MSU Spartan Matt Forbes Claims USTA Boys 18s National Championship in Four Sets; Grumet Comes Back to Earn 16s Crown; Jovic Sweeps 18s National Titles in San Diego

©Colette Lewis 2024--
Kalamazoo MI--

When Matt Forbes decided to join the MSU Spartans last month, neither he, his teammates or his head coach could have imagined he'd be spending one of his first weeks in school playing in the main draw of the US Open.

But after a grueling 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 victory over No. 8 seed Jack Kennedy as the sun began dropping in the sky over Kalamazoo College's Stowe Stadium, Forbes earned the USTA 18s National championship, and with it, the coveted wild card into men's singles at the US Open.

Having his teammates there, including NCAA singles semifinalist Ozan Baris, who warmed him up before the match, helped Forbes, who was seeded 20th, ease his understandable nerves.

"It was amazing, they got me through this match mentally," Forbes said. "Especially Ozan, he's helped me a lot on court and off court. That was a big thing, going through the recruiting process. I'm good, but I have some maturing to do. And he went through the same thing, and at Michigan State, I'm not sure he had someone to look up to and talk to. He's helped me a lot, especially the mentality going into the match, telling me to just go for it, believe, don't think about anything, any wild card, just go for it."

Forbes didn't have to play his best in the opening set, with Kennedy making an uncharacteristic number of unforced errors, which he attributed to the 10-to-15 mph winds and the significance of the occasion. 

"The wind and the nerves were definitely there," said the 16-year-old New Yorker, who is coached by Greg Lumpkin and is also getting coaching support from 2014 Kalamazoo 18s champion Noah Rubin, both of whom were in attendance this week. "As the match wore on, the winds slowed down and the nerves settled, but it's the biggest match both of us have played and we both wanted it so much. But I think Matt did a great job today not showing the nerves too much."

Forbes was hoping to win in three sets, but was not expecting it, so he wasn't surprised when Kennedy raised his level and started to use his speed and variety to keep Forbes on defense in the third set.

"I was a bit giddy in the beginning and throughout the match until the end," said Forbes, an 18-year-old from Raleigh North Carolina. "I wanted it to end in three, but I knew it wasn't going to end in three, I knew he was going to get a set or two. He's one of the few juniors out there who won't have many mental lapses."

After Kennedy won the third set, there was a mandatory 10-minute break, and despite the halt of his momentum, he came out strong, breaking Forbes in the opening game and building a 4-2 lead. But Forbes saved two break points to keep Kennedy from serving for the set, then broke in the next game, with a down-the-line backhand winner that Kennedy wasn't convinced had caught the sideline.

Forbes held to take a 5-4 lead despite two double faults; Kennedy held from 0-30 down, then missed his chance to serve for the set a second time when he couldn't convert either break point with Forbes serving at 5-5, 15-40. Kennedy missed a routine second serve return, and Forbes scooped up a return and hit a short angle forehand winner that he promptly apologized for. He held and Kennedy again faced the challenge of holding to stay in the match. He double faulted to give Forbes his first match point, but saved that with a forehand that forced an error, and that scenario repeated on match point number two. Forbes saved three game points in the game, and when he got a third match point, he was able to convert it, with Kennedy hitting a backhand wide to end the three-hour and 20-minute match.

After he loudly congratulated himself while lying on the court near the baseline, Forbes met Kennedy at near the umpire chair, then went to receive hugs from his teammates coaches and his father.

"People have been doubting me, I even doubted myself, so it's nice to prove that I can win a big event like this," Forbes said.

Harry Jadun, the head coach at Michigan State, is delighted to have a Kalamazoo champion heading to East Lansing in a few days. 

"We came close two years ago with Ozan, who finished third, so it was fitting for him to be up in the stands, encouraging him," said Jadun, who received the commitment from Forbes on July 21st. "That's someone Matt looks up to, and I thought that was a special moment for our program, a passing of the torch moment; Matt's a big-time player obviously, Ozan was our first big-time player that put us on a map."

Before he joins Baris and the rest of the team in competition Forbes will take several days off to recover from his first best-of-five match in competition, but he already has selected his preferred opponent in the first round of the US Open later this month.

