Iyengar Saves Match Points to Defeat No. 7 Seed Jessup; Brown Gets Two Wins Over Seeds Wednesday at ITF Grade 1 in San Diego; Kylie Mckenzie's Account of Sexual Assault by a USTA Coach in Today's New York Times

©Colette Lewis 2022
San Diego CA--

Fourteen-year-old Maya Iyengar was not happy with her form coming into the ITF Grade 1 International Open of San Diego, but she is now through to the round of 16, after saving two match points in a 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-5 win over No. 7 seed Madeleine Jessup Wednesday morning at the Barnes Tennis Center.

Iyengar, who saved two match points with Jessup serving for the match at 5-4 in the third, said her inspiration was none other than Jessup herself, who saved two match points in the second set.

"I told myself if she can save it, I can do it too," said the Phoenix Arizona resident, who called today's result one of her best wins. "I think I may have hit a winner on the first one, and the second one, you could tell she was tight, and she missed a little wide on her forehand. After that, I think I played really well, the last three games of the match and especially to close it out, but she really made it hard for me."

Iyengar began playing the ITF Junior Circuit just a few months after her 13th birthday and won her first singles title at a J4 in Guatemala last November. Although she reached the quarterfinals of the Grade 3 in Cancun two weeks ago, her level was not up to her expectations.

"I had a really hard time last year winning a lot of matches," said Iyengar, who went 18-8 in Grade 4s and 5s in 2021. "I played Cancun, and it was really rough, I didn't play very well.  But I thought I was playing really well in practice last week after we came back and we had worked on all the issues in Cancun. It started getting a lot better and I think here, in this match, it really showed. My backhand was really solid and I played really aggressive. I came to the net, and even though I missed a few, it started coming together when I needed it."

On Thursday Iyengar will face No. 9 seed Ava Krug, who beat Vesa Gjinja of Kosovo 6-1, 7-6(3).

In other girls action, with just the top half playing their second round today, No. 1 seed Liv Hovde defeated qualifier Michela Moore 6-1, 6-3 and will get her third straight qualifier on Thursday in Erin Ha, who defeated Morgan McCarthy 6-1, 6-0. No. 6 seed Sonya Macavei had a tough battle but came back to defeat Anya Murthy 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Macavei will play local wild card Katie Codd, who beat Karsyn Evans 6-2, 6-2. Like Macavei, No. 15 seed Elisabeth Jones also fell behind, but she defeated Salma Farhat 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 to set up a third round meeting with No. 4 seed Sayaka Ishii of Japan. Ishii, who trains at IMG, defeated Sophie Williams 6-1, 6-4.

As with the girls, just one seed fell in boys second round play Wednesday, with Lucas Brown taking out No. 11 Aayush Bhat 6-1, 2-6, 6-3. Because the 17-year-old Bhat had played all of his ITF Junior Circuit tournaments outside the US, primarily in India and Africa, Brown was unfamiliar with his name and his game.

"I had no idea who he was," said Brown, also 17. "I saw the 11 next to his name and was like who? Where's he from? US, but?"

Brown described the match as "interesting."

"In the first set I played really really well, super intense, super focused, maybe overexerted myself a little bit with the intensity," said the blue chip junior from Plano Texas. "Second set, all those balls I was making--we were getting in like 15-ball rallies and was winning them--suddenly within the first five balls I was struggling. He made a good adjustment, started taking it on the rise, giving me awkward balls and that went by pretty quickly. In the third set I played a little bit better, but we actually broke each other four times back-to-back, each at love except the last one I broke at 15. I finally served it out at 5-3, but it was a very anxious match, because he'd break, then I'd break and then he'd lose it. But it's good to get those wins."

Brown will play wild card Kyle Kang, who defeated qualifier Lucas Andrade Da Silva of Brazil 6-1, 6-1 in just over an hour. 

"That will be a fun match," said Brown. "We both hit the ball big, so hopefully we'll get some fireworks going."

