Redlicki Joins Brother at Duke; Hibi, Rubin and Black Reach Pro Circuit Semis; Pre-Qualifying Begins Saturday for ITA All-American Championships

If you've been visiting the Tennis Recruiting Network's website regularly the past few weeks, you know it's the time of year when top juniors give verbal commitments to coaches for next fall (or even for the fall of 2015).  Martin Redlicki had already decided he would join his brother Michael at Duke when I spoke to him at the US Open earlier this month, but I was interested to hear from him how much his brother influenced his decision.  Martin also discussed his decision to live at home while training at the USTA's Boca Raton Center after spending one semester in the dorms there, and what his plans are for the months before he joins the Blue Devils.

Three juniors who recently competed at the US Open have reached the semifinals of the Pro Circuit events taking place this week.  Unseeded 17-year-old Noah Rubin defeated Cesar Ramirez of Mexico 6-4, 6-3 today at the $10,000 Futures in Laguna Niguel California, a day after beating last week's Futures champion Haythem Abid of Tunisia, who was the No. 7 seed this week. Rubin will play UCLA junior Marcos Giron, who won the Claremont Futures two weeks ago, in Saturday's semifinal. The other semifinal will feature ITA Player of the Year Jarmere Jenkins, seeded fourth, against unseeded Sahak Bazrganian, who shocked top seed Daniel Nguyen 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 today. Jenkins needed three sets to stop USC recruit Connor Farren 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.

At the $10,000 women's tournament in Amelia Island, Florida, 15-year-old Tornado Alicia Black reached the semifinals with a 6-2, 6-3 win over 16-year-old Marie Norris and will play University of Florida senior Alex Cercone, a qualifier, on Saturday. Belgian Sofie Oyen, another Gator senior, who also qualified, will face the only seeded player left in the draw, No. 2 Alexandra Mueller. Black has also advanced to the doubles semifinals, with future Florida Gator Peggy Porter.

At the $50,000 Party Rock Open in Las Vegas, 17-year-old Mayo Hibi reached the semifinals with a 6-4, 7-6(2) win over top seed Ajla Tomljanovic, ranked 88 by the WTA.  That matches Hibi's best win of her career, as she beat Lauren Davis, then also 88, at the Portland Challenger in July. Hibi, ranked 229 and unseeded this week, will play the winner of tonight's Melanie Oudin - Chanel Simmonds match. CoCo Vandeweghe and Anna Tatishvili are in the other semifinal.

The pre-qualifying for the first Division I college major of the season starts Saturday.  The women are at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, and the men are at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center at the University of Tulsa.  The draws for the women's tournament are much smaller, with only 64 players in the pre-qualifying, while the men have an open pre-qualifying, which doesn't fill every spot in a 256 draw, but comes close.  The women's smaller draws, which are filled with players ranked from the previous years, leave the best freshmen with the task of playing through pre-qualifying and qualifying just to get to the 32-player main draw.  UCLA's Jennifer Brady, Houston's Despoina Vogasari, Florida's Belinda Woolcock, Clemson's Jessie Rompies, Texas A&M's Rutuja Bhosale and North Carolina's Jamie Loeb and Haley Carter--all on the ITA's Top Newcomers list--are in pre-qualifying this year, while Carol Zhao of Stanford received a wild card into qualifying.  Last year, Virginia's Julia Elbaba, a freshman, took that grueling path all the way to the final, where she lost to Florida's Lauren Embree.

Eight of the 10 men on the Top Newcomers list are in qualifying for the men's All-American, welcoming a new sponsor this year in Saint Francis Health Care: UCLA's Gage Brymer, Virginia's Thai Kwiatkowski, North Carolina's Ronnie Schneider, North Carolina State's Nick Horton, Texas's George Goldhoff, South Florida's Alexandru Gozun and Oklahoma's Andrew Harris and Alexandru Ghilea.  UCLA's Mackenzie McDonald received a wild card into the main draw, and North Carolina's Brayden Schnur will not be starting school until January.  The other two main draw wild cards went to Drew Lied of Michigan State, who won the ITA Summer Circuit tournament, and Tulsa's Carlos Bautista.  The men's pre-qualifying draw can be found on the tournament home page.

