No Days Off for Qualifier Gorzny, Hovde Wins Battle of Wild Cards in Monday's First Round at International Open of Southern California

©Colette Lewis 2021-- San Diego CA
I'll admit to being rusty today at the International Open of Southern California, as this was my first day covering the opening round of a junior tournament since December 2019's Orange Bowl.

With 16 matches to watch at any given moment this morning at the Barnes Tennis Center, and many players I knew by name but not by face after this long hiatus, I didn't park myself at any one match. But I think I saw everyone hit at least a few shots, and it felt great, on a sunny day with temperatures in the mid-60s, to be back doing what I enjoy most about this work.

I watched the third set of the match between wild cards Liv Hovde and Anne Lutkemeyer, with the 15-year-old Hovde posting a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 victory. Lutkemeyer, the 2018 16s champion at this tournament, when it was held in Carson, saved three match points, with Hovde serving for the match at 40-0.

"When it got to deuce, I was just like, ok, just breathe, calm down," said Hovde, who trains with Phil Dent at his academy in the Dallas area. "You can't let it affect your game."

Lutkemeyer looked determined to make every ball during those three points, and that strategy worked, with Hovde making four errors after long rallies to give Lutkemeyer a chance to break back, but Hovde cracked a winner on to save that break point, and it was Lutkemeyer who made the errors on the last two points of the match.

"She just has a really solid game overall," Hovde said. "So it's hard to figure out where to go, but I got in rhythm and found out where to hit the ball and it all came together."

Lutkemeyer had won a UTR Pro Tour $25K in January, while Hovde had had success in a UTR event in Texas last November, which provided her with some positive reinforcement after enduring the long pandemic layoff.

"That was a really good tournament, my first pro series thing, and I made the finals," Hovde said. "I made some money, too, always a plus. To do good in that tournament gave me a sudden boost of confidence, since it was one of my first tournaments in the past year or so."

Hovde may have had difficulty getting enough matches this year, but that hasn't been a problem for Sebastian Gorzny, who played his 12th singles match in the past 10 days today, beating Borys Zgola of Poland 6-3, 6-2. Gorzny reached Friday's singles final of the Grade 4 last week in Las Vegas as a qualifier, but didn't receive a wild card into the San Diego event, so he was required to play two matches Saturday in qualifying, before he won his final round qualifying match yesterday. But even before this stretch of daily matches, Gorzny was seeing his match count rise, as he played the USTA Spring Individual Championships in Mobile, going 5-1 at that tournament.

"I was in Alabama playing the National 1, and from there I went straight to Vegas, played three qualifying matches," said the 17-year-old, who has been training at the Evert Academy since January. "My legs were pretty drained after Vegas, but I've recovered the last two days. I didn't have too many long [qualifying] matches."

Gorzny, who also had notable results in Florida money tournaments in February, said his improvement has been physical and mental.

"I am pretty focused, and I'm serving well," Gorzny said. "I'm not having any loose points or games, working every point, every game. Before Mobile, I won 15 out of 16 matches in UTR events, so I was playing pretty well in Florida."

With the physical stamina he has shown this year, Gorzny has completely put behind him the frightening six days he spent in the hospital in Kalamazoo during the 2019 tournament.

"They don't know what happened," said Gorzny, who grew up in Southern California. "It was some type of illness or disease from a mosquito bite that infected my brain. I don't remember anything, because I was in a coma, but I was out for a month and a half with physical therapy and I started training again. I don't even think about it anymore. It was very scary for my parents."

Gorzny never considered dropping out of doubles this week, and after partnering with Brayden Michna in Las Vegas, he and Nathan Cox are through to the second round of doubles after a win today.  As with singles, the seeded teams in doubles do not play until Tuesday, with Alexander Bernard and Victor Lilov the No. 1 team in the boys draw, and Alexandra Yepifanova and Elvina Kalieva No. 1 in the girls draw.

I mentioned yesterday that Juncheng Shang of China, who was expected to play here this week, was not in the draw and the reason for that became apparent today, when he surfaced as a wild card in the Miami Open qualifying. The 16-year-old left-hander, who trains at IMG, gave ATP 158 Liam Broady of Great Britain a battle before falling 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(6).

Americans advancing in men's qualifying at the Miami Open today were Brandon Nakashima, Mitchell Krueger, Mackenzie McDonald, Ernesto Escobedo, Bjorn Fratangelo, Jenson Brooksby and Emilio Nava.

US women winning first round qualifying matches were Kristie Ahn, Hailey Baptiste and Bethanie-Mattek Sands.