Johnson and Antonius Reach ITF J300 PanAm Closed Final; Clarke and Hoo Meet for Girls Title; Doubles Champions Crowned; Kennedy Advances to M15 Lexington Semifinals

©Colette Lewis 2025--
Spring, Texas--

Saturday's singles finals at the ITF J300 Pan American Closed Championships are rematches, with No. 6 seed Chukwumelije Clarke and No. 5 Carrie-Ann Hoo reprising their contest in the USTA Winter Nationals 18s final back in January, and No. 4 seed Andrew Johnson and No. 3 seed Michael Antonius meeting for the second consecutive week, after all four posted straight-sets victories in Friday's semifinals at the Giammalva Racquet Club.

Clarke and Johnson, both of whom won those encounters in Lake Nona and Corpus Christi respectively, reached their first ITF J300 finals by taking out the top seeds in today's semifinals.

Clarke, who lives in nearby Humble Texas, broke open a tight first set at 4-all and claimed the final eight games of the match to beat Annika Penickova 6-4, 6-0.

The first eight games of the match were routine holds, but Penickova played a poor game serving at 4-all, broken at love with a double fault. Clarke was down 0-30 and 30-40 serving for the set, but she was able to hold, with Penickova unable to apply any more pressure.

Clarke broke at love in the opening game of the second set, and then held at love for a 2-0 lead, with her points won streak reaching 11 before Penickova recorded one. Penickova was broken from deuce in the third game, with Clarke in control the rest of the way, as Penickova's errors continued.

"I think I played really well today," said the 16-year-old, who is commuting from home during this tournament, which she has played all three years it has been hosted here."I came out with a little bit of nerves, because I know she's a really good player, but I think after the first set I had a lot of confidence and I think I played a pretty solid match in the second set."

Clarke said that the trust she has in her backhand helped her counteract the left-handed Penickova's power.

"I have a pretty solid backhand so I'm able to neutralize her shots pretty well," said Clarke, who lost in qualifying here in 2023 and in the first round of the main draw last year. "And my serve definitely helped me during this tournament; it's been pretty consistent and I'm getting a lot of first serves in, so that's been a big help."

Clarke, who is coached by her mother, has begun training at the Barcelona Tennis Academy, with her first visit there this summer.

"I have a scholarship there, and I will go there for blocks at a time," said Clarke, who made the semifinals of a W15 in El Salvador last week. "Hopefully I can go there before the Mexico swing at the end of the year. I'm not 100 percent sure, I've only been there once at the beginning of the summer for a couple of weeks."

While Clarke has advanced to her first J300 final without dropping a set, Hoo twice came from a set down, then took a third set 6-0 to move on. In her 7-5, 6-1 win over No. 11 seed Maggie Sohns, the comeback came much earlier, with Hoo trailing 5-2 and saving four set points in the opening set, before reeling off a total of nine straight games.

"I don't think I started the best," said the 16-year-old from New Jersey. "Her shots are very spin-y and deep, so they were a little tricky for me at first, and she was spending a lot of time inside the court and I wasn't connecting very well either. I then decided to focus on the depth, so she couldn't attack, and the more I did that, the more I got a rhythm."

Serving at 3-5, 0-40, Hoo said she managed to focus on the point at hand, not the consequences.

"I honestly didn't even think about that," Hoo said. "I try not to think about the important points too much, just focus on what I want to do, not on, oh, if I lose this point I lose the set. I feel like she was under more pressure to close than I was to save the set points, and it worked out."

Hoo, who lost to Clarke in qualifying here in 2023, had to retire from her first round match last year with a back spasm.

"It feels really good to come back and prove myself again, after that," Hoo said. 

After falling to Clarke in the Winter Nationals final 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(5), Hoo is eager for another chance.

"I'm really excited to have a rematch," said Hoo, who trains at New Jersey's Little Silver Tennis Club with coach Edgar Arzamasov. "I think it will be a really good match, she's been playing well, so I'm excited to see how it goes."

Johnson's 6-1, 6-4 victory over top seed Gavin Goode extended his winning streak on this fortnight in Texas to ten, with last week's Corpus Christi J200 champion dominating the first set before coming back from a 4-2 deficit in the second set to close it out.

"I played him in the beginning of the year and I wanted to do better, because I lost 6 and 0," said the 16-year-old from Southern California. "I had a little chip on my shoulder, not a chip on my shoulder, but a little motivation, and I think I pretty much got it back today. First set, I was making everything, barely missed. I was going after my shots and probably hit 20 winners, playing really well."

In the second set, Goode began serving better, breaking in the third game and holding in his next two service games for a 4-2 lead.

"It the second I started missing a little bit, I wasn't getting tired, but it's going to happen, I'm playing so well, there might be a little dip," Johnson said. "I just stayed calm, didn't really want to do too much on the bigger points, just rally it out, because I think today I was winning a lot of the longer points. I had him on the run a lot today, and in the first part of the second set, I would just miss, but I cut that down a lot toward the end."

Johnson, who won the doubles title with Antonius in Corpus Christi and is rooming with him on this Texas trip, said he hasn't had any physical issues in this long two weeks in the heat.

"I'm feeling pretty good right now," said Johnson, whose only three-set win came in Tuesday's second round. "You never know about tomorrow, it's so many matches leading up to that moment. Maybe it'll hit me, maybe it won't, let's hope it doesn't, but yeah, I'm feeling pretty good."

