Giron Downs Novikov to Claim First Futures Title; Rola, Hernandez, Venus Shine in Davis Cup Competition

UCLA junior Marcos Giron claimed his first Futures title today at the $10,000 tournament in Claremont, California, defeating former teammate Dennis Novikov 6-0, 7-5 in the final.  From this account of the final by Steve Pratt, it sounds as if Giron was in the zone at the beginning of the match, and anyone who saw Giron during his International Spring Championships/Easter Bowl championships run in 2011 knows exactly what that looks like.  A totally random observation, but the last three Easter Bowl boys champions are now UCLA Bruins: Giron, Mackenzie McDonald and Gage Brymer, with the latter two starting school this month.

At the $25,000 women's Pro Circuit final in Redding, Calif., unseeded UCLA junior Robin Anderson fell to No. 5 seed Adriana Perez of Venezuela 2-6, 6-2, 6-1. Anderson did leave Northern California with a title however, as she and Lauren Embree beat Jacqueline Cako and Allie Kiick 6-4, 5-7, 10-7.  Both teams were unseeded.  Anderson, Embree and Cako are all members of the USTA Collegiate Team, as are Giron and Novikov.

Davis Cup competition around the world provided its usual drama this weekend, with several current and former college players helping their countries improve or maintain their status in the format's complicated pecking order.

In Group I competition in the Europe/Africa zone, NCAA champion from Ohio State Blaz Rola won both his singles match and the clinching doubles match to give Slovenia a 4-1 win over South Africa and keep them in Group I.

Former North Carolina Tar Heel Jose Hernandez was instrumental in the Domincan Republic's surprisingly easy 4-1 win over Chile, relegating Chile to Group II for 2014.  Hernandez defeated ATP No. 151 Paul Capdeville 6-4, 7-6(3), 7-5 to give the Dominican Republic a 1-0 lead, and Victor Estrella's straight-set win over 17-year-old Christian Garin made it 2-0. Hernandez then teamed with Estrella in the doubles Saturday, beating Jorge Aguilar and 17-year-old Nicolas Jarry in straight sets to take the tie.

In Group II competition, the Philippines and New Zealand went to the fifth set of the fifth match, with former LSU All-American Michael Venus defeating former Virginia All-American Treat Huey 5-7, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 to send New Zealand into Group I in the Asia/Oceania zone.

Huey was expected to play only doubles, and he and Pepperdine's Francis Alcantara kept the Philippines alive with a straight-set doubles win on Saturday. After former University of Illinois standout Ruben Gonzales beat Jose Statham of New Zealand 7-6(2), 4-6, 1-6, 7-5, 8-6, Huey was named to replace Jonny Arcilla for the final singles match. Venus, who had beaten Gonzales in five sets on Friday, outlasted Huey in a match that finished after 1:30 a.m. local time.

Latvia won promotion to Group I in the Europe/Africa zone with a 3-2 win over Finland.  Tennessee junior Mikelis Libietis lost his singles match on Friday, but teamed with Ernests Gulbis to take the doubles point on Saturday, and Gulbis clinched the win with his second singles point on Sunday.

Congratulations to Serbia and the Czech Republic, who will play for the 2013 Davis Cup in November, after semifinal wins this weekend.

The Junior Davis and Fed Cup championships for 16-and-under players will be decided much sooner than that, with those competitions beginning September 24 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

Ivanova, Mmoh Win ITF Grade 2 Titles in Canada; Giron Meets Novikov in Claremont Futures Final Sunday, Anderson Reaches $25K Final

There's no question that Canadian tennis is on the upswing, especially after today's doubles win by Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil that gave them a 2-1 lead over Serbia in the Davis Cup semifinals, but at the ITF Grade 2 in Montreal, Americans captured three of the four titles, including both singles championships.

Fifteen-year-old Michael Mmoh, who was injured and unable to play in Kalamazoo and retired from his second round match at the Grade 1 International Hard Courts last month, took the boys title, while 16-year-old Dasha Ivanova won the girls championship.

Mmoh, the No. 2 seed, defeated top seed Seong Chan Hong of Korea 6-4, 1-6, 7-5,  Mmoh's fourth three-set match of the week. It was Mmoh's second ITF junior title, with his first coming last year at the Grade 4 in Guatemala.

Ivanova, who went through qualifying to get her place in the main draw, now has five ITF titles, with four of them coming in Canada, after defeating 16s Orange Bowl champion and No. 3 seed Gloria Liang of Canada 6-3, 1-6, 7-5. Like Mmoh, Ivanova was also a No. 2 seed, and she too needed three sets in four of her five victories.

