Australia Looks for Athletes; USTA Names US Collegiate Team for International Event; Q&A with Evan Zeder; Watson's Decision

Despite Lleyton Hewitt's doubts (he recently endorsed Paul McNamee for the TA presidency, criticizing the current Geoff Pollard/Steve Wood/Craig Tiley administration), player development continues in Australia, and this story from Linda Pearce cites the "draft camp" that is underway to award scholarships for Tennis Australia training. Pearce writes:

The draft camp is about casting the net and identifying the best prospects. Tennis Australia's new head of men's tennis, Todd Woodbridge, concedes the transition from junior promise to senior success has been an issue. This, he hopes, will help.

"It's about being as professional as we possibly can," Woodbridge says. "The game of tennis has become incredibly athletic, so you've got to focus on that side of it and you've got to focus on the skills side as well, on who's got the ability to go out and actually just win a match, and not necessarily look the best."

The USTA has announced the six players who will compete for the United States in the Master U BNP Paribas International Collegiate Competition in December in France. They are: Austin Krajicek of Texas A & M, Steven Johnson of Southern California, Eric Quigley of Kentucky, Irina Falconi of Georgia Tech, Kristy Frilling of Notre Dame, and Caitlyn Whoriskey of Tennessee. For the complete release, click here.

The USTA collegiate Q and A series is gearing up again; today's conversation features clothing startup Athletic DNA's Evan Zeder, a member of Illinois's 2003 NCAA championship team.

2009 US Open girls champion Heather Watson was in London recently between competing in the $50,000 ITF Women's circuit in Barnstaple as a wild card and playing qualifying in the $25,000 this week in Glasgow, and during that time, she's done quite a few interviews. This one, by Donald McRae of the Guardian does a good job of capturing her ebullient personality and the timetable she had set for deciding between college and professional tennis.

Tags: college tennis, junior tennis, Tennis Australia, USTA, MASTER’U BNP PARIBAS, Evan Zeder, Heather Watson, Colette Lewis

Pro Circuit Update; ITA Small College Championships & Regionals

While I was in Tulsa covering the All-American and the Pan-American, there was plenty happening on the USTA Pro Circuit elsewhere. Ten days ago, Alison Riske defeated 17-year-old Christina McHale, saving six match points in the process, to take the title in the $50,000 tournament in Troy, Ala. With the points earned there, and with her first round victory in Kansas City's $50,000 event last week, McHale is now at a career-high ranking of 210. The 19-year-old Riske is just a few spots behind, and is also at a career high of 235.

Beatrice Capra won her first Pro Circuit singles title at the $10,000 tournament in Williamsburg, Va. prior to traveling to Tulsa for the ITF Junior B1, the Pan-American Closed. Quite a few players who might have competed in Tulsa were instead at the new $10,000 event in Cleveland, Ohio. Fifteen-year-old Kyle McPhillips made the singles final as a wild card, defeating No. 5 seed Grace Min, No. 3 seed Taka Bertrand and No. 2 seed Diana Nakic before losing to unseeded Jamie Hampton in the final. Min and Hampton won the doubles title, defeating McPhillips and her partner Lauren Davis in the semis and Bertrand and her partner Liz Lumpkin in the final.

Recent TCU graduate McCall Harkins won the ITF Women's Circuit's $10,000 event in Mexico last week.

The $15,000 Futures tournament in Austin, Texas was a nice showcase for Longhorn senior Dimitar Kutrovsky, a wild card who reached the final with wins over No. 5 seed Nick Monroe, top seed Victor Estrella, and 17-year-old Jack Sock, who made the semifinals. Sock, a wild card, defeated No. 4 seed Matej Bocko in the first round and No. 8 seed Dennis Zivkovic in the quarterfinals before falling to Kutrovsky. Michael McClune, the No. 2 seed, won the tournament, his second Futures win in as many months. Cory Parr won yet another Futures doubles title, this time with former Aggie Conor Pollock. In the Tiburon Challenger in California, former Minnesota star Harsh Mankad, the ITA Indoor champion in 2001, and former Virginia star Treat Huey, who won the ITA Indoor doubles title in 2007, took their second challenger-level doubles championship.