US Girls Reach Junior Fed Cup Semifinals, US Boys Join Top Seed Russia on Junior Davis Cup Sidelines; Waco ITF Semifinals Set

With a 2-1 win over France, the third-seeded US Junior Fed Cup team has reached the semifinals in San Luis Potosi Mexico, keeping alive the goal of defending the 2012 title. That team, consisting of Taylor Townsend, Louisa Chirico and Gabby Andrews, swept through the field without losing a match; this year's team of Katerina Stewart, Kaitlyn McCarthy and Michaela Gordon (who played on the US team that won the ITF 14-and-under championships in the Czech Republic last month), lost their first match today, with Stewart falling to Margot Yerolymos 7-6(1), 7-5 at No. 1 singles, after McCarthy had given the US a 1-0 by defeating Apolline Rassat 6-2, 6-1.

That left it to the doubles if the US was going to clinch a semifinal berth outright, and Gordon and McCarthy delivered the point with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Yerolymos and Rassat.  The US will play No. 2 seed Australia in Saturday's semifinal, with Australia also needing a win in the doubles to advance over No. 8 seed Brazil. Naiktha Bains got the win at No. 1 singles and teamed with Priscilla Hon for the doubles victory.

It's top seed Russia against No. 4 seed Hungary in the other girls semifinal after Russia defeated unseeded Mexico 3-0 and Hungary beat unseeded Bolivia by the same score today.

After mostly predictable results in the Junior Davis Cup the first two days, upsets surfaced today, with top seed Russia falling to No. 7 seed Spain 2-1. Jaume Antoni Munar Clar was the hero for Spain, beating Roman Safiullin 6-1, 6-2 at No. 1 singles to make it 1-1, then teaming with Pedro Martinez Portero to take the doubles over Andrey Rublev and Evgeny Tyurney. Spain will play No. 3 seed Germany, who advanced 2-1 over No. 5 seed Japan, thanks to two wins by Alexander Zverev.

The US boys, seeded fourth, fell to No. 6 seed Australia today, 2-1.  Henrik Wiersholm lost 6-3, 6-3 to Oliver Anderson at No. 2 singles. Stefan Kozlov defeated Akira Santillan 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-3 at No. 1 to make it 1-1, leaving the doubles as the tiebreaker.  Wiersholm and Tommy Paul trailed 7-6(5), 4-1 with Marc Polmans and Anderson serving for Australia, but Wiersholm and Paul got both breaks back only to get broken at 5-5, and Australia served out the 7-6(5), 7-5 victory.  Australia will play No. 2 seed Korea, who claimed its third straight 3-0 win, today's over South Africa.

For complete results, see the ITF tournament site.  For more news articles, see the ITF junior website.

The first of the ITF fall circuit tournaments in the United States is in Waco, Texas this week,  and the semifinals in singles and finals in doubles are set for the Grade 5 event.

In the boys semifinals, top seed Nathan Ponwith will play No. 11 seed Evan Zhu and No. 2 seed Jake DeVine meets No. 4 seed Catalin Mateas, in a rematch of the 16s final at the Carson International Spring Championships this April.

There are also four Americans in the girls semifinals, with No. 7 seed Jessica Golovin facing unseeded Emerald Able and No. 14 seed Madison Westby playing No. 2 seed Racquel Pedraza. Golovin beat top seed Chloe Ouellet-Pizer in the quarterfinals today.

Golovin is in the doubles final, with Emma Higuchi, as the top seeds. They will play Jada Hart and Stephanie Hazell, the No. 8 seeds, for the championship.

The boys doubles final features top seeds Reilly Opelka and Ponwith against No. 2 seeds Alfredo Perez and Mateas.

US Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup Teams Set Up Showdowns for Semifinals; Townsend Confirms Leaving USTA; Too Many Trophies?

Today's Junior Fed Cup and Junior Davis Cup round robin action is complete, and for the second straight day, the teams from the United States posted 3-0 victories.  The fourth-seeded boys defeated Bolivia, with Henrik Wiersholm beating Stephan Koenigsfest 6-3, 7-6(3) at No. 2 singles and Stefan Kozlov downing Rodrigo Banzer 6-2, 6-3 at No. 1. Tommy Paul and Wiersholm won the doubles over Banzer and Koenigsfest 7-6(4), 6-4 for the sweep.  The boys will now play No. 6 seed Australia in Group C, with the winner advancing to the semifinals.

Group A will see top seed Russia against No. 7 seed Spain for a semifinal berth, with both teams winning 3-0 today.  Group B is also straightforward, with No. 3 Germany and No. 5 Japan, both 3-0 winners today, meeting for a place in the semifinals.