"I want to play Ben Shelton, that would be amazing," Forbes said of the 2021 18s finalist. "Who knows what will happen, but I just want to face him, he's a big role model of mine. I had a chance to talk to him on my (recruiting) visit to Florida two years ago and he's a great guy. It would be amazing to play against a guy with that high of energy."

Kennedy is also excited about his trip to Flushing Meadows, just 45 minutes from his home, for the men's qualifying.

"It's the best consolation prize I've ever gotten," said Kennedy, who will have two more years to compete in Kalamazoo. "I see myself back here and hopefully holding that trophy. I have the game, and I think it's good getting used to that three out of five match. We'll learn from it, and me and my coach will talk about what we got right and what we got wrong, and we'll be ready back here next year."

The eight-hour finals day started with the 16s final, and it too exceeded three hours, with top seed Gus Grumet coming from 4-0 down in the third set to beat No. 16 seed Arin Pallegar 6-7(4), 6-2, 7-6(2).

Grumet's erratic play in the opening set gave Pallegar two chances to serve for it, at 5-2 and 5-4, but Pallegar didn't earn a set point either time. As frustrating as that might have been, Pallegar regrouped to force the tiebreaker and at 4-all coaxed a couple of errors from Grumet to escape with the first set.

In the second set, Grumet broke Pallegar in the fifth and seventh games, managing to hold his own serve throughout, although often in deuce games.

After the 10-minute break, Pallegar won an eight-deuce game, saving two break points to hold, and when Grumet lost his next two service games to fall behind 4-0, a comeback seemed unlikely.  But after showing some exasperation with his own play and with several of the line calls that went against him, Grumet was able to get back on track mentally, immediately getting one of the breaks back.

"I was really frustrated and that mindset changed," said the 16-year-old from Mill Valley California, the fifth left-hander in the past six years to win the 16s title. "I was like, you know what? there's no point in being frustrated, you can still win this match. I had come from down from a double break in the first set, so I knew I could do it, if I just played more patient, but still went for my shots. I knew I could come back."

That confidence wasn't evident immediately, with Grumet needing to save a break point in the next game, but Pallegar responded with a hold to go up 5-2. Serving for the match at 5-3, Pallegar made every first serve, but that wasn't enough to hold off the newly energized Grumet, who began hitting winners with regularity, breaking at 30-40. Pallegar held to go up 6-5, but Grumet held to force the tiebreaker and ran away with that, going up 5-0 over a visibly discouraged Pallegar and earning the championship with a backhand error by Pallegar.

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The crowd of over 500 was appreciative of the effort of both players, but Grumet said he made a necessary adjustment to counteract their influence.

"For the first set, they were pretty noticeable, I knew there were a lot of people watching," said Grumet, who has now won 20 straight matches, while earning another gold ball to go with his first, from last month's Clay Courts. "But then that sort of faded away. Even closer to the end of the first set, I was focused on myself, looking up at my mom after a point, just being able to stay calm, or at least try to."

Grumet, who is coached by Steve Jackson at the California Tennis Club in San Francisco, often vacations with his family in New York, but this time the trip will be tennis related, having earned a main draw wild card into the US Open Junior Championships. 

"This is a dream come true, to play a junior grand slam," said Grumet, who attends regular school. "It's unbelievable. I didn't think I could achieve this, balance this with school, especially going to a really tough school."

Pallegar, who has two wins over Grumet and warmed up with him throughout the week, felt something change midway through that third set.

"He got settled in and started making more balls," said Pallegar, a 16-year-old from Granite Bay California who is coached by Luke Whalen at the JMG Academy in Sacramento. "I got a little tentative rather than going for my shots as well. I'm sad, but Gus played a good match, so I'll just take this as a good week and build on this for sure."

Pallegar will receive a wild card into the ITF J300 in College Park in two weeks and into the qualifying of a men's $15,000 tournament for making the final.

In the third place matches played Sunday morning, Keaton Hance defeated Rishvanth Krishna 6-2, 6-3 in the 16s, while Trevor Svajda beat Cooper Woestendick 6-4, 6-3 for the bronze ball in the 18s.