Ivanova came up just short in her attempt to sweep both titles, with she and Madison Bourguignon, the top seeds, falling to the unseeded Canadian pair of Marie-Alexandre Leduc and Charlotte Petrick 7-5, 6-7(4), 10-7.

In the boys doubles final, unseeded Anudeep Kodali and Carter Lin of the United States defeated No. 4 seeds William Bushamuka of the Congo and Toshiki Matsuya of Japan 6-2, 6-1.

At the $15,000 Futures in Toronto, former Virginia Cavalier Sanam Singh, seeded No. 2, reached the final, losing to top seed Peter Polansky of Canada 6-2, 6-2.  Former Michigan standouts Evan King and Jason Jung, the No. 3 seeds, won the doubles title, beating top seeds Polansky and Milan Pokrajac of Canada 7-5, 6-2 in the final.

At the $10,000 Futures in Claremont, California, the singles semifinals were an all-UCLA affair, with UCLA's No. 1 this past spring, Dennis Novikov, advancing to meet the Bruins No. 2 player Marcos Giron.  Novikov beat former teammate Nick Meister 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, while Giron got past Haythem Abid, who played for the Bruins from 2005-2010, 7-5, 6-7(4), 7-6(6).

At the $25,000 Challenger for women in Redding, Calif., UCLA junior Robin Anderson, who is unseeded, has reached the final, with her opponent yet to be determined.

Below is the release on today's Claremont action by Steve Pratt:

CLAREMONT, Calif. , (Sept. 14, 2013) – Former junior rivals and UCLA teammates Dennis Novikov and Marcos Giron will meet for the 18^th USTA Claremont Club Classic title on Sunday after both won hard-fought three-set matches over former Bruins on Saturday at the Claremont Club.

 

The No. 3-seeded Novikov, 19, had to come back from down a set and a break to beat No. 2-seeded Nick Meister, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, while the unseeded 20-year-old Giron survived a match point against him in his 7-5, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6) over Haythem Abid of Tunisia in the $10,000 Men’s Pro Future event.

 

As teammates, Novikov and Giron led the Bruins all the way to the NCAA Championship match in May where they eventually fell to Virginia.

 

Novikov, who turned pro just three weeks ago at the US Open, will be attempting to win his second pro singles title as he captured the $10,000 USTA Pro Circuit Futures title in Indian Harbour Beach, Fla., in June.

 

Novikov is obviously familiar with Giron’s game as the two have practiced together since Novikov joined the Bruins at the end of April, 2012. A month before that, Novikov beat Giron in the final-round of qualifying at a $15,000 Futures event in Calabasas, avenging three earlier defeats against Giron at big national junior events, including a loss in the quarterfinals at the USTA National 18s Championships at Kalamazoo, Mich., in 2011.

 

“We’ve played a lot of matches together, and I feel like I know his game pretty well,” Novikov said. “For me this is a full-time job now. I know what I need to do against Marcos and I’ve been playing pretty strong.”

 

Giron has, as well, winning all his matches in Claremont in straight sets before Saturday, giving up just four, seven and three games in his first three matches.

 

Giron went up 3-1 in the third-set tiebreaker but Abid battled back with two quick points. The  players traded points as the score was knotted at 3-all, 4-all, 5-all and 6-all with Giron earning his first match point at 6-5 before closing out the match 8-6.

 

Sunday's final will take place at 10 a.m.

 

Saturday’s Semifinal Singles Results

Dennis Novikov (3), U.S., def. Nicolas Meister (2), U.S., 3-6, 6-4, 6-3

Marcos Giron, U.S., def. Haythem Abid, Tunisia, 7-5, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6)

Friday’s Final Doubles Result

Carsten Ball, Australia / Daniel Garza (1), U.S., def. Matt Fawcett, South Africa / Fabian Matthews, U.S., 6-3, 6-2

US Open Junior Championship Recap, Slideshow

My recap of last week's US Open Junior Championships is now available at the Tennis Recruiting Network. The emphasis is on the singles and doubles final, but I also look at how the finalists progressed through the draw.

Below, my slide show of the tournament is a different from the ones I usually compile, with photos of all 31 American players who competed in the singles draw, with the round they lost in noted. In addition to those photos, I include my standard quarterfinalists in singles and semifinalists in doubles. If there is no country code on a player's caption, he/she is from the USA.

Create a Free Slideshow

Coric, Garin Named to Compete in Singles in Davis Cup; College Players Bolster World Group and Group I and II Teams

In Wednesday's post, I linked to a BBC article speculating on the possibility that 16-year-old US Open boys champion Borna Coric would be playing Davis Cup for Croatia in their home World Group Playoff tie with Great Britain beginning Friday. It was less than five years ago that Coric was playing the Junior Orange Bowl 12s, in the photo below.

