Top Boys Seeds Advance as Eddie Herr J1 First Round Concludes; Razeghi Defeats Brown in Kalamazoo 16s Rematch; Shang and Frusina Beat No. 2 Seeds to Open Doubles Play; Top Three Seeds Still Intact in 12s, 14s, 16s Divisions

©Colette Lewis 2021--
Bradenton FL--

The weather was perfect again Tuesday, as were the seeds, with the remaining 22 first round singles matches of the ITF Eddie Herr International J1 providing no surprises.

Top seed Bruno Kuzuhara needed barely an hour to defeat qualifier Dominique Rolland of France 6-0, 6-1, while No. 2 seed Viacheslav Bielinskyi of Ukraine stopped qualifier Ellis Short 6-3, 6-2. All 16 qualifiers and two lucky losers were in action Tuesday, but only two managed to post wins: Teddy Truwit, who beat Luca Hotze 6-4, 6-2 and South Africa's Gabriella Broadfoot, who defeated wild card Luciana Perry 7-5, 6-2.

Last week's champions at the JA in Merida, both No. 5 seeds this week, continued their winning streaks, with  Mili Poljicak of Croatia beating Timothy Phung 6-4, 6-0 and Brenda Fruhvirtova defeating Lara Smejkal of Slovenia 6-4, 6-4. No. 3 seed Linda Fruhvirtova, who lost to Brenda in the final, defeated Emma Charney 6-1, 6-2.

The rematch of the 2021 Kalamazoo 16s final between Texans Alex Razeghi and Lucas Brown didn't produce a different result, with the 15-year-old Razeghi again getting the better of Brown, now 17 years old. The Kalamazoo score was 6-3, 6-2, today's score was 6-1, 6-3, but Razeghi said this one was more difficult.

"It was way tougher than the last time I played him," Razeghi said. "His backhand was better than the Kazoo final. I was just more physical than he was, won more of the important points."

Razeghi expected Brown to change tactics after the opening set, which he did.

"He looked pretty tired and he started dropshotting a lot," Razeghi said. "I couldn't get to most of them, so he was hitting a lot of winners on drop shots."

The key game in the second set came with Razeghi serving at 2-3. Brown could be heard chastising himself for not taking his "golden opportunities" to get a break lead.

"He had a lot of chances, so once I got out of that game, I knew that I had momentum," Razeghi said. "That was a really tough game, and I knew I wanted to break, because he was down, that was his game. I did that, held easily, which was big."

Brown kept fighting to stay in the match, but Razeghi eventually held to win his fourth straight game, and the match.

"That last game was pretty tough," Razeghi said. "I had like five match points and the guy just did not miss on my match points at all. I had to earn every single one, until the one I won it on, he finally missed."

Razeghi will face No. 14 seed Adam Jurajda of the Czech Republic in Wednesday's second round.

The first round of doubles was nearly completed today, with two girls matches unfinished due to darkness. The match between qualifier Valeria Ray and No. 13 seed Alina Shcherbinina of Russia, won by Shcherbinina 7-5, 6-7(3), 6-3, extended into mid-afternoon, pushing back their first round doubles matches, which will be completed early Tuesday afternoon.

Top seeds Diana Shnaider of Russia and Petra Marcinko of Croatia earned a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Sayaka Ishii and Ena Koike of Japan, but the Fruhvirtova sisters, seeded No. 2, were taken to a match tiebreaker before beating Ariana Pursoo and Ahmani Guichard 6-4, 4-6, 10-6.

Kuzahara and Poljicak, the top-seeded boys team, beat Brown and Preston Stearns 6-1, 6-2. The No. 2 seeds, Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic and Coleman Wong of Hong Kong, were beaten by the wild card team of Juncheng Jerry Shang and Alexander Frusina 6-4, 2-6, 10-5.

All second round singles and doubles matches are on Wednesday's schedule.

The seeds in the younger divisions have held up well throughout the first two rounds, with none of the top three seeds in any of the eight draws exiting.

The first round of the girls 16s singles was completed today, after rain overnight Sunday caused a two-hour delay that eventually led to one half of the first round matches being canceled Monday night. 

In boys 16s, 15-year-old wild card Rudy Quan defeated No. 4 seed Tanner Povey 6-0, 6-0 last night and lost only one game in his second round match today. Quan, who went 41-2 in the 12s and 14s in 2018, winning the 12s Easter Bowl, Clay Courts and Nationals, has played very little since 2019 due to injuries.

Complete draws for the 12s, 14s and 16s can be found here.