisbet[13] d. Katie Codd[17] 6-2, 3-6, 6-4

G14s
Stephanie Yakoff[1] d. Brooke Schafer[17] 6-3, 6-3
Daniela Livson[17] d. Susanna Maltby[14] 7-5, 6-1
Alexis Blokhina[3] d. Natalie Block[11] 6-4, 4-6, 6-0
Lara Smejkal[15] d. Kate Kim[17] 6-0, 4-6, 6-4

G12s: 
Semifinals:
Emily Deming[1] d. Eva Oxford[3] 6-0, 6-2
Bella Payne[2] d. Brooke Wrigley[7] 6-3, 7-5

2 comments:

Clues said...

The news with USC coach is shocking and no one is talking about the clues in front of them:

1. He suddenly resigned in Mid July to pursue other coaching jobs, without securing another job first
2. It is not a pay-for-play scheme from the academic scandal at USC
3. HIs youngest son, Colt was joining the team with his other son(s). He would coach his first 2 sons but not his 3rd?
4. There is no quote by Coach Smith thanking USC in release. And release is extremely vague.

When will the truth come out? Are people to afraid to say anything?

This has to be a legal matter or he did something really bad.

Colette Lewis said...

As I said in the post, I have no information on this other than what is in the release. But Smith does thank USC in it.