Rain Forces Play Indoors to Complete Kalamazoo B16s Singles Second Round, Burnett Ousts No. 10 Seed in Three-Hour Battle; Boika Wins J1 in South Africa; Shang, Monday Claim Decatur and Lexington Titles

©Colette Lewis 2022--
Kalamazoo MI--

Many of the top 32 seeds in the 16s division of the USTA Boys National Championships were able to post their first victories in Sunday's second round of singles before the rain arrived just before 1 p.m.

No. 2 seed Quang Duong posted a quick 6-0, 6-1 win over Jack Ling before the skies opened; No. 3 seed Adhithya Ganesan, a 6-3, 6-3 winner over Prathinav Chunduru, and No. 4 seed Cooper Woestendick, who beat Kenneth Chan 6-1, 6-2, also finished their matches outdoors at Stowe Stadium.

Top seed Roy Horovitz, playing on George Acker Court, the No. 1 court at Stowe Stadium, wasn't as fortunate however. The 15-year-old from Florida had taken the first set, but was sent to one of the four indoor courts at Kalamazoo's College Markin Center to complete his 6-0, 6-2 win over Arham Mefta.

No. 5 seed Darwin Blanch, a 14-year-old wild card, needed less than an hour to get past Tristan Stine 6-0, 6-1 Sunday morning.

On the other end of the match time spectrum was Evan Burnett, who survived an intense three-hour and 20 minute slugfest in high heat and humidity to beat No. 10 seed Cyrus Mahjoob 5-7, 7-6(8), 6-4.

Burnett was down a set and 5-3, but Mahjoob couldn't close the door, and Burnett converted his second set point in the tiebreaker to force a third. Breaking at 4-all in the third, Burnett had a chance to serve for the match and he took it, choosing to serve and volley on his second match point at 40-30.

That decision was based on his physical condition as much as on any strategic considerations.

"I was so tired at the end," said the 16-year-old from Woodside California. "Once we got to the third set, my legs were almost giving out, but I found a way, played smart. I've been throwing [serve and volley] in recently, but haven't done it much. I was super tired and I thought that would be the best way to finish the match. If he hit a great shot, that's fine, but I had confidence he would give me an easy ball or would miss and he did. So I felt that was the best thing to do on match point."

Burnett was on the Northern California team that won the USTA Battle of the Sections on Wednesday, and said that and three wins at the Clay Courts last month put him in a good frame of mind for this event.

"I came in with a lot of confidence and I'm playing well now," Burnett said. "I'd never seen him play, but I knew who he was, he was a high seed and got third at Easter Bowl, which was amazing. But I just played my game, stayed loose, believed I could win. When you're playing a high seed, you can get caught up in, oh he's so much better than me, so I had to just believe in my game."

Two other top 32 seeds fell in Sunday's second round, with Elliot Wasserman defeated No. 21 seed Paris Pouatcha 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 and Nathaniel Suh beating No. 29 seed Raghav Jangbahadur 6-4, 6-1.

Another long match at Stowe Stadium that featured a comeback saw Grand Rapids' Simon Caldwell defeat No. 33 seed Nolan Balthazor 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.

Caldwell, who turned 15 two weeks ago, looked much fresher than his much bigger opponent in the third set of the two-hour and 43-minute contest.

"I've done a lot of work over the summer to get my body in the best shape that I can be and I proved it today," said the rising high school freshman, who trains with Tom Walker at the Grand Rapids Racquet and Fitness club.  "I've been really training hard trying to perfect my game for the biggest tournament of the year."

Competing on the show courts at Stowe Stadium is especially significant for those juniors who have attended the tournament in when they were just beginning to play, hoping someday to qualify for it.

"It's a really amazing feeling," said Caldwell, who also played at Stowe Stadium in his first round match Saturday. "Everyone that's come from Michigan to support me, it really means a lot to be there, on the big stage. I really had a great time playing, and I can't wait to play again tomorrow."

Whether matches will be played on Monday is another question, with the forecast currently calling for a 70% chance of rain and more rain this evening delaying the completion of the 18s consolation matches and many of the boys 16s first round doubles matches. 

The schedule will be posted tonight at the ustaboys.com website, but times will go up later than usual due to all the matches still in progress. The 18s doubles third round matches originally scheduled for today were canceled.

Leanid Boika, who would have qualified to play Kalamazoo due to his ITF Top 100 ranking, opted instead to play the Grade 1 tournament in South Africa last week, (and the Grade A next week) instead. The 17-year-old from Florida, seeded No. 2, proceeded to win his first singles title above the J5 level in Durban, beating top seed Rei Sakamoto of Japan 6-2, 7-6(5) in Saturday's final.

The three USTA Pro Circuit tournaments wrapped up today, with University of Tennessee junior Johannes Monday winning at the $25K in Decatur Illinois, Jerry Shang taking the ATP Challenger title in Lexington Kentucky and Katie Swan the champion at the $60K in Lexington.

No. 6 seed Monday, a 20-year-old from Great Britain, defeated top seed Zeke Clark(Illinois) 6-3, 6-3 in the final.  No. 3 seedsTyler Zink(Oklahoma State) and George Goldhoff(Texas) won the doubles title, beating No. 2 seeds Taisei Ichikawa and Seita Watanabe of Japan 6-3, 6-4 in today's final.

The unseeded Shang, the first player born in 2005 to win a Challenger title, defeated No. 2 seed Emilio Gomez(USC) of Ecuador 6-4, 6-4 in today's final.  The 17-year-old from China, who trains at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, will break into the ATP 250 with this result, less than a year after playing his last junior singles match at the US Open. He fell in that final, to Daniel Rincon of Spain, but immediately thereafter began winning USTA Pro Circuit events and is now a Challenger champion.

India's Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni(Alabama) won the Lexington doubles title, with the No. 2 seeds defeating the unseeded pair of Aidan McHugh of Great Britain and Gijs Brouwer of the Netherlands 3-6, 6-4, 10-8.

Speaking of doubles, former North Carolina star Will Blumberg won another ATP doubles title, his third, at the ATP 250 in Los Cabos Mexico, with Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia. Blumberg and Kecmanovic, who were unseeded, defeated No. 4 seeds Raven Klaasen of South Africa and Marcelo Melo of Brazil 6-1, 6-0 in last night's final. With the title, Blumberg will move into the Top 100 in the ATP doubles rankings for the first time, at 85.

At the $60,000 women's USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Lexington, No. 8 seed Katie Swan defeated No. 2 seed Jodie Burrage 6-0, 3-6, 6-3 in an all-Great Britain final.