Orange Bowl ITF J500 Recap, Videos; Rain Continues at Junior Orange Bowl, but Michelsen Finally Gets Through G14s Qualifying

My review of last week's ITF J500 Orange Bowl singles and doubles finals is up today at the Tennis Recruiting Network.

With all the rain at the Junior Orange Bowl this week, I had time to process the videos from the singles finals. Usually I don't have time to work on the finals videos until after the holidays, and that will be the case for the Eddie Herr and Junior Orange Bowl videos, but if the forecast for more rain Saturday is correct, I should have time to do the Orange Bowl 16s finals videos tomorrow.

There was hope earlier today that some tennis matches might be played on the fourth day of the Junior Orange Bowl, but by the time the hard courts dried sufficiently Friday, the rain returned and no final round qualifying matches or first round main draw matches were started at the Biltmore Tennis Center(B14s) or Crandon Park(B12s, G12s). The girls 14s at Salvadore Park did manage to finish the four qualifying matches in progress that were not completed on Wednesday, and even started a few main draw matches, but the sprinkles became light rain, and after an hour, played was called for the day.

Going to the mall, or the movies, is not an unusual activity for players when matches are canceled due to rain. But for 14-year-old Braylen Michelsen, all the delays, the not-before times, were made even worse by the fact that she was commuting from Naples, which is more than two hours away.

Michelsen, who completed her 6-3, 7-6(4) final round qualifying win over Daniela Gonzales Urbina of Peru as the rain started in earnest Friday afternoon, went home Wednesday night with a 6-3, 2-1 lead, not knowing when she might be able to continue, but required to be ready to play on Thursday.

"I have to get up at 3 a.m. to get here," said Michelsen, who trains at the Gomez Academy in Naples. "I'm about two and a half hours away, so we got up at 3:15 a.m. to come here, and as we were getting here, about twenty minutes away, we started seeing sprinkles. It wasn't raining in Naples, but when we got here, the courts were absolutely soaked."

Michelsen couldn't go back home until the next update, so they went to the hotel of a fellow student at Gomez Academy, where they used the gym as they waited for another update.

"As we left the gym, getting ready to go back the site, it just started pouring outside," Michelsen said. We saw it coming in and the buildings started to disappear, and we thought oh, no, that's not good. It was really windy."

Michelsen did end up staying in a local hotel last night, after a trip to the mall and a movie Thursday, but did not take the court until 3 p.m. Friday, where the pressure to finish out the victory began to build.

"It was a little odd, because I was coming into it like, 'oh I don't want to lose because I came all this way, and we've waited so long now, I can't lose'," said Michelsen, who broke Gonzales Urbina when she served for the set at 6-5. "I wasn't playing terrible, but I was just missing shots I shouldn't be missing, and she started taking advantage of that. She played really well, honestly, but I was getting upset, because I don't want to lose."

Michelsen said some positive self-talk helped get her through the last two games. 

"I told myself, it's ok, you've got this," Michelsen said. "During the tiebreak I started hitting more, to build my confidence, and she was missing more, so I kept pumping myself up, and pulled it out."

Although she is not related to ATP No. 97 Alex Michelsen, she is happy that people now have a clue how to pronounce her last name. 

"A lot of people know Alex Michelsen, so they always ask me," Michelsen said. "It's not a common name."

Results from the girls 14s final round of qualifying can be found here.