Quinn, Godsick Survive Tough Tests on Opening Day of ITF Grade 1 International Open of San Diego; Easter Bowl Wild Cards

©Colette Lewis 2022--

San Diego, CA

Top seeds and frequent doubles partners Ethan Quinn and Nicholas Godsick suspected they would be in for tough first round battles at the ITF Grade 1 International Open of San Diego at the Barnes Tennis Center Monday. That proved to be the case, although both rose to the challenge to post victories on a cool and sunny day that saw more than ten hours of play on 16 courts.

No. 1 seed and defending San Diego champion Quinn, who played in the semifinals of the Bakersfield $25,000 Men's Pro Circuit event on Saturday, admitted that fatigue began to set in for him midway through the second set, but the University of Georgia freshman managed to post a 7-6(4), 6-3 win over Rohan Murali of San Diego.

"I'm definitely feeling it in my legs and my shoulder," said Quinn, who qualified in Bakersfield, putting his match count at that tournament at six. "Rohan came out with energy, I came out a little bit slower. He played well, and luckily I was able to battle through the first."

Quinn took a 3-0 lead in the second set, lost his break, but then took the final three games.

"He made a few unforced errors that I was sort of lucky to get, but it was a tough first round match."

Quinn said the difference in the hard court surfaces at Bakersfield and at Barnes was a factor that he needed to adjust to.

"The courts there were really fast, these courts are a little bit slower," said Quinn, who started in January and is currently red shirting at Georgia. "Air is a little bit thicker so it's not going as fast through the court. In Bakersfield, I was getting so many free points, just off my serve, but here I was hardly getting any. That also could be credit to his returning."

"I think this match got me prepared for the rest of the week," said Quinn, who is defending nearly half of his junior ranking points here and at next week's Easter Bowl. "Right after I saw the draw I said immediately, this could be tricky. He took Jerry (Shang) to a tough third set last year, almost beat him, so I knew I couldn't give him many loose errors. When I did, I was able to serve my way out of it. That's a good first round, to get used to the climate and every thing, so I feel pretty prepared for tomorrow."

Quinn said his decision to begin college in January was based on his opportunity to train with better competition than he could get in Fresno, and his decision to red shirt was based on his desire to play the junior slams this summer.

"I have a lot of points to defend this week and next week honestly too," said Quinn, who admitted that he may not have played this week if he had made the final in Bakersfield. "I knew if I played for Georgia, I wouldn't be able to play here, forego the slams except for maybe a wild card at the US Open. I want to play the slams, but right now there's a lot of stuff that's up in the air about maybe playing for UGA, but we'll see, there's a lot of decisions to be made."

Quinn stuck around to watch his friend and doubles partner Godsick pull out a three-hour and 42 minute, 7-6(3), 6-7(6), 6-4 win over last week's Las Vegas J4 champion Fnu Nidunjianzan of China. Godsick had a match point on his serve at 6-5 in the second set tiebreaker, but Nidunjianzan played an aggressive point to save it, made a good return to earn the next point and closed out the set with an overhead winner. Just getting through those two sets took two hours and 45 minutes; the four-hour mark would have been in play had Godsick not been able to close out the third set, but he got through that final service game, ending it with an ace.

The top 6 seeds in the boys draw advanced, but No. 7 seed Alex Michelsen, a quarterfinalist at Bakersfield and a future teammate of Quinn's, lost to newly bespectacled Kyle Kang, a wild card, 6-4, 6-4.

No. 4 seed Jaden Weekes of Canada saved a match point in his 6-7(5), 6-2, 7-6(7) win over Marko Mesarovic, who served for the match at 6-5 in the third after saving three match points serving at 4-5. Weekes was cramping at 4-all in the third set, but he managed to force a tiebreaker, with each point going to the server, including the 5-6 match point Weekes faced, until, at 6-7, Mesarovic shanked a ball to end the dramatic encounter.

Two other boys seeds lost, with qualifier Jordan Reznik defeating No. 15 seed John Kim 6-3, 6-2 and Nikita Filin beating No. 16 seed Zane Ford 6-1, 6-3.

The top two girls seeds had no difficulty in their first round matches, with Liv Hovde defeating qualifier Daria Smetannikov 6-0, 6-2 and No. 2 seed Johanne Svendsen of Denmark downing Martina Marica 6-3, 6-2.

Local wild card Katie Codd defeated No. 10 seed Natacha Schou of Denmark 6-0, 6-2; Las Vegas J4 girls champion Iva Jovic advanced when No. 14 seed Lara Smejkal retired trailing 6-1, 3-1 and Morgan McCarthy beat No. 16 seed Daniella Ben-Abraham. Ahmani Guichard was the only Top 8 seed to fall in the girls draw, losing to Marcela Lopez 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.

The first round ended at 7:15 p.m., under the Stadium Court lights, with No. 7 seed Madeleine Jessup of Taiwan outlasting Claire An 6-2, 5-7, 7-5.

With a last-minute decision to extend the tournament to Sunday, only half of the singles draws will be played Tuesday, with the boys top half and the girls bottom half on the schedule. All first round doubles matches will be played, with Orange Bowl finalists Godsick and Quinn the top boys seeds, and Liv Hovde and Qavia Lopez the top girls seeds.

Below is the initial list of wild cards for the Easter Bowl from the USTA:

ITF Girls:

Iva Jovic

Kate Kim

Shannon Lam

Natalie Block

Tyra Grant

ITF Boys:

Dylan Charlap

Mitchell Lee

Rudy Quan

Krish Arora

Rohan Belday

Girls 16s:

Sydney Jara

Kenzie Nguyen

Rachel Lee

Valerie Glozman

Boys 16s:

Calvin Baierl

Maxwell Exsted

Maximus Dussault

Mark Krupkin

Girls 14s:

Yael Saffar

Sephi Sheng

Nancy Lee

Boys 14s:

Navneet Raghuram

Mark Mrcela

David Clarke

Tadevos Mirijanyan

Girls 12s:

Sylvana Jalbert

Sammie Mercer

Savannah Schmitz

Boys 12s:

Lachlan Rushton

Tyson Grant

Atticus Kim

Legan Thomas

Also of note, the USTA has confirmed that the Easter Bowl ITF champions will receive main draw wild cards into the US Open Junior Championships this year.