Antonius also limited his time on court today, after a three-and-a-half hour quarterfinal win over Marcel Latak Thursday, beating No. 2 seed Ryan Cozad 6-4, 6-4.

Antonius, who had lost to Cozad in the semifinals of the J300 in Costa Rica in January, broke Cozad at 4-5 to take the first set, but went down a break 2-1 in the second.

"I gave him a kind of easy service game, to be honest," said the 15-year-old from Buffalo. "But I told myself in the next one I just need to make him play for every ball. Like most people, his best shots are his serve and his forehand, so if I could just get a racquet on the return, I'd make him play. He missed some easy balls, gave me some free points, but I had to just make him play."

Antonius got the break back using that strategy and again got the break with Cozad serving at 4-5 to earn another shot at Johnson, who beat him 6-2, 7-6(3) in the Corpus Christi semifinals last Thursday.

"Neither of us are going to have an experience edge," said Antonius, who did reach his first J300 final in August in College Park. "Obviously, he's a little older, he beat me last week, so I'm telling myself the pressure's not on me in the same way."

Antonius doesn't find the prospect of playing his friend and teammate on next month's Junior Davis Cup finals team awkward.

"We're really good friends, and off court, even before last week, we're always making fun of each other," Antonius said. "And then when we step on court, it's a different story." 

Antonius expects to change his strategy after his loss last week.

"At the beginning I was going for a lot," Antonius said. "Everyone knows Andy is really fast and has a really good backhand, tricky forehand as well. Last week I was going for winners on every shot and was down like love-five in probably 10 minutes. In the second set, I changed and it was 7-6, it was close. If he plays like he did in the first set today, then too good, but I'm going to try to hit a consistent rally ball deep in the court and see where it goes from there. But when I get a short ball, I need to step up, because if I don't step up, he will."

Both singles finals are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

Three of the four singles semifinalists were in the doubles finals this afternoon, and all three ended their tournaments with a championship after losing their matches.

Top seeds Cozad and Goode won their second straight J300 title, with the College Park champions defeating unseeded Nikolas Stoot and Sebastian Bielen 6-4, 3-6, 10-2.

Cozad and Goode broke in the first game of the match and held onto that lead, although they had to win deciding points on their first two service games to keep the lead.

They again took 1-0 lead by breaking to open the second set, but lost a deciding point to give the break back in the next game. Cozad was broken serving at 2-3, and although Bielen and Stoot  needed to win a deciding point with Bielen serving at 5-3, they forced a match tiebreaker, their fourth in the past four matches.

This time they couldn't summon that magic, with Cozad and Goode going up 6-0 and coasting to the victory.

"We were able to relax, and we felt they got a little tight and we were able to be more aggressive at the net," said Cozad, a 16-year-old from Georgia. "We started out with four or five winners in the tiebreak, and it felt like we had a lot of the momentum, they weren't pumping each other up as much, so we were able to just take it."

"We have a lot of good chemistry on the court, and off the court too," said Goode, a 17-year-old from North Carolina. "We've been playing a lot together since we were younger." 

"Gavin's serve is really good, I don't think he got broken the whole tournament," Cozad said. "We did a great job with our returns and serves this week, took care of those well and had great energy."

The top seeds also won the girls doubles title, with Penickova and Capucine Jauffret defeating unseeded Lucy Oyebog and Lillian Santos 7-5, 6-4 in a roller coaster of a final.

Penickova and Jauffret served for the first set at 5-2 and 5-4, with one set point wasted on a deciding point at 5-2. Three more set points came and went with Oyebog serving at 3-5, 15-40, but they broke for a third chance at serving out the set, finally converting their sixth set point on a deciding point at 6-5.

In the second set, three consecutive breaks from 3-all gave Penickova the opportunity to serve out the match, and with a 40-15 lead, she had three chances. After a Santos volley winner and a Penickova unforced error, Jauffret and Penickova had another deciding point, which they converted when Santos netted a second serve return.

"We kept our consistency, even if it was a little up and down," said Penickova, a 16-year-old from California, who usually partners with her twin sister Kristina, who is playing in Asia this fall. "We managed to deal with their good serves and the way they played."

"We came out with really good energy, in good spirits," said Jauffret, a 17-year-old from Delaware, who has committed to the University of Florida. "Even when there was ups and downs we did a good job of regrouping, refocusing, and just letting go of the mistakes, being the aggressive ones and go after it."

Jauffret said playing next to Cozad and Goode also helped keep them loose and engaged.

"Playing next to them is really fun, you can see their energy and it kind of lifts you up too," Penickova said. "Oh, wait, I've got to have energy too."

"The energy kind of rubs off," Jauffret said. "It's entertaining too. On the changeovers, we were looking over there, trying to stay focused, but not really doing a good job of that. But it's fun to be playing next to someone, lifting everyone up."

Last year's Pan American boys singles champion Jack Kennedy has reached the second USTA Pro Circuit M15 semifinal at this week's tournament in Lexington Kentucky. Kennedy defeated No. 3 seed Karl Poling(Princeton, UNC) 7-6(3), 6-3 and will face No. 2 seed Raphael Perot(Texas A&M) of France for a spot in the final. Kennedy has played four tiebreakers in his three matches this week and has won them all.