The Texas College Tennis Blog is following the many Texas collegians in these local events, including this week's Pro Circuit tournament in Mansfield. Fifteen-year-old Mitchell Kreuger has qualified for the main draw, where he'll play A&M's Austin Krajicek in the first round. Sock is in on a special exemption, Raymond Sarmiento and Pan-American champion Sekou Bangoura Jr. received wild cards, and Jordan Cox and Bob van Overbeek, who has committed to Florida, qualified.

The Calabasas Challenger this week features collegiate rivals Bradley Klahn of Stanford and Steve Johnson of USC, both of whom received wild cards. Klahn has advanced to the second round with a three-set win over former Trojan Gary Sacks.

See the usta.com ProCircuit results page for complete draws and results.

The national small college "super bowl" champions were crowned yesterday, with South African Damian Hume of Collin County (Texas) CC, the Junior/Community College champion, winning the ITA Indoor berth. Sona Novakova of Armstrong Atlantic won the women's overall title.

Retaining the wild card for the small college champion is about the only qualification that remained intact for the ITA Indoor. Instead of inviting all the quarterfinalists from the All-American, it is now the semifinalists, and with the expanded regions, now at 12, only the regional winner receives an automatic bid. There is no wild card for the consolation winner at the All-American, as had been the case previously. There are now two wild cards for the host school (I'm not sure how this will work when the USTABJK National Tennis Center hosts beginning next year), an ITA wild card and 12 at-large bids. For the method of selecting at-large entries, see the D1 Coaches Meeting Materials document on the ITA website.

A few regionals have been completed. Mortiz Baumann of Wisconsin won the Midwest Regional title, defeating Notre Dame's Casey Watt in the final. Illinois's Marek Czerwinski and Dennis Nevolo won the doubles. North Carolina's Clay Donato won the Carolina Region in singles, with Duke's Reid Carleton and Henrique Cunha taking the doubles. In the Southwest, Robert Farah and Steve Johnson won the doubles; the singles title is between UCLA's Amit Inbar and Pepperdine's Alex Llompart and will be played on Tuesday. In the Northeast region, Harvard's Alistair Felton and Andy Nguyen won the doubles, with the singles semis and finals on Tuesday.

On the women's side, Boise State's Pichittra Thongdach won the Mountain regional in singles, with BYU's McCall Jones and Megan Price taking the doubles.

Most of the regionals are taking place this coming weekend.

Tags: college tennis, junior tennis, Pro Circuit, ITA Indoor Championships, Wilson/ITA Regional Championships, Texas College Tennis Blog, Kyle McPhillips, Colette Lewis

All-American Slideshow, Wrap-Up

I'm returning to Michigan today (although with the cold and cloudy weather in Tulsa, I feel as if I never left), so it's time to begin looking back at the two tournaments held at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center the past ten days. First, I'm wrapping up the Men's D'Novo ITA All-American, with this slideshow and Thursday's recap for the Tennis Recruiting Network. The ITF Pan-American Closed slideshow will be posted next week.

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Tags: college tennis, D'Novo ITA All-American Championships, Tennis Recruiting Network, Slideroll, Colette Lewis

Bouchard Survives Goldfeld's Comeback to Win Girls Pan-American Championship; Bangoura Defeats Frank in Boys Final

©Colette Lewis 2009--
Tulsa, OK--

With her right knee taped, her left thigh wrapped, and suffering from a runny nose and cough, Eugenie Bouchard had more than enough reasons to concede Saturday's Pan-American Closed girls championship.

Ester Goldfeld had come back from 5-1 down in the third set to force a tiebreaker, saving two match points when serving at 3-5, and over three hours into their match, nothing had been decided. Bouchard may have been dismayed on the inside, but outwardly there was no sign of frustration, as she kept bouncing between points and swinging away. All that positive energy paid off, when by a razor-thin margin Bouchard claimed her first Grade 1 title, taking a 6-7(7), 6-3, 7-6(4) decison on yet another cold and breezy day at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center.

"I stayed positive and that really helped me, especially in the tiebreaker," said the 15-year-old Canadian. "I can't keep thinking about what could have happened, what did happen, how I was ahead, all that stuff. I had to stay positive, and I did that."

Bouchard had become accustomed to long dramatic matches, having played four of them prior to the final, coming from a set down in two of them. Although Bouchard was up 4-1 in the opening set, Goldfeld fought back, a scenario that would play out in each of the three sets. Goldfeld saved a set point serving at 5-6 and again at 6-7 in the tiebreaker, closing out the 90 minute set with two forehand winners sandwiched around a service winner.