I thought the possibility of Coric actually playing a slim one, but this morning he was indeed selected, and he will play, as Croatia's No. 2 in singles, the British No. 1 Andy Murray.  With the absence of Ivo Karlovic and Marin Cilic, Croatia didn't have many options, but it does seem a reach, although a great opportunity for Coric. Coric did play two competitive sets with ATP No. 50 Horatio Zeballos of Argentina in an ATP 250 event in Umag, the same city where the Davis Cup tie is being played, before losing 6-0 in the third, and he recently won two Futures titles in Turkey, but Andy Murray is certainly several levels above the competition he faced there.

For more on Coric's selection, see this BBC article.

French Open boys champion Christian Garin of Chile will also be competing for his country this weekend, with Chile facing the Dominican Republic in the Americas Group 1 relegation match.  Garin, 17, is Chile's No. 2 player, and he is scheduled to play the fifth and possibly deciding rubber against former North Carolina All-American Jose Hernandez. Roberto Cid, who is on the University of South Florida roster, has been selected to play doubles for the Dominican Republic.

In another World Group Playoff tie, Ecuador plays in Switzerland, with three of Ecuador's team with collegiate experience, half of them at USC.  Former Trojan Emilio Gomez will play No. 2 singles for Ecuador, opening against Switzerland's No. 1 Stanislas Wawrinka, and his cousin Roberto Quiroz, who is on the USC roster for this year, is scheduled to play doubles with former Texas Tech star Gonzalo Escobar, an NCAA doubles finalist in 2012.

Three other former collegians are playing doubles for their countries in the World Group Playoffs:  UCLA's Jean-Julien Rojer for the Netherlands against Austria, Marcin Matkowski (also a former Bruin who incidentally teamed with Rojer to win the All-American doubles title in 2001), for Poland against Australia, and 2008 NCAA doubles champion Robert Farah of USC, for Colombia against Japan.

Several collegians are involved in the Group I Africa/Europe tie between South Africa and Slovenia. 2013 NCAA champion Blaz Rola is playing No. 2 singles for Slovenia, and former Illinois player Ruan Roelofse is South Africa's No. 2.  Current Ole Miss player Nik Scholtz is on the South African roster, but is not expected to see action.  The other Group I Africa/Europe tie between Sweden and Slovakia features 2001 NCAA doubles finalist Johan Brunstrom from SMU, and Robert Lindstedt from Pepperdine as the Swedish doubles pairing.

In Group II Africa/Europe play, ITA preseason No. 1 Mikelis Libietis of Tennessee will play No. 2 singles for Latvia against Finland, and in the Asia/Oceania Group II, former Virginia All-American Treat Huey will play doubles for the Philippines against New Zealand with current Pepperdine Wave Francis Alcantara, with former Illinois player Ruben Gonzales at No. 2 singles.  New Zealand features former LSU All-American Michael Venus at No. 2 singles and in doubles.  In Group II Americas play, former Tulsa player Marcelo Arevalo will play No. 1 for El Salvador against Venezuela, which features former Baylor Bear Roberto Maytin in doubles.  Roman Borvanov, who played at the University of Portland, is playing doubles for Moldova in their Africa/Europe Group II tie with Portugal.

For more on this weekend's ties, see this post from Foot Soldiers of Tennis.

If I am missing any other college players, please let me know in the comments below.

There are no former college players in the Davis Cup semifinals, which feature Canada against Serbia and Argentina against the Czech Republic.

Wertheim on Player Development and Patrick McEnroe; Stone's Lessons from US Open; USO Junior Champions; Harrison Profile

One of the highlights of every slam is the Fifty Parting Thoughts that Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim writes at its completion.  Among the notable items from the US Open this year was this on USTA Player Development and General Manager Patrick McEnroe.

"Don't misconstrue this as a personal condemnation. (If anything, he is to be commended for being in such high demand.) But there was a report -- premature, it turns out -- that the USTA had renewed Patrick McEnroe's contract as general manager of player development, a position he's held since 2008. This triggered many questions and comments and outrage from you guys, from everyone from aggrieved parents to former No. 1 players.

There are valid points on both sides. Yes, the numbers are grim for U.S. tennis, and the New York Post report surfaced the day after the American men completed their worst year at the four Grand Slam tournaments.

