April Aces; Davidov and Lee Face Off in Future Stars Semifinal; Quinn Reaches Vero Beach $15K Semifinals; Savannah Challenger Semifinals Feature Four Americans; Townsend's Comeback Puts Her in Semifinals at Charleston $100K; SEC, Big 12 Conference Awards
It's still April, but this weekend's tournaments will end in May, so now is a good time to close out the month and look at the top performances. Fifteen players are featured in my monthly Aces column for Tennis Recruiting Network, with juniors and former collegians sharing the spotlight.
An American boy will advance to the final of the inaugural IMG Future Stars U12 tournament in Athens Greece after Teodor Davidov and Jordan Lee won their quarterfinal matches today in straight sets. That semifinal will be a rematch of the Eddie Herr 12s final last December, which Davidov won 6-4, 6-4. As has been done at the ITF, ATP and WTA level, there are no countries listed for players from Belarus or Russia at this event; the two semifinalists without countries listed are from Russia.
Boys semifinals:Teodor Davidov[USA] v Jordan Lee[USA]
Rafael Pagonis[GRE] v Alexander Kunitsyn[]
Girls semifinals:
Haniya Aman Minhas[PAK] v Ksenia Ruchkina[]
Jana Kovackova[CZE] v Joyce Geng[CAN]
Eighteen-year-old Ethan Quinn has advanced to the semifinals of the $15,000 USTA Men's Pro Circuit tournament in Vero Beach Florida after beating qualifier Jakub Wojcik(South Florida) 7-5, 6-3. Quinn, a redshirt freshman at Georgia who reached the semifinals of the $25K in Bakersfield last month, faces former Ohio State All-American John McNally in Saturday's semifinals. McNally the No. 2 seed, defeated former Georgia Bulldog Emil Reinberg 6-3, 6-3. University of Kentucky junior Liam Draxl of Canada, the top seed, defeated teammate Millen Hurrion of Great Britain 6-2, 6-2. Draxl will face the winner of tonight's quarterfinal between No. 3 seed Sekou Bangoura(Florida) and Khololwam Montsi of South Africa, the No. 6 seed.
All four semifinalists at the ATP Challenger 80 in Savannah Georgia are Americans, with Jack Sock[4], JJ Wolf[6], Bjorn Fratangelo[8] and Christian Harrison earning victories in today's quarterfinals. Harrison defeated top seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry of Argentina 6-4, 6-2 and will take on former Ohio State star Wolf, who beat Alex Rybakov(TCU) 6-3, 6-4. In the bottom half, Sock and Fratangelo had considerably tougher quarterfinal matches, with Sock beating Zhizhen Zhang of China 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 and Fratangelo downing qualifier Jose Pereira 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(3).
Wild card Taylor Townsend and qualifier Whitney Osuigwe won three-setters today to advance to a semifinal showdown at the $100,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit tournament in Charleston South Carolina. Townsend trailed No. 3 seed Katie Volynets 6-1, 4-0, but roared back for a 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory, her second straight over Volynets in the past two weeks. Osuigwe came back to beat unseeded Nao Hibino of Japan 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. Townsend and Osuigwe have played four times on the USTA Pro Circuit, splitting those decisions, but have not met in almost three years.
Gabriela Ce of Brazil beat fellow qualifier Alexa Graham(UNC) 6-0, 6-2 and will face No. 5 seed Xiyu Wang of China, who beat top seed Irina Bara of Romania 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.
Sophie Chang and Angela Kulikov(USC) will go for their third straight doubles title this month on Saturday, with the unseeded pair facing top seeds Katarzyna Kawa of Poland and Aldila Sutjiadi(Kentucky) of Indonesia.
Two and a half of the Power Five conferences announced their
All-conference teams and individual awards for the season, with the SEC and Big 12 revealing those honors for both men and women, while the Big Ten men's awards were also announced. The Big Ten women and ACC all-conference teams and awards will be out before the NCAAs, if they keep to their usual schedules; the Pac-12 often doesn't release its honors until after the NCAAs. The individual awards are below; click on the heading to see the articles on the all-Conference teams.
SEC
Player of the Year: McCartney Kessler, Florida
Freshman of the Year: Sarah Hamner, South Carolina
Coach of the Year: Mark Weaver, Texas A&M
Player of the Year: Ben Shelton, Florida
Freshmen of the Year: Filip Planinsek, Alabama
Coach of the Year: Bryan Shelton, Florida
Big 12:
Player of the Year: Peyton Stearns, Texas
Freshman of the Year: Mhai Sawangkaew, Oklahoma State
Newcomer of the Year: Layne Sleeth, Oklahoma
Coach of the Year: Audra Cohen, Oklahoma
Player of the Year: Adrian Boitan, Baylor
Freshman of the Year: Pierre-Yves Bailly, Texas
Co-Newcomer of the Year: Juan Carlos Aguilar, TCU
Co-Newcomer of the Year: Tyler Zink, Oklahoma State
Coach of the Year: David Roditi, TCU
Big Ten
Tennis Athlete of the Year: Cannon Kingsley, Ohio State
Freshman of the Year: Gavin Young, Michigan
Coach of the Year: Ty Tucker, Ohio State
Women: TBD
1 comments:
Anyone have the sense for the rationale of Ethan Quinn in starting school at Georgia but not playing for the team this spring? Clearly in form and would help their squad. Not likely to use all 4 years of his eligibility. Why not be getting ready for NCAAs instead of playing in Futures? If going pro now is your choice, I get it. But not sure why he wouldn't do the Nakashima plan of joining a semester early to get a freshman year in as an 18 year old. I'm sure there is a rationale for the way they are playing it. Just curious what it is.
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