Svajda and Quinn Win Second Straight $15K Titles on SoCal Pro Circuit; Navarro Falls in $60K Finals in Netherlands; Blumberg, Eubanks and Krueger Qualify for ATP Hall of Fame Open: Shelton, Shang Among Rome Challenger Qualifiers

I'm currently in transit, returning from Wimbledon, so I won't have time to review all of the ITF Junior Circuit and USTA Pro Circuit action I missed last week. I'll try to wrap what isn't posted here on Tuesday, as well as the seeds for the USTA Clay Courts, if I can manage to stay awake.

Sekou Bangoura(left) and Zachary Svajda(right)

Below is Steve Pratt's recap of the $15,000 SoCal Pro Circuit tournament in Fountain Valley, where two-time Kalamazoo champion Zachary Svajda claimed his second straight singles title, after winning the previous week in Los Angeles. Ethan Quinn and Daniel Vallejo of Paraguay were also repeat champions in doubles.

Svajda and Ya Yi Yang Capture SoCal Pro Circuit Singles Titles On Final Day of Fountain Valley Open at Los Caballeros Sports Village

 

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. – Top-seeded Zachary Svajda won his 10^th consecutive and final SoCal Pro Circuit singles match on Sunday, taking home the Fountain Valley Open title at Los Caballeros Sports Village with a 6-3, 6-1 win over No. 4 Sekou Bangoura.

 

It was the second straight SoCal Pro Circuit title for the 19-year-old Svajda of Hermosa Beach as he also won five matches last week at the Jack Kramer Club beating top-seeded Brandon Holt in the final. One of the top American juniors the past few years, the two-time Kalamazoo USTA Boys’ Hardcourts 18s winner Svajda will now take a week off before heading out to Lexington, Ky., and other Challengers seeking to win enough points in the upcoming US Open Wild Card Challenge being put on by the USTA.

 

Playing in her fifth consecutive SoCal Pro Circuit event in six weeks, 18-year-old Ya Yi Yang from Chinese Taipei put it all together this week impressing opponents and Fountain Valley fans with her aggressive power game winning both the singles and doubles titles. The No. 4-seeded Yang beat Week 3 women’s SoCal Pro Circuit winner and qualifier Makenna Jones for the second straight week eliminating the former University of North Carolina star Sunday, 6-2, 6-2, after beating her 6-4 in the third set in the first round last week at the Jack Kramer Club.

 

The final of the six SoCal Pro Circuit stops – $15,000 ITF World Tour Futures-level events being put on by the USTA SoCal Section – began with qualifying 25 miles north up the 405 Freeway on Sunday at the Lakewood Tennis Center. 

 

“Wow, 10 in a row,” said Svajda, who like his opponent Bangoura dropped the opening set of his semifinal before coming back to win. “It all started last week, and I just started playing better every match. Just a little better. Now, the goal is to go up to the Challenger level and hopefully get into qualifying at the US Open.”

 

The match was tight in the first set as both players were on serve at 4-3 when Svajda finally got the break he needed and served out the first set with an emphatic ace down the “T” on set point.

 

Longtime Pro Circuit veteran Bangoura, 30, of Bradenton, Fla., said he beat Svajda in their only other career meeting in Florida when Svajda started playing ITF Pro Futures events at the age of 15. 

 

Bangoura reached a career-high No. 213 in 2016 but is currently just inside the world top 600. He has won 10 singles titles and 21 doubles titles on the ITF Futures Tour, and has career wins over noted current or former top 50 players like Americans Tommy Paul, Reilly Opelka, Tennys Sandgren and Mackenzie McDonald. Bangoura also owns impressive wins over current ATP stars like Denis Shapovalov, Felix Auger-Aliassime and a young Stefanos Tsitsipas when they were teenagers.

 

“He was just too good. He was solid,” Bangoura said. “I just wasn’t patient today. I wanted to play a faster-paced match.”

 

The 24-year-old former NCAA doubles champion Jones ran into a buzz-saw in Yang, but the match was actually much closer than the score indicated as the players battled on several long deuce games. The top seed in qualifying the past two weeks, Jones will get into Lakewood for her sixth straight week in SoCal on her improved ranking of No. 964 in the world.

 

Jones has a record of 19-5 in SoCal this summer while Yang is 19-4 heading into the final week of the circuit.

 

On Saturday, Hind Abdelouahid from NorCal and Yang won the doubles title as the top-seeded team beat No. 2. Jiangxue Han of China and Dabin Kim of Korea, 7-5, 2-6, 10-6. Ethan Quinn and Daniel Vallejo of Paraguay won the doubles for the second straight week as the unseeded team downed No. 1 Abraham Asaba of Ghana and Bangoura, 6-0, 3-6, 10-8.

The final $15,000 SoCal Pro Circuit event of the six-week schedule begins tomorrow in Lakewood. Wimbledon doubles champion Alex Michelsen and Wimbledon quarterfinalist Learner Tien told me in London they are planning to play the tournament, despite the distinct possibility of jet lag with the eight-hour time difference.

At the $60,000 ITF World Tennis Tour women's tournament in the Netherlands, 2021 NCAA champion Emma Navarro(Virginia) reached the final, with the unseeded 21-year-old beating the No. 3, 6 and 7 seeds before falling to No. 4 seed Simona Waltert of Switzerland 7-6(10), 6-0 in the final. She has her ranking up to 213 now, which should guarantee her a place in the US Open qualifying.

Qualifying for the ATP 250 this week on the grass in Newport Rhode Island concluded today, with William Blumberg(North Carolina), Mitchell Krueger, Christopher Eubanks(Georgia Tech) and Liam Broady of Great Britain advancing to the main draw.

Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada is the top seed, with John Isner(Georgia) the No. 2 seed and Maxime Cressy(UCLA) seeded No. 4.

The ATP Challenger Circuit returns to the US this week in Rome Georgia, and with it, the start of the US Open Wild Card Challenge.

2022 NCAA champion Ben Shelton(Florida) is back after a few weeks off, and the 19-year-old has qualified with straight-sets wins Toshihide Matsui of Japan and Liam Draxl(Kentucky) of Canada. 2021 ITF Junior champion Juncheng Shang of China also qualified, as did Americans Donald Young, Patrick Kypson(Texas A&M) and Strong Kirchheimer(Northwestern).

Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan is the top seed, with JJ Wolf(Ohio State) seeded No. 2 at the ATP 80 event. Wild cards went to Sam Riffice(Florida), Michael Mmoh and Govind Nanda(UCLA).