Brown and his partner Landon Ardila got some fireworks going in doubles as well, beating No. 3 seeds Sebastian Gorzny and Alex Michelsen 6-4, 5-7, 10-4.  Gorzny, the defending champion in doubles (with Nathan Cox) and Michelsen were down a set and 4-3, with Brown and Ardila serving, before mounting a comeback to take the second set. But Brown, who is the reigning Kalamazoo 16s doubles champion, and Ardila were not going to cede the momentum. 

"They went to the restroom and I looked at Landon and went, 'the way we're going to win this is to have crazy energy, play to win, if there's a moment to poach take it, a moment to sting a return sting it, just play to win, play to win, play to win," Brown said. 

Ardila said all the chances they had to break in the second set gave them confidence going into the tiebreaker.

"In the second set, we had so many opportunities, we were confident on the return, even though we lost the second set," Ardila said. "We played smart in the tiebreak, put pressure on them, knew we were going to be fine."

Ardila and Brown, who are playing together for the first time this week, will play an unseeded team in Thursday's quarterfinals in Krish Arora and Canada's Nemanja Stefanovic.

One of the best matches in boys singles action Wednesday featured wild card Rudy Quan and No. 13 seed Preston Stearns, with Stearns earning a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory. The shot tolerance for both players in the first two sets was phenomenal, with 20- and 30-ball rallies featuring both pace and depth. One game extended to 36 points, according to a USTA coach tracking the match, and the match lasted nearly three hours, even with Stearns jumping out to a 5-0 lead in the third, and pressuring Quan to many more errors than he produced in the first two sets. 

Stearns will play No. 4 seed Jaden Weekes of Canada, who finished at almost the exact same time, but played only two sets, beating Adhithya Ganesan 7-5, 7-6(4). 

No. 2 seed Nicholas Godsick was no doubt happy to have Tuesday off after needing nearly four hours to get through his first round match Monday. He managed to keep his time on the singles court to less than three hours today, but had to come back from a set down to take out Patrik Oplustil of the Czech Republic 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-2. Godsick will play unseeded Roy Horovitz, who defeated Nikita Filin 6-1, 7-5 for his first victory over his fellow 15-year-old in three ITF Junior Circuit matches.

The other two boys second round matches played today saw No. 5 seed Gorzny defeat Jelani Sarr 6-3, 6-0 and No. 10 seed Alexander Razeghi beat Maxwell Exsted 6-3, 7-5, to set up a third round contest between them Thursday.

The top two seeds in both girls and boys doubles advanced to Thursday's quarterfinals, with the boys teams both surviving in match tiebreakers. No. 1 seeds Ethan Quinn and Godsick defeated Kang and Evan Wen 3-6, 6-4, 10-2 and No. 2 seed Aidan Kim and Michael Zheng defeated Fnu Nidunjianzan of China and Sam Scherer 7-6(8), 4-6, 10-2.

Top girls seeds Liv Hovde and Qavia Lopez defeated Marcela Lopez and Morgan Pyrz 7-6(4), 6-2 and No. 2 seeds Alexis Blokhina and Johanne Svendsen of Denmark beat Tyra Lithiby of Thailand and Mayu Crossley of Japan 6-2, 6-1.

No. 4 seeds Gabriella Broadfoot of South Africa and Jones lost to Isabella Chhiv and Evans 6-4, 3-6, 13-11.

Kylie McKenzie, who reached the quarterfinals of the 2015 US Open Junior Championships and won the Eddie Herr ITF that same year, has struggled with injuries since 2016, unable to find any window for sustained competition. In an article in today's New York Times, McKenzie reveals that she was a victim of sexual assault by her former USTA coach, Anibal Aranda. This is a difficult story to read, yet it appears from this account that McKenzie and the USTA handled this about as well as could be hoped, given the circumstances, both in reporting and responding to the report McKenzie made. It's an important topic for parents to discuss with their tennis playing children, girls or boys, and having the U.S. Center for SafeSport available to investigate and ban coaches deemed a threat to children is key to ending this abuse, as is the courage of those willing to report their abuse.