Group D is the only round robin that doesn't have two 2-0 teams. France beat South Africa today to put both those teams at 1-1, with No. 2 seed Korea at 2-0. If Korea beats South Africa Thursday, they make the semifinals, but if Korea loses and France beats Peru, three teams will be 2-1, which means the percentage of sets won will determine who advances.

The third-seeded US girls are in the same position as Korea in the boys round robin, in that a win over No. 6 France will advance them to the semifinals, as they are the only undefeated team in Group C after today's win over Colombia. Kaitlyn McCarthy beat Juliana Valero 6-0, 6-3 at No. 2 singles while Katerina Stewart needed nearly two hours to get past Maria Fernanda Herazo at No. 1 singles, 6-0, 6-7(7), 6-4.  Michaela Gordon and McCarthy won the doubles over Laura Daniela Arcinegas and Herazo 6-4, 6-1. In the other match in Group C, Slovenia defeated France 2-1, leaving both teams at 1-1. If the US should lose to France, they would still have a chance to move on depending on percentages.

In Group A, top seed Russia beat No. 5 seed Czech Republic 2-1 today and will meet unseeded hosts Mexico, also 2-0, for a place in the semifinals.

In Group B, No. 4 seed Hungary went 2-0 with a win over Egypt today, and if they beat Bolivia Wednesday, they will advance. If Bolivia and New Zealand win however, that will set up a three-way tie that will be decided by percentages.

Group D has No. 2 seed Australia meeting No. 8 seed Brazil, with the winner remaining undefeated and earning a place in the semifinals.

For the complete draws and results, see the ITF tournament website.
For more articles from Wednesday's competition see the ITF junior website.

Thanks to Steve Pratt, who is working at the Pro Circuit's $50,000 Party Rock Open in Las Vegas this week, there is now official confirmation that Taylor Townsend is no longer training at the USTA. Since the US Open, Townsend has been working with former WTA Top 5 player Zina Garrison, who has a non-profit academy in Houston, and Garrison is with Townsend in Las Vegas. Townsend lost to qualifier and Las Vegas resident Asia Muhammad in first round action today.

This CNN Open Court video report on Townsend doesn't discuss her coaching change, but does provide responses Townsend and her mother Shelia on the controversy over Townsend's fitness that surfaced at last year's US Open.

Although not specifically about tennis, this Op-Ed piece from the New York Times, written by Ashley Merryman, explores the "everyone gets a trophy" culture that has infiltrated youth sports in the United States. Tennis has for the most part avoided this participation bias, probably because it is an individual, head-to-head sport, but the title of the article "Losing is Good for You," certainly can be applied to the experience of junior tennis. An excerpt follows:

In recent eye-tracking experiments by the researchers Bradley Morris and Shannon Zentall, kids were asked to draw pictures. Those who heard praise suggesting they had an innate talent were then twice as fixated on mistakes they’d made in their pictures.

By age 4 or 5, children aren’t fooled by all the trophies. They are surprisingly accurate in identifying who excels and who struggles. Those who are outperformed know it and give up, while those who do well feel cheated when they aren’t recognized for their accomplishments. They, too, may give up.

It turns out that, once kids have some proficiency in a task, the excitement and uncertainty of real competition may become the activity’s very appeal.

If children know they will automatically get an award, what is the impetus for improvement? Why bother learning problem-solving skills, when there are never obstacles to begin with?

US Teams Open Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup Competition with Shutout Victories; LTA Names New Chief Executive

The ITF's Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup competitions for players 16-and-under began today in San Luis Potosi Mexico, with both US teams scoring 3-0 victories in their round robin groups.

The US boys team, which consists of Stefan Kozlov, Henrik Wiersholm and Tommy Paul is seeded fourth overall and first in their round robin group.  The four round robin groups for the boys, with their overall seeding in brackets:

Group A
Russia[1]
Spain[7]
Argentina
India

Group B
Germany[3]
Japan[5]
Norway
Mexico

Group C
USA[4]
Australia[6]
Netherlands
Bolivia

Group D
Korea[2]
Peru[8]
South Africa
France

The only seeded boys team to lose today was No. 8 Peru, who fell to South Africa 3-0.

In the USA's 3-0 win over the Netherlands, Weirsholm defeated Caspar Bonapart 6-0, 6-0 at No. 2,  Kozlov beat Tim Rijthoven 7-6(5), 6-4 at No. 1 and Wiersholm and Paul won the doubles 6-2, 6-3.

