My Kalamazoo 16s Recap; Chrysochos Receives ATP Winston-Salem Open Wild Card; Donaldson and Isner to Meet in Cincinnati Quarterfinals
My review of Brandon Nakashima's title run at the USTA 16s National Championships in Kalamazoo is available now at the Tennis Recruiting Network. I think it's a good overview of the week, especially if you were busy playing, watching or coaching at one of the other National Championships last week. Make sure to read all the Tennis Recruiting Network's coverage of the 12s, 14s and 16s, with the 18s articles closing out Championship Week on Friday. Links to all articles are available here.
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| Chrysochos won the ITA All-American title last fall in Tulsa |
The final ATP and WTA tournaments before the US Open, the Winston-Salem Open and the Connecticut Open, both end next Saturday due to the Open, so news is already surfacing from them. Winston-Salem, which begins Sunday, announced its main draw wild cards. In addition to Latvia's Ernests Gulbis, Croatia's Borna Coric and Taylor Fritz, who has reached the quarterfinals at the $100,000 Vancouver Challenger, the tournament has awarded a wild card to rising Wake Forest junior Petros Chrysochos of Cyprus. Christian Seraphim and Skander Mansouri, rising seniors at Wake Forest, received a doubles wild card. They finished No. 2 in the final ITA national rankings. The release announcing the wild cards (and Sam Querrey's withdrawal) quotes tournament director Bill Oakes as saying Chrysochos was "the best player in college tennis last season," an assertion that would no doubt draw an argument from fans at TCU, Ohio State and Virginia. It doesn't appear that North Carolina resident and newly crowned Kalamazoo 18s champion Patrick Kypson received a qualifying wild card, with Kyle Edmund of Great Britain and Wake Forest sophomore Borna Gojo of Croatia announced as the only qualifying wild cards.
The qualifying draw of the Connecticut Open has been released, with playing beginning on Friday. NCAA champion Brienne Minor received a wild card and drew top seed Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia, who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon last month. Maria Mateas, who lives in New England, received a qualifying wild card, as did Yale rising freshman Samantha Martinelli. Virginia graduate Julia Elbaba and Sonya Kenin are the other Americans receiving wild cards. Other Americans in qualifying are Kayla Day, Varvara Lepchenko, Christina McHale and Shelby Rogers.
The playoff for the US Open reciprocal wild card that Tennis Australia is conducting is also at the Connecticut Open, with the draw for that event available here.
Rain has been a problem all day in at the Western and Southern Open Cincinnati, where I'm heading tomorrow. John Isner and Jared Donaldson managed to get their matches finished however, with No. 14 seed Isner defeating Frances Tiafoe 7-6(4), 7-5 and Donaldson beating Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia 6-4, 7-6(4). They will play each other for a semifinal berth. It's the first ATP quarterfinal for Donaldson, who had gone 0-13 in ATP round of 16 matches prior to today. For more on Donaldson's win, see the ATP website.
2 comments:
What about GT too? Eubanks was the Player of the Year in the ACC. Petros lost 3-4 times in conference duals. But, hey in this era, what are facts anyway.
Chrysochos is a top level college player. However, he is a baseline grinder. There are LOTS of players on tour with good groundstrokes and who move well. He doesn't have a weapon to end points with. Hard to see how his game will translate well at the next level without significant improvements.
It's also a shame that the NCAA singles champ, Kwiatkowski, can't even get a qualifying WC into Winston. He's basically a local, from Charlotte, a little over an hour away.
3 North Carolinians in the US Open Main Draw & not 1 gets a WC in W-S. Among Paul, Kypson & Kwiatkowski, you would think one of these youngsters might receive some type of WC, but that's ATP tennis and sponsors.
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