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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Hardebeck, Kosakowski Earn Qualifying Wild Cards at Indian Wells; Klahn & Thacher Win Pacific Coast Doubles; Poldma Gives Estonia Davis Cup Win

Sixteen-year-old Krista Hardebeck won the women's prequalifying tournament today in Indian Wells, defeating Duke recruit Monica Turewicz 6-4, 6-1. Hardebeck, who has won five matches in the past four days, including yesterday's 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 victory over No. 158 Sally Peers of Australia in the semifinals, has earned a wild card into the qualifying of the BNP Paribas Open. Hardebeck will play No. 4 seed Mathilde Johansson of France, ranked 68th, in the first round of qualifying, which begins on Monday. USC's Maria Sanchez has drawn No. 16 seed Mirjana Lucic of Croatia, Monica Puig of Puerto Rico will play Great Britain's Anne Keothavong, the No. 22 seed, and Madison Keys faces No. 20 seed Junri Namigata of Japan. Sanchez, Puig and Keys all received wild cards into the qualifying. Irina Falconi, who received entry based on her own ranking, plays No. 15 seed Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic. Jamie Hampton and Madison Brengle are the other two American women in the draw.

The men's prequalifying also ended today, with UCLA freshman Dan Kosakowski earning a qualifying wild card with a 7-5, 6-3 win over former Fresno State standout Rudy Siwy of the Czech Republic. Kosakowski won six matches in five days, all of them in straight sets, to earn a spot in qualifying, which begins Tuesday for the men.

The order of play has not yet been released, nor has the men's qualifying draw, but the complete women's qualifying draw can be found here. Prequalifying draws can be found on this page of the tournament website.


At the Pacific Coast Doubles tournament in La Jolla today, Stanford's Bradley Klahn and Ryan Thacher joined a very long list of champions at one of the country's oldest tennis events. No. 1 seeds Klahn and Thacher, who were finalists at the tournament in 2010, defeated Fresno State's Remi Boutillier and Rikus de Villiers, the sixth seeds, 6-1, 6-2 in the final. Klahn and Thacher both faced multiple break points in the second set when serving down 0-1 and 1-2, but saved them all, then quickly finished off the set and the match. For complete results, see the TennisLink site. For more on the final, see tennispanorama.com.

I'm sure you've all heard that Andy Roddick closed out the USA's victory over Chile today in Santiago, setting up a quarterfinal meeting with Spain in July. The US hosts this time, and three cities are being considered--San Antonio, Albany and Austin, with the latter the front runner. Roddick, who has now gone an incredible 12-0 in clinching matches, has been a Davis Cup paragon for years, but he is always one of many on any given Davis Cup weekend. University of Southern California's Jaak Poldma played against UCLA on Wednesday, then flew to Estonia for his country's tie with Lithuania in the Zonal Group II on Friday. Former world junior champion Ricardas Berankis is Lithuania's top player, of course, and he won both his matches, but Estonia won the doubles, and Poldma clinched the tie with a 6-1, 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 victory over 18-year-old Dovydas Sakinis. Estonia now advances to play Bosnia-Herzegovina in July, who won their tie with Morocco, when former NCAA champion Amer Delic won the final singles match 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 over Talal Ouahabi. Delic also contributed to the doubles point win for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

See the Davis Cup website for all the results from this weekend's action.

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