In the feed-in finals, Andrew Johnson defeated Ryan Cozad 6-1, 5-7, 10-3 to finish in fifth place in the 16s, and Krish Arora beat Jack Satterfield 6-2, 6-3 to finish fifth in the 18s. Arora will receive a wild card into the US Open Junior championships qualifying for taking fifth place.

Three sportsmanship awards are given out each year at Kalamazoo, with Stiles Brockett winning the Wes Richards Feed-in Award; Gus Gromet receiving the Bobby Kaplan award for 16s, and Jack Satterfield named the winner of the Allen B. Stowe award for 18s.

At the girls 18s Nationals in San Diego, Iva Jovic won both the singles and doubles titles and will receive main draw wild cards at the US Open for both women's events.

Jovic avenged her Indian Wells ITF J300 loss this spring to Valerie Glozman, a rising freshman at Stanford, with a 7-6(6), 6-3 victory in the singles final, then partnered with Tyra Grant to claim the doubles title 6-2, 6-0 over Victoria Osuigwe and Maya Iyengar.  Below is the update from today's action at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego.

IVA JOVIC SWEEPS 18S SINGLES AND DOUBLES TITLES ON FINAL DAY OF
2024 USTA BILLIE JEAN KING GIRLS’ 16S AND 18S NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS 

Jovic Wins 7-6 (6) 6-3 Thriller over Valerie Glozman to Capture 18s Singles Title 
  

 SAN DIEGO – (August 11, 2024) – Playing spectacular tennis on the final day of the 2024 USTA Billie Jean King Girls’ 16s and 18s National Championships, third-seeded Iva Jovic swept the 18s singles and doubles titles on a warm afternoon at Barnes Tennis Center.

The 16-year-old Jovic from Torrance, Calif., met fifth-seeded Valerie Glozman of Bellevue, Wash., in the singles final and quickly set the tone in the match as she broke Glozman in the opening game with a beautiful cross-court backhand winner on break point.
 
Jovic would go on to build a commanding 4-1 lead in the first set, but Glozman fought back to even the score at 4-4. Jovic went on to win the set in an entertaining tiebreaker that kept fans on the edge of their seats.
 
In the second-set, Jovic scored a critical service break in the seventh game to take a 5-3 lead and then served out the title match for a 7-6 (6), 6-3 victory in two-hours and three-minutes.
 
Following the match, Jovic was presented with a USTA gold ball. She will also receive a wild card into the Women’s Singles Main Draw of the 2024 US Open in New York.   
 
“I’m so excited. I didn’t expect it to make this far in the tournament. To know that I’ll be playing in the U.S. Open is just incredible,” Jovic said.

“In the second set, I was just thinking about what a long week it has been, and I was getting really tired, so I had to use my energy and get really focused so that I didn’t have to a play another set,” Jovic added.

Approximately 90 minutes after winning the singles title, Jovic returned to Stadium Court and teamed with Tyra Caterina Grant of Miami Beach, Fla., to win the 18s doubles title with an impressive 6-2, 6-0 victory over seventh-seeded Victoria Osuigwe of Bradenton, Fla., and Maya Iyengar of Paradise Valley, Ariz.

In addition to being awarded USTA gold balls for winning the National Championship, Jovic and Grant, who captured the Australian and Wimbledon junior doubles titles earlier this year, received a wild card into the Women’s Doubles Main Draw of the upcoming US Open.

Current WTA touring professional Ashlyn Krueger was the last player to win the Girls' 18s singles and doubles titles in the same year. She accomplished the feat in 2021.

Earlier in the day, second-seeded Akasha Urhobo of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was presented the USTA bronze ball for winning the Third-Place singles match. Her opponent, top-seeded Clervie Ngounoue of Orlando, Fla., could not play due to injury.

In the Girls’’ 18s Consolation Singles Final, 16^th-seeded Kristina Penickova of Campbell, Calif., defeated 11^th-seeded Julieta Pareja of Carlsbad, Calif., 6-2, 6-2. (CORRECTION: PAREJA DEFEATED PENICKOVA)