Hovde and Zheng, Duke's Rodenas Advance to Wimbledon Junior Singles Semifinals, Gorzny and Michelsen Reach Doubles Final Four; Krawczyk and Skupski Repeat as Mixed Doubles Champions; 14U Tournament Begins

©Colette Lewis 2022--
Wimbledon--

Michael Zheng and top seed Liv Hovde advanced to the semifinals of the Wimbledon Junior Championships Thursday, with straight-sets victories over unseeded opponents. 

Hovde, who survived by virtue of a successful Hawkeye challenge on match point in Wednesday's third round, eliminated any suggestion of similar drama in her quarterfinal match with unseeded Ella Seidel of Germany, cruising to a 6-3, 6-2 victory in 55 minutes on Court 2.

Zheng took out doubles partner Coleman Wong of Hong Kong 6-4, 6-3 in 67 minutes, with his performance on break points the difference in the match.

The 18-year-old from New Jersey won the only break point of the first set, with Wong serving at 4-5. He immediately went down 15-40 serving to open the second set, but saved both those break points and another in the third game. And when Zheng earned three break points with Wong serving at 2-3, converting the second, that was all he needed.

"I was happy with my performance," said Zheng, who will be starting at Columbia in September. "I kept the same even level throughout the match, just kept focus. We both have pretty good serves, that one of the strong points of our games and I think whenever we made a first serve, it was tough to keep the ball in play. At the end, I put a couple of good returns in and he got a little bit tight."

Wong is one of the most animated players on the junior circuit, but was more subdued today than usual, perhaps because he was playing his doubles partner.

"I tried to keep the doubles out of my mind," Zheng said. "I'm not really sure what he was thinking during the match, but I was happy with the way I played and I don't think he got that many chances to get really excited."

Zheng will face No. 10 seed Martin Landaluce of Spain, who earned his 15th consecutive grass court victory with a 7-5, 6-3 decision over unseeded Learner Tien.

Zheng and Landaluce played this spring at the Grade A in Milan, with Landaluce claiming a 1-6, 6-3, 7-5 win in the third round.

"I lost in a Milan, a very close match, but he's playing very well," Zheng said. "I need to bring my A game; my serve needs to be there. Except for the British guys, he's the most comfortable player on the grass so far. It'll be a challenge tomorrow, his game does suit grass. He pretty much never backs up, the backhand is very flat and his forehand is very big, so it should be a good match tomorrow."

Tien got out to an early lead in the first set at 3-1, but once Landaluce quit making unforced errors, it was an uphill climb for the 16-year-old Southern Californian.

"I played all right, but I could have played better at some of the bigger moments," Tien said. "When the points got tighter, he came up with some good shots in close games."

One of Tien's advantages in close matches is his poise, which helped him in his third round win Wednesday over No. 15 seed Martyn Pawelski of Poland, who let his frustrations surface often. But Landaluce appeared as calm as Tien throughout, with an occasional fist pump his only sign of emotion.

"Obviously it is a bit tougher playing somebody who is a little bit more mentally stable," Tien said. "You don't get as many loose errors, free points. They don't give you any chances, if they can help it, it's always a little bit tougher playing those guys who lock down on every point."

Tien said he considered not playing Wimbledon, playing the three SoCal Pro Circuit events instead, but is happy that he made the trip.

"It's not too often that you have so many tournaments so close to you," said Tien, who may still try to play the sixth and final $15,000 tournament in Lakewood next week. "It was kind of tough weighing it, especially with no points here, but I'm glad I came. It was a good experience, and it sets you up to know what to expect next year, get the first slam experience down."

Landaluce is one of two Spaniards in the boys semifinals, with the other unseeded Pedro Rodenas, who survived a roller coaster of a match with unseeded Kalin Ivanovski of Macedonia 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-4.

Down 4-0 in the first set, Rodenas got one of the breaks back and rode that momentum to a 5-1 lead in the second set. Unable to convert his four set points in that game and a fifth serving at 5-3, Rodenas trailed Ivanovski 5-4 in the resulting tiebreaker, with Ivanovski having two serves. But he lost both of them to give Rodenas his sixth set point, which he converted.

"In the third set I was a break up and lost it again then got it right back," said the 18-year-old left-hander from Madrid, who trailed 0-30 in the final game serving for the match, but came up with a big serve at 40-30 to win it. "All the games were pretty tough, but I'm happy to get the win."

Rodenas is heading to Duke this fall, after deciding that college was his best development option.

"Even though I was getting better and better, we thought it would be really hard to go directly to pros," said Rodenas, who pointed to former collegians Cam Norrie of TCU and Arthur Rinderknecht of Texas A&M as role models for that pathway. "We felt it was a better transition to go to college four years, to mature more, instead of like playing 30 weeks every year, and to get a degree."

He and his family reached out to Duke and Rodenas was encouraged by his discussions with head coach Ramsey Smith, who has been watching his matches here all week.