On the other hand, what's the benchmark? We all know that it's no longer fair to expect excellence of any one country. Yes, there have been a lot of complaints and dysfunction in the player development program. (See this damning piece from The Wall Street Journal's Tom Perrotta.) But, as any little league coach can attest, you're always going to have aggrieved parties when there are finite slots and subjective judgments. Yes, the men's side is dire. But America is the best-represented country in the WTA's top 100.

Without even addressing McEnroe's competence or incompetence, here's a fundamental question I struggle to get beyond: If the USTA were a public company and the board were answerable to shareholders and Wall Street, would it ever -- at a time of unprecedented crisis and public relations challenges -- install as a leader someone unwilling to commit to doing the job full time? Someone who would spend much of the Slams and other big pro tournaments (including the U.S. Open, the American tennis Super Bowl and annual trade show) working in the TV booth? When there are players to observe, coaches to be assessed, meetings to attend, complaining parents to be assuaged? The person tasked with turning around a struggling enterprise, at a significant salary, is moonlighting?

Again, this job is fraught with politics and infighting in the best of times. Why would you fight with an arm tied behind your back? What am I missing?"

Can anyone provide Jon an answer on what he's missing?  I can't.

Lisa Stone at the Parenting Aces blog was credentialed at the US Open this year, and she wrote a piece this week on what she learned from that experience.  My first trip to the US Open ten years ago was memorable, and, frankly, not as positive as Lisa's, but it served to motivate me even more to return the following year.  Lisa has posted many audio interviews with parents and coaches on her website, and I encourage you to listen to them for the hard-won lessons they reveal.

The WTA provided this piece on the US Open girls champion Ana Konjuh, and the BBC speculates on the chances US Open boys champion Borna Coric will play this weekend in the World Group Davis Cup tie between Croatia and Great Britain.

And Christian Harrison, who is currently not playing due to an injury, is the subject of this ATP Emirates "Stars of Tomorrow" feature.

Pro Circuit Resumes in Claremont and Redding; Hong, Bourguignon Top Seeds at ITF Grade 2 in Canada

After a lengthy layoff for the US Open, the USTA Pro Circuit is back this week in California, with a $10,000 Futures in Claremont for the men and a $25,000 Challenger in Redding for the women.  Of course, there were many other tournaments in the past few weeks that I was unable to report on, but some of the notable results from those were included in my August Aces for the Tennis Recruiting Network.

Christian Harrison was to have been the top seed in Claremont, but withdrew today for medical reasons and will be replaced by lucky loser Alan Nunez Aguilera of Mexico. Former UCLA Bruin Nick Meister in the No. 2 seed. Among those qualifying for the main draw are USC's Michael Grant, UCLA freshman Joe DiGiulio and recent Cal Poly graduate Andre Dome. Main draw wild cards went to USC's Ray Sarmiento, UCLA's Clay Thompson, junior Deiton Baughman and former Santa Clara player Kyle Dandan.

For the Claremont draws and notes, see the USTA Pro Circuit page. The notes say that Alex Sarkissian of Pepperdine turned pro, but he's on the Waves' 2013-14 roster.  The notes also say Dennis Novikov is still at UCLA, but he has turned pro.

Current college players qualifying for the women's event in Redding are UCLA's Catherine Harrison, Clemson's Liz Jeukeng and Duke's Trice Capra. Seventeen-year-old Christina Makarova, who lost in the second round at the US Open junior championships last week, also qualified and beat No. 8 seed Sanaz Marand in the first round today.  The sole wild card was given to Stanford's Krista Hardebeck, who lost today to UCLA's Robin Anderson.  2012 US Open girls champion Samantha Crawford is back in action after being out with an injury since May and is the No. 6 seed. Lauren Embree defeated Ashley Weinhold in a first round match today.  Olivia Rogowska of Australia, with a WTA ranking of 151, is the top seed.

For the tournament notes and draws, see the USTA Pro Circuit page.

There are two ITF Grade 2 tournaments this week, one in Serbia, and one in Canada.  There are no Americans in the Serbia event, but there are plenty of them in Canada, with Madison Bourguignon and Dasha Ivanova the top two seeds in the girls 32-player draw.  Bourguignon served as a practice partner for Tornado Alicia Black last week in Black's run to the final, as both train at L'Academie de Tennis in Boynton Beach, Florida. Seong Chan Hong of Korea is the top seed, with Michael Mmoh(2), Dan Kerznerman(4) and Alex Rybakov(5) the top-seeded Americans.  After this tournament, the ITF fall circuit in the US begins, with the Grade 5 in Waco, the Grade 4 in Wichita Falls, and the big Grade B1 in Tulsa, which I will again be covering live.