The US girls team, which consists of Katerina Stewart, Michaela Gordon and Kaitlyn McCarthy, is seeded third overall and first in their round robin group. The girls groups:

Group A
Russia[1]
Czech Republic[5]
Korea
Mexico

Group B
Hungary[4]
Egypt[7]
Bolivia
New Zealand

Group C
USA[3]
France[6]
Slovenia
Colombia

Group D
Australia[2]
Brazil[8]
Slovak Republic
Namibia

In the USA's 3-0 win over Slovenia, Gordon defeated Manca Pislak 6-2, 6-0 at No. 2 singles and Stewart downed Nina Potocnik 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(1). McCarthy and Gordon won the doubles when the Slovenians retired at 1-1 in the first set.

Unlike the boys competition today, which went as expected save for Peru's loss, the girls matches were quite competitive.  Top seed Russia needed to win the doubles to advance past Korea 2-1, and Mexico upset the fifth-seeded Czech Republic team.  Sandy Harwitt has more on the home team's victory in this article for the ITF Junior website.

In Group B, Bolivia beat No. 7 seed Egypt 2-1, and in Group D, both Australia and Brazil needed victories in the doubles to move past their unseeded opponents.

For complete results and draws, see the ITF tournament site.

Somewhat surprisingly, Great Britain is not represented in either competition, having failed to advance out of the European qualifying.
Whether that is of any concern to the new chief executive of the LTA is unknown, but if it is, Canadian Michael Downey will be the man addressing the problem, beginning on January 1, 2014.  Downey has been president of Tennis Canada for the past nine years.  For more on Downey's hiring and the current state of the LTA, see this article from the BBC.  For a Canadian perspective on what Downey is and is not responsible for in the resurgence of Canadian tennis recently, see this blog post from Canadian tennis journalist Tom Tebutt.

Texas A&M's Adams Wins SEC Fall Classic; Korean Junior Davis Cup and Fed Cup Teams Play New Mexico Lobos; Other College News

The first few weeks of the college tennis season are difficult to cover, with most Division I teams splitting their teams to travel to college tournaments and to Pro Circuit events. The college tournaments almost always have flights, resulting in several winners rather than one, and there's no central place to go for results, which is my excuse for not providing more coverage of them.

A few tournaments have somehow managed to get my attention, whether by twitter or email or previous exposure to them, and one of those, the Audi Napa Valley Tennis Classic, I reported on in yesterday's post.

Of the others, a big one took place last weekend in Athens, where the Bulldogs swept the titles at the Southern Intercollegiate Championships. Junior Nathan Pasha won the singles title over teammate Ben Wagland, with Wagland and Hernus Pieters taking the doubles title over Vanderbilt's Gonzales Austin and Ryan Lipman. The article of the finals is here, and the complete draws can be found here.

This past weekend, the SEC Fall Classic took place in Nashville, with Vanderbilt as host.  Texas A&M sophomore Harrison Adams, the No. 7 seed, took the singles title, defeating Georgia's Austin Smith in the final, while Lipman and Austin provided the home team with a title when they defeated Mississippi State's Jordan Angus and Malte Stropp in the doubles final. For more on Adams' title, see the Texas A&M website; for the draws and more on Lipman and Austin's win, see the Vanderbilt website.  Note that standard scoring(best of three tiebreak sets) was used for singles and that doubles went to a tiebreaker at 7-7.

The men's and women's teams at Duke host flighted tournaments in the fall. The women's flight winners  two weekends ago in Durham were Miami sophomore Kelsey Laurente,  North Carolina freshman Hayley Carter, and Texas sophomore Breaunna Addison.  The men's flight winners were Elon senior Cameron Silverman and Duke sophomores Josh Levine and Bruno Semenzato.

At the University of Virginia Ranked +1 Invitational this past weekend, Silverman won his flight. North Carolina freshman Ronnie Schneider won a flight, as did Virginia Tech sophomore Andreas Bjerrehus. Sophomore Julian Lenz of Baylor won the HEB Intercollegiate tournament in Waco, continuing the Bears dominance in that event.  At the Wolverine Invitational in Ann Arbor, Michigan sophomore Ronit Yurovsky was named the singles champion, which is decided by accumulated points in hidden dual matches. Note that tiebreakers were played at 5-5 in this tournament, and I'm assuming that also means the one-ad format was used.

