Top Seed Yepifanova Reaches Girls Semifinals, No. 4 Seed Alex Bernard Survives Test to Reach Boys Final Four at ITF Grade B1 Pan American Closed; Nakashima Advances to Another Challenger Quarterfinal; Top Seed Sigsgaard Ousted at ITA All-American Championships
©Colette Lewis 2019--
Nicholasville KY--
"I know that Reese is a good player, and since I played her just a few weeks ago, I kind of know her strengths and weaknesses," Yepifanova said. "I changed my game plan a little bit coming in; the first time I wasn't as aggressive, didn't really go for my shots as much and my first serve percentage was low, and that serve percentage was crucial."
Yepifanova said picking up that part of her game today was the determining factor in getting a less dramatic win.
"Today, my serve was great," said Yepifanova, a high school junior who is beginning to explore her options for college tennis. "My first serve gave me a lot of easy points and quick games even."
Yepifanova said her coach at the IMG Academy, Jorge Gonzalez, thought playing as the top seed among her peers was a challenge she needed to meet before moving into Women's Pro Circuit events.
"He really wanted me to experience playing as the first seed, with pressure with high expectations, to see how girls my age look at me, since I finaled at the Open," said Yepifanova, who began training at IMG this spring. "For me to handle that pressure and still win matches against my peers, he wanted me to overcome that fear of regressing. I've had so many good results, and now I'm playing a little bit lower ranked girls and he didn't want me to fear playing them."
Yepifanova will take on No. 3 seed Robin Montgomery, who has dominated her opponents this week on indoor hard courts after helping the USA win the Junior Fed Cup two weeks ago on outdoor clay. The 15-year-old from Washington DC defeated No. 7 seed Ellie Coleman 6-0, 6-2 and has now lost just 11 games in her first four victories.
Yepifanova, who beat Montgomery last year in the second round of the USTA 18s Clay Court Championships, is expecting aggressive play from Montgomery.
"She hits big and flat," said Yepifanova, who agreed that her own game style is similar to Montgomery's. "But I feel like I sometimes enjoy playing defense, and I don't see Robin often doing that."
The other girls semifinal will feature two unseeded players, with India Houghton taking on wild card Kouzmanov. Houghton defeated No. 4 seed Jada Bui of Canada, the last international player still in the draw, 6-1, 6-1 although the match was over 90 minutes long. Kouzmanov took out No. 11 seed Ava Catanzarite 6-1, 6-4.
Bernard earned the only break of the third set in the fifth game then held on to it, barely, by consolidating for 4-2 after saving four break points.
"First set I didn't get broken once, but in the second set I struggled to hold serve, got broken three times, and I wasn't going to win the set like that," said the 16-year-old from Florida. "I knew in that 3-2 game, I really needed to hold, and I think my second serve got a little tight. He gave him me some freebies, he really got passive on some of those points; we were both very passive in that game."
After two holds, Tracy had to hold serve to stay in the match, but he was broken at love, ending the two-and-half-hour contest and putting Bernard into the semifinals against unseeded Welsh Hotard.
Hotard, who defeated wild card Ben Shelton 6-2, 6-2, lost to Bernard in their previous meeting this spring in the semifinals of the ITF Grade 4 in Plantation Florida 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.
"It was a good match and I think we both know how we are going to play," Bernard said. "That was on clay; it's different, but I think roughly we know what to expect from each other."
Lilov will take on No. 8 seed Cash Hanzlik, who beat No. 16 seed Daniel Milavsky 6-3, 6-1. Hanzlik has dropped only 12 games in his four wins this week.
The doubles semifinals are set for Friday, with three unseeded teams and the top seeds getting through today's girls quarterfinals, while the top-seeded boys team fell in a match tiebreaker.
No. 1 seeds Yepifanova and Lauren Anzalotta of Puerto Rico defeated No. 7 seeds Houghton and Gianna Pielet 7-6(4), 6-2 and will play Reese Brantmeier and Carson Tanguilig, who beat unseeded Carrie Beckman and Emma Charney 7-5, 6-2. Kouzmanov and Montgomery advanced when Maryam Ahmad, partnering with Catanzarite, had to retire due to an injury after dropping the first set 6-2. Kozmanova and Montgomery will take on Ava Hrastar and Ruth Marsh, who beat No. 2 seeds Bui and Kailey Evans 7-5, 6-1.
Top boys seeds Hunter Heck and Stefan Leustian fell to unseeded Ozan Colak and Maxwell Smith 6-3, 4-6, 11-9, with Colak and Smith seeing their 6-2 lead in the tiebreaker dissolve into an 8-7 lead for Heck and Leustian, but Smith's volleying proved the difference as they closed it out on their second match point. Colak and Smith will play No. 5 seeds Tracy and Andrew Dale, who beat No. 3 seeds Joshua Lapadat and Ilya Tiraspolsky of Canada 1-6, 6-2, 10-7. No. 2 seeds Aidan Mayo and Venezuela's Lorenzo Claverie beat No. 6 seeds Leighton Allen and Jack Anthrop 6-2, 6-1. They will play unseeded Murphy Cassone and Hugo Hashimoto, who defeated No. 4 seeds Bernard and Hanzlik 3-6, 6-3, 10-5.
At the ATP 100 Challenger in Fairfield California, 18-year-old wild card Brandon Nakashima defeated No. 6 seed James Duckworth of Australia 7-6(5), 7-5 to advance to the quarterfinals at a 100-level Challenger for the second straight tournament. Duckworth, with a ATP ranking of 143, is the highest ranked player the Virginia Cavalier has beaten. Nakashima said that his results this fall would determine if he would return to Charlottesville in January; that is looking increasingly unlikely given his results the last two months.
Top seed Christian Sigsgaard of Texas lost today in second round singles action at the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa. Senior Gui Osorio of San Diego defeated Sigsgaard 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to advance to Friday's round of 16. Georgia freshman Philip Henning, a qualifier, beat No. 7 seed John McNally of Ohio State 6-3, 6-1 and Alex Rotsaert of Stanford took out No. 5 seed Jack Lin of Columbia 6-3, 7-5.
Top women's seed Estela Perez-Somarriba of Miami, the 2019 NCAA champion, advanced to the round of 16, although all the women's second round singles results are not yet posted. No. 7 seed Jada Hart of UCLA lost to North Carolina State's Alana Smith 6-1, 6-3 and qualifier Iuliia Bryzgalova of Penn defeated No. 4 seed Kelly Chen of Duke 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (2).
Up-to-date results can be found here.
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