Montgomery Comes Back to Beat Top Seed Yepifanova, Kouzmanov Saves Match Points to Advance to ITF GB1 Pan Am Closed Final; Hotard and Hanzlik Face Off in Boys Final; My Article on USTA's Alex Cercone; Gauff Reaches WTA Linz Semifinal; Top Seed Perez-Somarriba Out in Tulsa
©Colette Lewis 2019--
Nicholasville KY--
Robin Montgomery stayed calm when match point after match point slipped away against top seed Alexandra Yepifanova in the semifinals of the ITF Grade B1 Pan American Closed Friday, and that composure paid off in a third set tiebreaker, with the No. 3 seed earning a 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(3) victory and a place in the final.
After a well played first set ended with Montgomery broken at 4-all and Yepifanova converting her third set point in the next game, the second set started much differently with six consecutive breaks of serve after Montgomery had held for 1-0. With Yepifanova serving at 4-5, Montgomery failed to convert two set points and with Yepifanova serving at 5-6 30-40, another set point came and went, leading to the tiebreaker. Montgomery couldn't afford to let her chances slip away in that game, and she came up with a great forehand volley with Yepifanova serving at 4-5 to earn two more set points. Montgomery missed a forehand on the next point, but finally converted set point No. 5 when Yepifanova's backhand clipped the net and landed wide.
Although many of the points were high quality, both girls continued to struggled to hold serve in the third set, and Yepifanova began to battle her emotions when she went down a break at 1-2 and 2-3. She broke back both times, but was distraught to the point of tears on several occasions, and Montgomery began to realize that she had the edge mentally.
"She knows me very well and knows it's going to be a tough match, but I wasn't expecting the breakdowns she had, or whatever," Montgomery said of the 16-year-old from Florida. "Granted, I did hit a lot of lucky shots, so that probably got under her skin as well, but yeah, it was definitely an emotional roller coaster for her, and I did a pretty good job just staying calm and just focusing on the next point."
Montgomery got her break at 4-all, although Yepifanova saved two break points before Yepifanova double faulted on the third.
Serving for the match, Montgomery went down 15-40, but recovered for deuce and earned five match points by winning that and the next four deuce points. Montgomery made errors on three of those occasions but Yepifanova hit winners on the other two and finally got a game point when another Montgomery forehand went long. Yepifanova then brought it back to 5-all with a Montgomery backhand error, and after two holds, a second tiebreaker would decide who would advance to the final.
Despite the disappointment of losing the 5-4 game, Montgomery showed no frustration.
"A younger me would have definitely lost my mind," said Montgomery, who turned 15 last month. "I've definitely matured over the course of the past few months. Once I lose a point, I can't go back and change it and I think I've definitely learned from past matches. After seeing what Sasha looked like, kind of crying, I didn't want to look like that, so I decided to stay more composed."
Montgomery took a 4-0 lead in the final set tiebreaker and earned her sixth match point when her backhand forced an error from Yepifanova for a 6-2 lead. Montgomery didn't convert that one either, shanking a forehand, but she closed out the nearly three-hour match with a flourish, crushing a backhand winner after a good first serve.
In the final, Montgomery will face 14-year-old wild card Isabelle Kouzmanov, who participated in some drama of her own, saving three match points in her 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory over unseeded India Houghton. Kouzmanov, who trailed 4-0 in the second set, brought it all the way back to 4-all, but she was broken in the ninth game and Houghton went up 40-0 serving for the match at 5-4. But she couldn't convert and Kouzmanov won five straight points for 5-all, then held for 6-5. Houghton had a game point for a tiebreaker, but Kouzmanov earned the last three points of the game to earn a third set, where she took control with an early break and finished with another break and a hold.
"Even though I love to take risks, I told myself not to try to go for every shot, but be as consistent as possible and let her make the errors," said the 14-year-old from Michigan. "I was trying to hit with more topspin and more to corners and that ended up working."
Kouzmanov said unforced errors led to the 4-0 deficit in the second set, and once she eliminated those, she was able to control more points.
"I tried to move her around as much as possible and have her on the run, finish off the point," Kouzmanov said. "She's a good player and she has a lot of different strategies that she uses and she mixes them up so it makes a little bit more difficult to play against her. But at the end, I just tried to return as many balls as possible, and with her serve, I stopped trying to go for return winners and just try to make the first ball."
Kouzmanov, who beat No. 2 seed Savannah Broadus in the second round, said she was energized after finishing off the second set and she was able to maintain that in the third.
"My adrenaline and my confidence kind of went up, I had the momentum and somehow I felt a little stronger on the inside," Kouzmanov said. "I told myself, you've worked hard, whatever happens happens, just play your game."
Kouzmanov's best result on the ITF Junior Circuit has been a semifinal at a Grade 3 this spring, and she admits she did not see this result coming.
"To be honest, I was not expecting this at all," said Kouzmanov, who lost to Montgomery in the first round at the College Park Grade 1 in August 6-1, 7-5. "I am still like, someone pinch me. I feel like I'm actually in a dream, but to get to the finals of a B1, the hard work paid off and I'm extremely happy about that."
After their encounter on Montgomery's home courts at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Montgomery knows how dangerous Kouzmanov can be.
"I think indoor courts definitely suit her game style pretty well," Montgomery said. "I understand she's definitely playing well. I do know she hits the ball very hard...and I do also like hitting the ball hard, but I'm not going to be able to outhit her, so I'm going to have to come up with something different."
