Robertson Defeats Top Seed Sakamoto, Frodin Saves Five Match Points to Reach ITF J300 College Park Quarterfinals; 15-Year-Old Pareja Makes Final Round of US Open Qualifying; Tien Advances to Quarterfinals at ATP Winston-Salem

©Colette Lewis 2024--
College Park MD--

The hot and humid conditions that competitors in the ITF J300 in College Park usually confront have been absent the past two days, with ideal weather Wednesday for the first meeting between seeds.  A day after top seed and two-time girls slam finalist Emerson Jones exited, the No. 1 boys seed, Australian Open champion Rei Sakamoto of Japan was eliminated, with No. 14 seed Charlie Robertson of Great Britain coming back from 4-0 down in the third set to claim a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(3) victory.

Robertson managed to stay positive when he was down early in the third set, and he won five games in a row to put all the pressure back on Sakamoto.

"All the games were really tight, I had a couple of chances, break points, so I knew I was close," said the 17-year-old from Scotland, who is No. 30 in the ITF junior rankings. "I stuck in and kept going and the games started going my way and I turned the match around."

Although Sakamoto is much more physically imposing than Robertson, Robertson was the one more interested in prolonging points.

"I felt like at the start there were a few points where I made some cheap mistakes, but I started to become more solid," Robertson said. "I got more physical on court and he didn't like that as much and he started to miss, so that's what changed the match a little bit."

Robertson also changed his strategy when it came to handling Sakamoto's potent serve.

"At the start, I was more up on the court and I was struggling with that," said Robertson, who hadn't played Sakamoto before today. "And then I began to go further back and I made a lot more returns, got me in points and that's where I was doing the damage."

After Sakamoto held to force the tiebreaker, the first three points went to the returner before Robertson held his two serves for a 4-1 lead. Sakamoto got as close as 4-3, but Robertson stayed in front with a deep second serve that Sakamoto couldn't get back in play.  Robertson's unexpected backhand stop volley winner, perfectly executed, gave him three match points and he converted the first, with Sakamoto's backhand going wide.

"I thought I played some brave points and also some very solid points, which I'm pretty happy with," Robertson said of his level in the tiebreaker. "To get it pretty comfy in the tiebreak, I was really happy."

Robertson will next play 2023 College Park finalist and No. 10 seed Alex Razeghi, who played a level of tennis in his 6-4, 6-3 win over Marko Maksimovic that had the eighth-seeded Serbian often gesturing in frustration. The two played in the second round of Roland Garros this year, with Robertson winning 6-2, 7-6(4).

In the other quarterfinal in the top half, No. 3 seed Amir Omarkhanov will face No. 11 seed Thomas Faurel of France. Omarkhanov survived a serious bout of cramps in the final set to take a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 decision over unseeded Nicolas Arseneault of Canada in a three-hour and 10-minute marathon.  Faurel, a risng freshman at Kentucky, defeated No. 6 seed Cooper Woestendick 6-4, 6-3.

No. 4 seed Jagger Leach, recovered from the elbow injury that kept him from playing Kalamazoo earlier this month, defeated No. 16 seed Daniil Sarksian of Russia 6-3, 7-6(3) and will play No. 7 seed Miguel Tobon of Colombia. Tobon beat Tianhui Zhang of China 6-4, 6-4. 

In the bottom quarter, No. 2 seed Hayden Jones of Australia will play No. 5 seed Rafael Jodar of Spain after Jones defeated unseeded Ludwig Hede of Sweden 7-5, 6-4 and Jodar, who is joining the University of Virginia this coming January, beating No. 9 seed Max Schoenhaus of Germany 6-3, 6-1.

The other round of 16 match that finished in a third set tiebreaker came in the girls draw, and it was even more dramatic. No. 5 seed Sonja Zhiyenbayeva of Kazakhstan was serving at 5-4 40-0 in the third set against No. 12 seed Thea Frodin, but Frodin escaped with a 5-7, 6-3, 7-6(5) victory.

"At 40-0 she was serving, I got it back to deuce and then she had two more ad-ins," said Frodin, a 15-year-old from California, who trains with the USTA in Orlando. "I managed to save them both, I don't know how I did it."

