Svajda Seeks Second Straight Kalamazoo 18s Title Against Shelton; Razeghi and Brown Vie For 16s Championship, Top Seeds Take Doubles Titles in Both 16s and 18s; Brantmeier Beats Montgomery, Faces Krueger in G18s Final Sunday; 12s and 14s Champions Crowned
©Colette Lewis 2021--
Kalamazoo MI--
A winning streak is going to end in the USTA Boys 18s National Championships final Sunday, when defending champion Zachary Svajda, the No. 1 seed, faces No. 3 Ben Shelton, who arrived in Kalamazoo having swept the titles at the $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Champaign two weeks ago.
With weather as good as Southwest Michigan gets in the summer, with low humidity, a light breeze and abundant sunshine, the crowd at Stowe Stadium were treated to two 18s matches that showcased the confidence that Svajda and Shelton are feeling, with Svajda defeating No. 28 seed Colton Smith 6-4, 6-2 and Shelton avenging his 2019 semifinal loss in the 16s to Alexander Bernard 6-2, 6-3.
Shelton, who clinched the program's first men's NCAA team title for Florida back in May, had never beaten Bernard in a rivalry that extends back to Florida tournaments in the 12s.
"It's great to get it this time," said Shelton, who turns 19 in October. "I think playing this match shows a lot of the areas of improvement I've made, basically flipping the score of what it was last time. I've been putting in some work and I like to see that it's starting to pay off."
Shelton thought he played well, noting that he didn't have the lapse in concentration that he had suffered in Friday's quarterfinal against Dali Blanch, when he was broken at 5-6 in the second set, the only set he has lost in his six victories this week.
"I thought I managed the match well, even if I wasn't hitting the ball perfectly," said Shelton, the son of Florida head coach Bryan Shelton, who has been in Kalamazoo with him throughout the week. "I was able to stay ahead in the score and convert on the big points. I knew if I had some hiccups today, Alex was going to convert."
One of the points in the tournament came in the sixth game of the first set, after Bernard had broken Shelton to get back on serve. With both players inside the service lines, each had to react quickly several times to keep the point going.
"He hit it right at me and I had no clue what to do," said Shelton, who ended up breaking Bernard to keep the lead. "My feet were kind of frozen and I hit it between my legs. I think it surprised him a little bit, because the ball popped up in the air and I was like, oh well, good point whatever, and he ended up missing in the net. We had some great points, some interesting points and it was good tennis."
Shelton will prepare tonight for the first best-of-five match of his career, and with the weather forecast again excellent for the finals, that format, unique to the Kalamazoo 18s final, will not be altered.
"I think it will be fun," Shelton said. "I think I'm in good shape physically to get through it. I think it's definitely a mental battle playing best of five. You're going to have to deal with a little bit of pain, but I'm ok with that and ready for a good battle tomorrow."
Svajda has played two best-of-five matches, going four sets to beat Govind Nanda in the 2019 Kalamazoo final and then playing five sets in his US Open first round loss to Paolo Lorenzi of Italy.
"It's definitely much harder physically and mentally," Svajda said. "It's tough to come back if you're down two sets and have to win three in a row."
The 18-year-old from San Diego has kept his exertions to a minimum this week, and today he defeated No. 28 seed Colton Smith 6-4, 6-2, for his sixth consecutive straight-sets victory.
"I've been playing good tennis this week," said Svajda, who hasn't lost more than four games in any set as he has built his winning streak in Kalamazoo to 13 matches. "I go full out, every match has been tough. I try to take every match seriously, everyone's good here."
Svajda was able to take advantage of his opportunity against Smith, getting the first break of the match with Smith serving at 4-5. Svajda hadn't played Smith previously, but one of his coaches, Chase Custer, had scouted Smith and advised Svajda to try something new when Smith approached the net.
"He's very aggressive and likes to come in a lot," said Svajda, who is attempting to become the first player to win two 18s titles since Jack Sock in 2010 and 2011. "I saw that he gets close to the net when he comes in, so I tried to keep that in the back of my head, using a lob rather than trying to pass him. I had some ups and downs, but overall, I thought we both played solid."
Svajda and Shelton have never played, but Svajda said he has taken the opportunity to watch Shelton this week and has been impressed.
"I know he likes to be aggressive and he hits the ball pretty big," Svajda said. "He's also lefty, and you don't get to see too many lefties, so it will be nice to see something different."
Even with a year's interruption, Svajda has had no difficulty getting back in a comfortable routine in Kalamazoo, which extends to his restaurant choice.