The semifinals usher in a new method of officiating, with a chair umpire calling all the lines, whereas players called their own lines in the first four rounds. A dispute with the chair early in the match seemed to linger for Lilov, who lost 11 straight games before finally holding at 6-1, 5-0.
"He started the match super well, four straight winners," said Hanzlik, 17. "And then it was close. Then he hit the ball up the line and I thought the ball was out and I asked the ref--he didn't call it--and the ref went with the call and then I won the next 11 games in like 30 minutes. Clearly, he didn't really get over it, and it definitely affected him, yeah."
Hanzlik, who has lost only 14 games in five matches this week, hadn't been past the third round in a grade 1 before this week, but his results this year at Kalamazoo, where he beat French Open finalist Toby Kodat before falling to eventual champion Zachary Svajda in the quarterfinals, gave him confidence that he could contend at that level.
"Kalamazoo was huge for me," Hanzlik said. "After Kalamazoo I started training at USTA and I've improved there a ton."
Hanzlik also says he has improved his mental game significantly in the past several months.
"I'm trying to be much more professional on the court," Hanzlik said. "I think I'm doing a much better job of staying level-headed. It's kind of fake it til you make it. But that's the only way really, to play tennis. Watching pros, high level, you have to mentally be in it for sure. It's easier when you're winning, but it also makes winning easier. So it goes both ways."
Hanzlik, who is from Oregon, has played a lot of indoor tennis and feels comfortable on the courts at the Top Seed Tennis Club.
"I'm definitely not complaining about it," Hanzlik said. "The ball doesn't move as much, so it's easier to slap for sure. Serve and forehand are huge for me and these courts are a bit fast, so it works well for my game."
Hanzlik will face Hotard for the first time, after Hotard blitzed through the 2019 Kalamazoo 16s champion, avenging a three-set loss on clay back in May.
"I've been playing well and I knew if I played my game I thought he would have trouble," said Hotard, an 18-year-old left-hander who has not played any ITF Junior Circuit events outside the United States. "I was expecting to come out and have a battle, and I feel like I played well, and we did battle, but I took over by the end."
Bernard was also distracted by several of the chair umpire calls that he disagreed with, but Hotard was determined not to let an error from the chair derail him.
"I feel like you have to move through it," said Hotard, who has verbally committed to Oklahoma. "If the ref sees it in or out, it's his call. I tried to stay focused and that helped me at the end. It can change a match, but I tried to move to the next point."
Hotard, who hasn't dropped a set all week and has beaten three seeds, is expecting a tough match Saturday.
"I think we both like coming to net and we both like attacking," Hotard said. "We both have big serves, big forehands so it's all what happens on that day: who's going to play better, who wants it more."
"I think it will be a fun match," Hanzlik said. "We both serve and look to play with the forehand, and we're both aggressive. I think it'll come down to who is serving better. I'm really confident in my serving and hitting my forehand right now, and I'm excited about it."
The doubles semifinals were also played this afternoon, and girls singles finalists Montgomery and Kouzmanov will contend for that title as well on Saturday. After agreeing to play together just 15 minutes before sign-in time, the unseeded pair advanced to the finals with a 7-5, 3-6, 10-7 win over unseeded Ava Hrastar and Ruth Marsh. They will face unseeded Reese Brantmeier and Carson Tanguilig who beat top seeds Yepifanova and Puerto Rico's Lauren Anzalotta 6-1, 6-1.
Two seeded teams will meet for the boys final, with No. 5 seeds Andrew Dale and JJ Tracy facing No. 2 seeds Aidan Mayo and Lorenzo Claverie of Venzuela. Mayo and Claverie defeated unseeded Murphy Cassone and Hugo Hashimoto 6-2, 6-0, while Dale and Tracy took out the unseeded team of Ozan Colak and Maxwell Smith 6-4, 6-4.
The USTA is responsible for the ITF junior circuit events held in the United States, including this one in Kentucky, and while I was in Florida for the Junior Davis and Junior Fed Cup competition two weeks ago, I had an opportunity to talk with Alex Cercone about her role as an administrator of the Junior Competitive Pathway. Cercone, a former All-American at Florida, told me how she made the transition from player to administrator in this "Where Are They Now?" article for the Tennis Recruiting Network.
Fifteen-year-old Coco Gauff earned her first WTA Top 10 win today in Linz Austria, beating top seed Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands 7-6(1), 6-4 to advance to the semifinals. Gauff is the youngest player to reach a WTA semifinal since Nicole Vaidisova won the Tashkent event in 2004. Next up for Gauff is unseeded Andrea Petkovic of Germany. For more from Gauff on today's win, see this article from the WTA website.
The ITA hasn't updated the results from today's round of 16 and quarterfinal matches at the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa, but Miami has posted an article regarding the loss of top seed and 2019 NCAA champion Estela Perez-Somarriba to Anna Turati of Texas 6-0, 6-1 in the round of 16. I will try to provide an update later this evening when all the scores have been posted.
Men's All-American singles semifinals:
Unseeded Valentin Vacherot of Texas A&M vs. Sam Riffice[6] of Florida
Yuya Ito[3] of Texas vs. unseeded Alex Rotsaert of Stanford
Women's All-American singles semifinals:
Anna Turati[15] of Texas vs. Alexa Graham[3] of North Carolina
Ashley Lahey[12] of Pepperdine vs qualifier Chloe Beck of Duke
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