Kalieva Claims Banana Bowl Title; North Carolina Downs Ohio State, Faces Southern Cal in ITA Men's Team Indoor Final Monday; Torpegaard Wins Cleveland Challenger

Although the ITF website has been down all day, I was able to discover the winners of today's singles finals at the ITF Grade A Banana Bowl in Brazil thanks to some help from a twitter follower.

Sixteen-year-old Elvina Kalieva won the girls title, beating unseeded Leyre Romero Gormaz of Spain 6-1, 1-6, 6-2.  Kalieva, the No. 8 seed, had not dropped a set all week, so that middle set is something of a surprise, but she recovered for her first Grade A title. Her previous best showing at that level was a quarterfinal at the South African tournament last fall.

The boys title went to No. 3 seed Hanwen Li of China, who earned the title when top seed Natan Rodrigues of Brazil retired after losing the first set 6-4. The 17-year-old Li had not been past the third round at a Grade A before this week.

The finals are set for the ITA Division I Men's Team Indoor Championships, and a new champion will be crowned, after No. 4 North Carolina defeated top seed and defending champion Ohio State 4-0 in this evening's match.  The Tar Heels took the doubles point with little difficulty and then grabbed five first sets, with the singles points coming from Rinky Hijikata at line 3, Simon Soendergaard at line 6 and, with the clinch, Brian Cernoch at line 5. Ohio State's battle with Wake Forest Saturday night probably had some impact on their slow start today, and they were up in the three unfinished singles matches, but the Tar Heels definitely earned their shot at their first Indoor title since 2016.

North Carolina will take on No. 2 seed Southern California, who mounted an incredible comeback to defeat No. 11 seed Michigan 4-3. After losing the doubles point in a tiebreaker at line 3, USC lost five first sets, but the Trojans fought back to take three of those matches to a third set and won them all. Riley Smith got USC on the board with a win at line 3, but Michigan made it 3-1 with wins by Andrew Fenty at line 1 and Connor Johnston at line 4. USC made it 3-2 with Stefan Dostanic beating Nick Beaty 2-6 6-4, 6-3 at line 5, and the Trojans were up in the third set of the remaining two matches, but more drama remained. USC's Daniel Cukierman, the top-ranked player in the country, led Ondrej Styler 5-2 in the third at line 2, but couldn't close it out serving for it at 5-3. Styler saved two match points serving at 5-4, and with two more holds, they moved into a tiebreaker. Ryder Jackson saw his break over Patrick Maloney slip away at line 6, but he quickly regained the lead and when he earned his 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-3 win, Cukierman was up 5-1 in the tiebreaker, and three points later, USC completed the comeback.

USC last won an Indoor title in 2012 and made the Indoor finals the following three years, but this is their first final since 2015.

The final is scheduled for noon on Monday, with links to live streaming and live scoring available at the ITA tournament page. The score links in the above paragraphs go to the TennisTicker results pages for the two semifinal matches.

Americans were shut out as far as singles titles go at the three USTA Pro Circuit tournaments this week.

At the women's $100,000 tournament in Lexington Kentucky, wild card Claire Liu lost to Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-4, 6-4.

photo courtesy Scott Gerber©2019

The Buckeyes did get a win today at the ATP 80 Challenger in Cleveland, with former Ohio State Mikael Torpegaard claiming his third Challenger title and first not in Columbus. The 25-year-old from Denmark, seeded No. 12 seed, beat unseeded Yosuke Watanuki of Japan 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 in today's final.

Unseeded Treat Huey(Virginia) and Nate Lammons(SMU) won the doubles title, beating top seeds JP Smith(Tennessee) and Luke Saville of Australia 7-5, 6-2.

Another former SMU standout came out on top at the $25,000 men's tournament in Naples Florida, with No. 8 seed Ronald Slobodchikov of Russia beating qualifier Alejandro Gomez(Kentucky) of Colombia 5-7, 6-1, 6-4 in the final. It's the sixth title for the 26-year-old, but the first above the $15K level.