"I've been getting Noodles and Company every night," said Svajda, although he's not so superstitious that he gets the same noodle choice every night. "Sometimes I have to switch it up, so it doesn't get tiring."
The top seed is also vying for the title in the 16s, with Alexander Razeghi set to face fellow Texan and No. 4 seed Lucas Brown Sunday at Stowe Stadium.
Razeghi, who defeated No. 20 seed Nikita Filin 6-1, 6-3 in today's semifinal, acknowledged the pressure that comes with being the top seed is part of every match he has played this week.
"It's been a really exhausting tournament mentally for me," said the 15-year-old from Humble Texas, who won the Easter Bowl in April as the No. 9 seed. "When you're the one seed there's a lot of pressure on you and people say different things to you. It's a different experience, but I'm handling it well."
Filin, who is from Wilmette Illinois, took a medical timeout for a back injury down 3-0 and two breaks in the second set, and could be seen wincing in the subsequent games, but he did manage to break Razeghi twice, only to give the breaks right back, with the second one giving his fellow left-hander the match.
"Obviously, I would have liked to serve it out," Razeghi said. "But my return has been really good, and in that match in particular. I had another service game to serve it out in the end, so I was pretty comfortable."
While Razeghi needed just an hour and 14 minutes to earn his place in the final, Brown was on the court two hours and 40 minutes, coming from behind to beat No. 5 seed Cooper Woestendick 1-6, 6-3, 6-2. Brown pointed to the second game of the second set, when Woestendick was serving up 1-0, as a key to his comeback.
"I switched my racquet, because I thought I needed to change something," Brown said after the 14-year-old from Kansas ran away with the first set. "I got broken and then I broke back. That was a tough one, because he had chances to win that game. He had so much momentum going there so if he would have held, it would have been really tough to come back. I was struggling to break him. He doesn't have a huge serve, but he places it well and he got it above my shoulders almost every time."
Between the second and third sets, Brown discussed with his coach David Miller how to improve his serving and the advice he got paid off in the final set, with Brown winning the last four games of the match.
"He told me to come over the top on my serve, and I served much, much better in the third," said the 16-year-old from Plano Texas. "My first serve percentage went up, and I'm confident enough in my second serve that I was just going for it."
Brown and Razeghi have never played, with Brown 18 months older, and meaning that Brown will adjust need to adjust to an unfamiliar opponent, as he has done all week.
"I thought it was a great opportunity for me, because I'm one of the older people in the tournament, I turn 17 in November," Brown said. "The only problem for me is that I haven't played 16s in a while, so I don't recognize any of the names. So I've had to do a lot of reconnaissance and asking around, but it's been a lot of fun."
Both Brown and Shelton will go for their second Kalamazoo titles on Sunday after both claimed the doubles championships Saturday afternoon as the top seeds.
Shelton and Bruno Kuzuhara defeated No. 2 seeds Ethan Quinn and Sebastian Gorzny 6-4, 6-4, earning a US Open main draw wild card in the men's doubles.
Shelton said that he arranged to play with Kuzuhara back in the spring, hoping that he would get a wild card to play in Kalamazoo for the last time.
"When they announced they were going to have it, I was like ok, I could have a chance in doubles, who do I want to play with?" Shelton said. "Whose game do I know the best, who do I have the best chemistry with? So I texted him and he said yes right away."
Shelton and Kuzuhara have only played three tournaments together, with Shelton playing college tennis this year and Kuzuhara traveling on the ITF Junior circuit, but they have now won two tournaments as a team.
"I think on the doubles court I can get a little wild and do some stupid things," said Shelton, who recalls his last doubles loss as coming in the quarterfinals of the NCAAs back in May. "I can get overly excited. Bruno kind of brings me down to earth, keeps me focused and locked in and I like to think I help him stay loose and have fun with it, so we balance each other out really well."
"There's always going to be those times when one person is playing better than the other," Kuzuhara said. "Knowing that at any moment, both of us can start playing well, and I feel like when both of us are playing well, we're playing some really good doubles."
Kuzuhara and Shelton weren't broken in the match and won the only deciding point they faced with Kuzuhara serving in the second game of the second set.
"We played well from start to finish," Shelton said. "We took care of our service games pretty well and that took some pressure off; we could play a little freer in our return games. We hadn't always done that earlier in the week, but we did a good job of that today."