"I had a good connection with Ramsey, and I felt I had lots of things in common with him," said Rodenas, who also is a friend of University of Virginia rising junior Inaki Montes of Spain. "And also, academically, it's a really good place. To get a degree from there is pretty hard and pretty valuable too."

Rodenas will face No. 3 seed Mili Poljicak of Croatia, who overcame a stomach problem, possibly food poisoning, to defeat No. 6 seed Kilian Feldbausch of Switzerland 1-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Hovde's opponent in Friday's semifinals is No. 5 seed Victoria Mboko of Canada, who came back to end the run of qualifier Isabella Kruger of South Africa 0-6, 7-5, 6-4, Hovde and Mboko have played twice, in this year's Roland Garros third round and in the semifinals of last year's Grade B1 in Kentucky, with Hovde taking both in straight sets.

The other girls singles semifinal will feature No. 7 seed Luca Udvardy of Hungary and No. 16 seed Linda Klimovicova of the Czech Republic. Udvardy defeated No. 3 seed Nikola Bartunkova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-2 and Klimovicova beat wild card Jasmine Conway of Great Britain 2-6, 6-2, 6-1.

The doubles quarterfinals were also played this afternoon, with the unseeded American team of Alex Michelsen and Sebastian Gorzny earning their 13th consecutive victory since April with a 6-1, 6-4 win over unseeded Edward Winter of Australia and Jack Loutit of New Zealand. After claiming the Easter Bowl title in April and the Roehampton title last week, Michelsen and Gorzny were able to maintain that level at Wimbledon.

"We're doing the same things, keeping energy up, playing solid tennis, not really giving the opponents much, percentage tennis, really" said Michelsen. "First serves, put away balls, make them play, keep the energy up and keep positive," said Gorzny. "That's been winning matches for us so far."

On the grass courts, Michelsen and Gorzny have adjusted their games a bit.

"I feel like we were coming to the net a little bit more," Michelsen said. "Lot of serving and volleying, a little more than Easter Bowl, when we stayed back more on the hard courts. But for the most part, keeping the game the same."

Michelsen and Gorzny will face No. 7 seeds Landaluce and Rodenas, who defeated No. 4 seeds Jakub Nicod of the Czech Republic and Gilles Bailly of Belgium 6-3, 3-6, 10-5.

No. 6 seeds Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic and Olaf Pieczkowski of Poland defeated Wong and Zheng 6-3, 1-6, 10-6 and will play No. 5 seeds Gabriel Debru and Paul Inchauspe of France in the semifinals. Debru and Inchauspe advanced when Poljicak retired trailing 5-2, presuming due to fatigue from his earlier illness. Poljicak's partner, Edas Butvilas of Lithuania, was going for his second straight Wimbledon doubles title, with Poljicak and Butvilas winning Roland Garros last month.

Top seed Bartunkova and Celine Naef of Switzerland ended the run of the British wild card team of Hannah Klugman and Hephzibah Oluwadare by a 6-0, 6-1 score. They will face No. 4 seeds Mboko and Kayla Cross of Canada, who saved three match points in their 1-6, 7-5, 13-11 win over No. 8 seeds Kristyna Tomajkova of the Czech Republic and Nina Vargova of Slovakia.

In the bottom half, unseeded Rose Marie Nijkamp of the Netherlands and Angella Okutoyi of Kenya saved a match point in their 6-7(5), 6-4, 11-9 victory over Klimovicova and Dominika Salkova of the Czech Republic. They will play No. 3 seeds Lucija Ciric Bagaric of Croatia and Nikola Daubnerova of Slovakia, who beat unseeded Sayaka Ishii of Japan and Lanlana Tararudee of Thailand 6-2, 7-6(3).

Desirae Krawczyk and Great Britain's Neal Skupski defended their mixed doubles title, with the No. 2 seeds defeating unseeded Matthew Ebden and Sam Stosur of Australia 6-4, 6-3 in Thursday's final on Centre Court. The former Arizona State and LSU stars now have won ten consecutive mixed doubles matches at Wimbledon. Krawczyk is up to four mixed titles, all since 2021 Roland Garros, and will play for a place in her second women's doubles final in a slam on Friday. 

For more on the Krawczyk-Skupski victory today, see this article from Wimbledon.com.

The round robin portion of the inaugural Wimbledon 14-and-under tournament continues Friday, with one round of girls singles and two round of boys singles.

Draws can be found here.

14 and under singles round robin results for Americans:

Carel Ngounoue[3](USA) d. Jake Dembo[6](AUS) 6-0, 6-1
Matei Todoran[2](ROU) d. Keaton Hance[7](USA) 3-6, 6-3, 10-4
Azuna Ichioka(JPN) d. Nicole Okhtenberg[4](USA) 6-2, 6-3
Sol Ailin Larraya Guidi(ARG) d. Nicole Okhtenberg[4](USA) 6-1, 7-5