Frodin didn't start the deciding tiebreaker auspiciously, with a double fault, but her backhand began heating up at 2-all, with two clean winners and a forced error from her backhand making it 5-2. Zhiyenbayeva got one of the mini-breaks back with a forehand winner, but Frodin earned three match points with a forehand winner of her own. Zhiyenbayeva held both her serves to save the first two match points, but Frodin's topspin forehand deep in deuce corner sealed the win.

Being so close to a loss, Frodin said she learned a lot from this particular win.

"Matches in the past, where I've been down, I've kind of given up a little bit," Frodin said. "Having that feeling of not wanting to play anymore because I'm quote unquote too far away to come back.  But this match showed that anything can happen, and there's a lot of positives to take away from the match. I'm proud of myself because I fought until the end. And I think I need to get used to doing that more."

Frodin's opponent in the quarterfinals is No. 4 seed Antonia Vergara Rivera of Chile, who also had to come from a set down, beating USC rising freshman Jana Hossam Salah of Egypt 2-6, 6-3, 6-1. 

The other American girl in the quarterfinals is unseeded Alanis Hamilton, who ended the run of qualifier Brooke Wallman 6-1, 6-4. Hamilton will play unseeded Ksenia Efremova of France, who defeated No. 16 seed Claire An 6-4, 6-3. 

The third unseeded player is in the bottom half, with Shiho Tsujioka of Japan advancing to a meeting with No. 3 seed Rositsa Dencheva of Bulgaria. Tsujioka defeated unseeded Trinetra Vijayakumar 6-3, 6-2 and Dencheva beat No. 14 seed Nellie Taraba Wallberg of Sweden 6-4, 2-6, 6-1.

The only quarterfinal that is as projected by the seeds is No. 2 seed Teodora Kostovic of Serbia against No. 7 seed Yelyzaveta Kotliar of Ukraine. Kostovic defeated No. 15 seed Shannon Lam 6-4, 6-3 and Kotliar took out qualifier Kristina Liutova of Russia 6-2, 6-2.

The seeded doubles teams were in action for the first time in today's second round, with four girls and one boys seeds losing. 

Isabelle DeLuccia and Eva Oxford, the last team accepted into the main draw, defeated No. 2 seeds Dencheva and Vergara Rivera 6-3, 6-2, and An and Hamilton beat No. 3 seeds Kotliar and Monika Stankiewicz of Poland 3-6, 6-0, 10-6.

Links to Thursday's draws, order of play, live scoring and live streaming are available at the JTCC ITF tournament page.

Among the ten Americans to advance to Thursday's final round of qualifying at the US Open are two teenage wild cards.  Fifteen-year-old Julieta Pareja, who has yet to crack the ITF Junior Top 100, defeated WTA 164 Lucrezia Stefanini of Italy 7-6(4), 1-6, 6-4 to reach the final round of women's qualifying, where she'll play Kimberly Birrell of Australia. 

Nineteen-year-old Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford), who was playing in the US Open junior championships at this time last year, defeated Alex Bolt of Australia 7-6(4), 7-6(2) to advance to a meeting with Hamad Medjedovic of Serbia for a place in the main draw. The men's qualifying draw is here.

Other Americans to advance to the final round of qualifying are recent Texas graduate Eliot Spizzirri, Mitchell Krueger, Maxime Cressy(UCLA), Usue Arconada, Ann Li, Varvara Lepchenko, Hailey Baptise and Elli Mandlik. Baptiste will play rising University of Texas freshman Maya Joint of Australia and Spizzirri's opponent is 2023 US Open boys champion Joao Fonseca of Brazil.

Thursday's order of play is here.

Two-time Kalamazoo champions went 1-1 in the round of 16 today at the ATP 250 Winston-Salem. Zachary Svjada, a lucky loser, was beaten by No. 15 seed Pavel Kotov of Russia 3-6, 6-3, 6-4; qualifier Learner Tien(USC) defeated Thiago Seyboth Wild of Brazil 6-4, 6-3. Tien, who has now broken into the ATP Top 200 in the live rankings, plays the winner of tonight's late match between wild card Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain and Aleks Vukic(Illinois) of Australia.

For more on the Americans' wins today, including that of No. 11 seed Alex Michelsen, who, like Tien, trains at the Tier 1 Performance Tennis Academy in Southern California, see this article from the ATP website.