As for the trip to New York for the US Open, Shelton will be playing in either the main draw or the qualifying draw of the men's singles event depending on Sunday's result, and Kuzuhara will be playing the Junior championships, but they are both delighted to have secured a main draw spot in the men's doubles with today's win.
"It'll be a fun time up there," Shelton said. "We're going up to New York to win the tournament. If you don't go to the tournament with the mentality that you're going to win, why do you go?"
"Don't quote him on that," Bryan Shelton interjected.
"We're not going there to lose though," Ben countered. "We're going to go out there fired up and have some fun."
The boys 16s doubles champions first encountered one another on opposite sides of the net in the Boys 12s Nationals doubles final, and now have earned a gold ball together, with Brown and Nicholas Godsick beating No. 2 seeds Woestendick and Quang Duong 4-6, 7-6(2), 6-3.
After a 4-1 lead in the second set disappeared, Godsick and Brown played more aggressively, with Godsick particularly effective at the net in the second set tiebreaker and throughout the third set.
"I think in the tiebreaker, we both executed our plan perfectly," said Godsick, the son of Mary Joe Fernandez and Tony Godsick, both of whom were in attendance at his matches throughout the week. "We came out in the third set playing well, a few deuce points early, and we're happy we got through it."
"Nico's hands, it's like art," Brown said. "He has that paint brush and he's just flicking it around. Sometimes I'm just watching and saying holy cow. I just put the serve in and it's like, Nico, go. Get that first serve in and he's poaching."
Brown and Godsick, who won an ITF J4 title earlier this year in Cancun, are excited to join the long list of champions on Stowe Stadium's boards.
"It's super cool to be in the same category as them," Brown said. "For at least one smidge of time, we were right there with them."
Sunday's schedule begins with the 16s final at 11:30 a.m. followed by the 18s final not before 1:30 p.m.
Live streaming of both matches will be available here.
The G18s finals are set for San Diego, with No. 6 seed Ashlyn Krueger, the reigning Orange Bowl champion facing 2019 16s champion Reese Brantmeier, the No. 7 seed.
Brantmeier took out top seed Robin Montgomery 6-0, 6-7(3), 6-3, while Krueger defeated No. 5 seed Elvina Kalieva 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.
Top seeds Montgomery and Krueger will face Kalieva and Elise Wagle, the No. 11 seeds, for the doubles title after singles.
Live streaming is available via links on the USTA PlayTennis site.
The results from today's singles finals at the 12s and 14s National Championships are below. Click the heading to go to the full PlayTennis draws.
4 comments:
Not to take anything away from Svajda and Shelton, who are both outstanding players, but have you noticed a general trend (with exception of the 2019 18s) in which the "older players" who are not ITF junior age eligible win the tournament. It seems incongruous, if not unfair, to effectively give an advantage to those players who are nearly 19 (and typically physically stronger and have access to better training) to be able to participate in Kalamazoo, when in many cases these older players have either been in college tennis for a year or out on the pro tour, having declared they are "professional" tennis players. Concerning the latter category, if a players has declared he is a professional and has accepted prize money and/or sponsors, then this should preclude them from playing in a junior amateur event like Kalamazoo. Either these "professionaL" players can make it on their own right out on the tour or they can't. You should not be permitted to suddenly regress to being a junior player only when it suits you for the US Open wildcard, particularly when you have supposedly left that behind, just because you happen to have a birthday in September -December. This process works to the detriment of the actual junior amateur players who simply don't enjoy the fortuity of being born in September-December. And yes, I realize it has been this way forever and these players are well within the USTA rules, but that still does not make it the best for junior tennis overall. Perhaps the USTA should simply adopt the same rules as the ITF for the sake of consistency and also to promote junior amateur tennis -- if you turn 19 during the calendar year, you are no longer a "junior" player.
I haven't seen that, Tennis Parent. Brooksby (2018), Kypson (2017), Tiafoe (2013), and Altamirano (2013) were 17 when they won the event. Mmoh (2016) and Rubin (2014) were also ITF age eligible, and Rubin had played the junior Slams. The last Kalamazoo 18 singles champ who wasn't ITF-eligible was Novikov in 2012.
Actually Svajda is the first 18s Kalamazoo winner (in singles) to not be ITF-age eligible since Novikov in 2012.
Altamirano was 17, Rubin had just turned 18 and played the junior Slams, Tiafoe was 17, Mmoh had just turned 18, Kypson was 17, and Brooksby was 17.
Even for doubles, I can only think of Kypson/Thomas in 2018, and Schneider in 2013.
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