In other college action, the Korean Junior Fed Cup and Junior Davis Cup teams stopped off in Albuquerque last week on their way to San Luis Potosi Mexico to play matches against the University of New Mexico's men's and women's teams while getting accustomed to the altitude. To see how the country's best 16-and-under players, including familiar names Seong Chan Hong and Ku Keong Kang (the names are styled a bit differently), fared against the Lobos, see this article.

New Mexico is also breaking ground on a new tennis facility, which it hopes to use to attract additional junior and professional tournaments, as well as major conference and national collegiate events.  For more details, see this article from the Albuquerque Journal.

Challenger, Futures Update; Bencic Picks Up First WTA Win; USD's Uros Petronijevic Wins Napa Shootout

On Saturday, I covered many of the doubles performances of the week on the professional circuit; today I'll review the singles results, as well as those doubles championships that weren't decided until today.

Nedovyesov in the 2008 ITA All-American Championships Final

In the Szczecin, Poland Challenger, which is a 106,500 Euro prize money event, the 2009 ITA player of the year Oleksandr Nedovyesov of Ukraine, the No. 7 seed,  picked up the second challenger title of his career, defeating No. 8 seed Pere Riba of Spain 6-2, 7-5 in the final. The 26-year-old Nedovyesov, who played at Oklahoma State, (if I recall correctly, he earned his Masters degree before starting to play the tour full-time) will be inside the ATP Top 120 with his victory, which is tantalizingly close to the cutoff for the 2014 Australian Open main draw.

At the $75,000 women's Pro Circuit event in Albuquerque, Shelby Rogers picked up her third challenger win of the 2013, with the No. 8 seed defeating unseeded Anna Tatishvili of Georgia 6-2, 6-3 in the final.

CoCo Vandeweghe and Eleni Danilidou of Greece, seeded third, won the doubles title, beating unseeded Melanie Oudin and Taylor Townsend 6-4, 7-6.

Georgia Tech's Kevin King and Juan Spir, who reached the ITA All-American doubles final in 2011, won the title at the Quito Challenger, saving match points in their dramatic 7-5, 6-7(9), 11-9 victory over Carlos Salamanca of Colombia and Christopher Diaz Figueroa of Guatemala.

Former University of Virginia Cavalier Ted Angelinos won his sixth Futures title today in his home country of Greece. Angelinos, the top seed, downed No. 4 seed Francois-Arthur Vibert of France 6-4, 6-4 in the championship match.

At the Costa Mesa Futures, former UCLA Bruin Haythem Abid of Tunisia defeated 17-year-old Ernesto Escobedo 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 to take the singles title, his first Futures singles title since 2009. Abid's win gave UCLA a sweep, with freshman Mackenzie McDonald and junior Marcos Giron taking the doubles title earlier in the day. McDonald and Giron defeated the South African pair of Keith-Patrick Crowley and Matt Fawcett, also unseeded, 6-3, 6-2.

At the $15,000 Futures in Canada, 2012 ITF World Junior Champion Filip Peliwo picked up his first Futures title by virtue of a walkover from fellow Canadian Phillip Bester.  The 19-year-old from Vancouver, who won the Wimbledon and US Open boys titles last year, has been climbing steadily in the ATP rankings the past 12 months. At the end of last year he was 558; when the points from this week's title are added, he will improve on his career-high of 277.

Another two-time junior slam winner, 16-year-old Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, also recorded a first today. The reigning French Open and Wimbledon girls champion picked up her first WTA main draw victory in her third attempt.  Bencic, a wild card, had lost to Venus Williams last fall in Luxembourg and to Tatishvili this summer in Sweden, before beating 2010 US Open girls champion Daria Gavrilova of Russia, a qualifier, 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 today in the WTA Premier event in Tokyo. Bencic will play No. 7 seed Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic in the second round.

At the Audi Napa Valley Tennis Classic at Meadowood Resort, University of San Diego sophomore Uros Petronijevic went undefeated over the three-day event, then captured the Solinco Wild Card shootout that decides the overall winner and a Futures wild card. Petronijevic defeated Alabama's Daniil Proskura 10-8 in the final.  Seven of the eight round robin winners went undefeated in their groups, all of them college players.  None of the eight USTA juniors made the shootout, with Taylor Fritz coming closest, going 2-1, but losing out in his round robin group to Stanford's Maciek Romanowicz, who also was 2-1, but had a better sets-won percentage.

Sunday's results are available at the ITA website.  For more on Petronijevic's win, see the USD athletics website.