Hance Ousts Top Seed Woestendick, Mosejczuk Saves Four Match Points to Beat No. 2 Seed Razeghi; Chung, Ionescu Eliminate No. 2 Seed Frodin and No. 3 Seed Lam at ITF J300 San Diego

©Colette Lewis 2024--
San Diego CA--

Long days at the Barnes Tennis Center are usually the result of poor weather, as the facility has plenty of courts for a tournament the size of the ITF J300 being played here this week. But even with Tuesday's perfect weather, it took nearly seven hours to work through the 32 singles matches on 16 courts, with two of the top three seeds in both the girls and boys draws falling in the second round.

Wild card Elizabeth Ionescu posted the most routine win, defeating No. 3 seed Shannon Lam 6-3, 6-3.

Ionescu's power baseline game was on target throughout, although the 15-year-old from Pennsylvania still wasn't entirely satisfied with her consistency.

"I think I got away from being aggressive and playing my game style," said Ionescu, who won the USTA National 18s Indoor Championship last November. "I fell into playing my opponent's game, so I could have been more aggressive and maintained that high intensity. It's hard to do for two sets, but that's something I'm working on. I played at that level at times and sometimes it would drop, but overall, I'm happy with how I played."

Ionescu, who will turn 16 next month, has just begun to play regularly on the ITF Junior Circuit and is making her first trip for the Southern California ITF spring swing, but she is very comfortable at the Barnes Tennis Center.

"I do pretty well every year at the (USTA) Hard Court Nationals here; it's one of my favorite tournaments," said Ionescu, who trains with her father Florin at the Wisehaven Tennis Center in York Pennsylvania. "I feel at home at some sites and in some cities, and San Diego has to be one of them. I'm familiar with it, I've played well here, it feels like another home court, and it feels like an advantage."

Ionescu will face Adla Lopez, who defeated No. 13 seed Olivia Center 7-5, 1-6, 7-5.

Kayla Chung lost the first set to No. 2 seed and Indian Wells ITF J300 semifinalist Thea Frodin 6-7(5), with her one hour and 20 minutes of effort going for naught. Yet she wasn't discouraged as she began the second set, and that positive attitude led her to a 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-1 victory.

"Honestly, I think I played looser in the second set," said the 16-year-old who is from Pennsylvania but moved to Southern California to train. "I knew it was super close in the first, so winning the second could definitely go my way. I just tried to keep balls deep and make her play. She hit a lot of great shots in the first set, so I knew I had to stay solid, mix it up, use slicing, drop shots and that worked in my favor."

Chung had played a long and physical match with Kenzie Nguyen in the first round Monday, again coming from a set down, which gave her confidence when facing another third set today.

"I think we were both kind of tired from the first two sets, but I just wanted to stay super solid and super positive," said Chung, who will play No. 15 seed Annika Penickova in Wednesday's third round.

Other 9 a.m. matches that extended past noon were No. 9 seed Monika Ekstrand's 7-6(7), 6-7(5), 6-2 win over Sydney Jara, No. 6 seed Kate Fakih's 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 victory over wild card Alyssa Ahn and qualifier Daniela Borruel's 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 win over No. 16 seed Leena Friedman.

The other two seeds losing in the second round were No. 10 seed Maya Iyengar, who fell to Nadia Lagaev of Canada 7-6(5), 6-1 and No. 14 seed Trinetra Vijayakumar, who was beaten by Jessica Bernales 6-2, 6-0.

When the boys finally started their second round matches following the girls, the surprises just kept coming. Keaton Hance, who had saved six match points in his 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(0) first round win over qualifier Roshan Santhosh Monday, followed that with a 7-5, 6-4 win over top seed Cooper Woestendick, a semifinalist at last week's ITF J300 in San Diego.

Hance had lost to Woestendick 6-0, 6-3 in the second round of Indian Wells last week, but he learned from that loss, and was also more physically ready for today's match.

"The day before I played him last week I had another good win, over my friend Jack (Secord)," said the 16-year-old Hance. "It was a long match, 7-6 in the first set, really physical, and my legs were a little bit tired the next day. I wasn't moving as well when I was playing Cooper, at least not as well as I was moving today, so that was one key thing he took advantage of. I was a little bit out of it that day and he was playing well, serving well, not making a lot of unforced errors. So it was a mix of he playing well and me still recovering from the day before. I had a tough match yesterday, but it wasn't as physical, so I was able to be more physical today against Cooper."

Hance was able to employ his strategy of keeping the ball out of Woestendick's strike zone, and was assisted by Woestendick's frequent unforced errors.

"He's a bigger guy, so I wanted to make him move as much as I could, make him tired," said Hance. "I had to mix it up, because when he has it in the pocket, it's a winner every time. I had to keep it out of his strike zone, so he couldn't attack, keep the ball deep."

Hance will face unseeded Ronit Karki, who beat No. 14 seed Connor Church of Canada 6-4, 7-6(2).

While Hance was wrapping up his upset of Woestendick, No. 2 seed Alexander Razeghi was late in the third set with Dominick Mosejczuk. Mosejczuk, who had beaten No. 6 seed Max Exsted last week at Indian Wells, had already saved two match points serving at 4-5, 15-40, one on a Razeghi error and the second with a clutch backhand passing shot on the run that fired up the tired looking 17-year-old.

So when he was down 4-6 in the third set tiebreaker, Mosejczuk was not about to panic, and he was committed to applying pressure, while not giving any points away.

"I didn't have any thoughts of losing," Mosejczuk said. "You just can't think about that. I tried to stay confident and positive throughout the whole match."

Serving at 4-6, Mosejczuk came up with a big first serve and a plus-one forehand to save match point No. 3.

"My legs were just shot, I couldn't jump on the serve and I tried jumping, but that wasn't the problem, it was my toss," Mosejczuk said. "I figured it out and at 4-6 just gave it a big old toss and said, 'I'm not hitting a second serve now', I have to go for it. Now is not the time to play soft, so I just went for it and it worked out."

Razeghi had a short ball on his forehand on the fourth match point at 5-6, but his shot caught the tape and bounced wide, with the next two points also ending on Razeghi's errors, giving Mosejczuk the 6-4, 0-6, 7-6(6) victory.

Mosejczuk will face No. 13 seed Maximus Dussault in the third round, after Dussault defeated wild card Jack Satterfield 4-6, 6-1, 7-5. Dussault and Mosejczuk played at the J300 in Costa Rica in January, with Dussault taking it 6-3, 6-2.

"I was a little injured there, but he played a good match there, had a good tournament," Mosejczuk said. "I'm looking forward to playing him and getting my revenege."

The other boys seeds falling in the second round were No. 15 seed Jack Secord, who lost to Mitchell Lee 4-6, 6-2, 6-2; No. 13 seed Matisse Farzam, who fell to Calvin Baierl 6-3, 6-3 and No. 16 seed Jordan Reznik, who was beaten by Prathinav Chunduru 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 in another nearly four-hour marathon.

The doubles seeds took to the courts for the first time today, and the top seeded teams avoided the upset bug that plagued the singles seeds.

Top seeds Roy Horovitz and Razeghi, and Australian Open boys doubles champions ant No. 2 seeds Woestendick and Exsted both advanced in straight sets.

Girls top seeds Frodin and Lam advanced easily, but No. 2 seeds Ekstrand and Aspen Schuman lost to Ionescu and Gianna Oboniye 6-2, 3-6, 11-9.