G14s Top Seed Bugaienko, B14s No. 3 Seed McPeek Win Tight First Round Contests as Junior Orange Bowl Finally Begins

©Colette Lewis 2023--
Coral Gables FL--

The sun, absent for four straight days, came out Sunday afternoon, lifting the spirits of everyone who had waited out the persistent rain that kept the Junior Orange Bowl main draw from beginning.

Rain continued into Sunday morning, and with more than an inch Saturday, the Har-Tru Courts at Salvadore Park were the last of the four sites to begin. Fortunately, the G14s there were able to finish their qualifying on Friday, while the other three sites hosting the B12s, G12s and B14s had to play their 16 final round qualifying matches before main draw matches could begin.

Only five of the 13 Salvadore Park courts were playable at the 3 p.m. start time and it was after dark before all of the others could be readied for play, so the decision was made to play only the 32 matches in the top half of the draw, with the bottom half postponed until Monday, to be followed by the second round.

Top seed Anna Bugaienko was one of the few to start her match on Friday, but she and Anastasiya Muravia had played only two games before the rain returned. Bugaienko, who plays primarily on hard courts in McKinney Texas, had barely had an opportunity to practice on the Har-Tru before the rain set in on Wednesday.

"I came on Monday and practiced for an hour or two, and then it started raining," said the 14-year-old, who moved to Texas from Ukraine five years ago. "Then we couldn't find any clay courts that were dry to practice on, so that's all I had before the match." 

With play called early on Saturday, and with the rain intermittent in the morning before it steadily increased throughout the afternoon, Bugaienko did at least swing a racquet.

"I went and practiced on the wall, even with the rain," Bugaienko said. "I just taking some volleys and hitting, so I wouldn't forget how to play tennis."

Bugaienko showed signs of her unfamiliarity with the surface, but even as she felt she adjusted quickly, she was unable to shake Muravia, needing two and a half hours to earn her 7-6(4), 7-5 victory. 

Muravia, also from Ukraine and training at LAT in Boynton Beach, displayed a good first serve and kept her powerful forehand deep, with long rallies the norm.

Up 4-3 in the tiebreaker, Muravia double faulted, and several ill-advised drop shots, that did not make it over the net, sealed the set for Bugaienko. Bugaienko then took a 4-1 lead in the second set, only to see Muravia take the next four games and serve for the set.

"I think she changed her game when I was up 4-1, hitting more top spin and missing less," said Bugaienko, who hasn't played the 14s since this summer's USTA Level 1s, with all her tournaments this fall in the 16s or on the ITF Junior Circuit. "I tried to be more aggressive but it was not working out. So I waited for a good ball, so I could more her around, and finish the point when she gives me a short ball."

Muravia never got to a set point, and Bugaienko won a tough service game to go up 6-5. Facing the pressure of serving to force a tiebreaker, Muravia couldn't convert her game point and after a double fault and forehand error, Bugaienko was through to round 2.

Boys 14s top seed Tanishk Konduri had little trouble in his first round match at the Kerdyk Tennis Center at the Biltmore, defeating Antanas Daugis 6-1, 6-1 in an all-USA first round match. Konduri swept both the 14s National Championships this summer, taking singles and doubles, with his doubles partner at the Hard Courts in Mobile Colin McPeek.

McPeek, the No. 3 seed in the Junior Orange Bowl, got off to a good start in his match with Robert Dolya, before dropping the second set and being forced to a match tiebreaker.

McPeek ended up claiming a 6-2, 5-7, 10-8 victory, but like everyone else, did not have the preparation he would have preferred.

"I was able to get some practices, but they weren't as good as I would normally want them," said the 14-year-old from Indiana. 

McPeek had no familiarity with Dolya, who is from Davie Florida and plays primarily in the Battle of Boca series rather than in the USTA Florida sectional events.

"I hadn't really every heard of him," said McPeek, who has a one-handed backhand. "Usually you know a lot of the players that are in the draw, but I didn't know him."

Given that he had idea how his opponent would play, McPeek concentrated on his own game, and that worked well, until the second set.

"First set I started off strong, I was going for my shots and executing better," McPeek said. "In the second set I started missing more, giving him a bit more confidence and he started going for it and I started backing off."

Dolya broke for the second set on a deciding point, with the first two rounds of the B14s using no-ad scoring, and he took a 5-3 lead in the match tiebreaker, but McPeek won six of the next seven points to go up 9-6. McPeek missed only one first serve in the tiebreaker, making a conscious decision to spin in his first serves, while Dolya double faulted twice, the second time at 6-all.

But down 9-6, Dolya got both first serves in and won the points, forcing a forehand error after a long rally on the first match point and cracked a forehand pass on the second that had McPeek wondering aloud why he had approached the net. But with his third match point McPeek was able to get another first serve in and put away a forehand winner to earn the win.

"It gives you confidence, if you're able to pull out a match even when you're not playing your best," said McPeek, who trains now with the USTA in Lake Nona, but continues to live in Indiana. "But I still hope to play well this week."

As for the upcoming compressed schedule forced by all the rain, with six matches in the next four days, McPeek said he is fine with that prospect.

"A lot of the sectional tournaments are usually two or three matches a day, so I'm quite used to that," McPeek said. "So this is not that much of a difference, it actually feels weird when you play just one match a day."

The top seed in the boys 12s, Tristan Ascenzo, didn't drop a game in his first round match. Eddie Herr champion and girls 12s top seed Caroline Shao plays her first round match at 8 a.m. Monday at Crandon Park against qualifier Sofija Dimitrievic. 

Draws and times for Monday's matches can be found here.