In the second set Bouchard was again unable to put away Goldfeld, failing to capitalize on a a set point serving at 5-2, but she took the set by breaking Goldfeld with a forehand pass at 3-5, 30-40. After two and a half hours, the match was even.

In the third set, Bouchard took a 5-1 lead, as the 16-year-old Goldfeld made error after error, failing to reach a game point on any of her first three service games. But at that stage of match, Goldfeld decided she needed to change her outlook.

"At 1-5, I just told myself I didn't care, and all of a sudden, I started coming back, went with the flow," said Goldfeld. "I just started to get a couple of more balls in, and she started tightening up. I saw that and took advantage of it."

An indication of Goldfeld's more relaxed play came on the first match point, when serving at 2-5, ad out, Goldfeld tried a drop shot. It was a good one, and although Bouchard got to it, she steered her response into the doubles alley. Goldfeld's backhand came to her assitance on the second match point, with a clean down the line winner, and she got back on serve by breaking Bouchard in the next game. A rare love hold for Goldfeld made it 5-5, and in her next service game Bouchard was down 30-40, facing the prospect of dropping her fifth straight game. She saved that break point with a forehand winner, and two backhand errors by Goldfeld put Bouchard in the lead again. Goldfeld kept her nerve serving at 5-6, sending the match into the deciding tiebreaker with a backhand winner at 40-15.

Bouchard took a 3-0 lead in the tiebreaker, but given Bouchard's history with leads, Goldfeld had no reason for concern. Bouchard gave the two minibreaks right back, but took a 4-2 lead with a backhand winner. After Goldfeld pounded a forehand winner to make it 4-3, Bouchard hit a forehand winner down the line, with the determination to stay aggressive evident in her every swing. After her backhand error made it 6-3 for Bouchard, Goldfeld saved her third match point by finishing a long rally with a forehand putaway at the net. On match point number four, another long and tense rally ended it, when Bouchard made a difficult putaway on a defensive floater. She let out a high-pitched scream and bounded toward the net, to shake the hand of a disappointed Goldfeld.

"There are a lot of positives that I can take from this tournament," Goldfeld said, after she had taken several minutes to compose herself. "I did better than I did here last year, and I didn't break any racquets," she said with a laugh. "I've been trying really hard the last couple of months to control my emotions and stay stable."

Despite her cold and her hamstring strain, Bouchard was feeling only happiness after the match.

"I feel great now," she said. "I don't feel any injuries, I feel perfect. I'm just so happy all the hard work paid off."



The boys final had the ingredients for a lengthy match as well, with two of the most consistent juniors on the circuit, No. 3 seed Mitchell Frank and No. 9 seed Sekou Bangoura Jr., facing off.

There were certainly numerous long rallies throughout the contest, but it was Bangoura who was the steadier player, and he emerged with a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

One break decided the first set, with Bangoura breaking at 3-3. In the second set, the 17-year-old Floridian twice was up a break, only to give it right back. With Frank serving at 3-3 40-0, he generously conceded a point to Bangoura that the chair had called out, and Bangoura went on to win the game.

"I hit a second serve return--I thought it was in--and he gave it to me," Bangoura said. "If I had missed that shot, we still could have been out there."

Bangoura held in the next game, after just one deuce, and it looked as if he would be forced to serve it out when Frank took a 40-0 lead again. But Bangoura worked his way back into the game, denied Frank his fourth game point, and on his third opportunity, stroked a forehand pass to earn his first Grade 1 victory.

"It felt like it was my time," Bangoura said. "The indoor (matches), it was such a long grind, I was hoping maybe I deserve this. I'll just go out and fight and see what happens."

Frank, who celebrated his 17th birthday on Friday, was pleased with his tournament, if not his form in the final.

"He played really well, and I didn't play near my best," said the Virginian, who won the Grade 1 International Spring Championships in April. "I had opportunities and just didn't take advantage of them. The whole tournament I wasn't feeling perfect, not a hundred percent, but to get to the finals not playing a hundred percent, that's one of the most important things to taking it to the next level, to be able win when you're not at your best. If you would have told me last weekend I was going to make the finals, I'd be pretty happy. But Sekou deserved it. Congratulations to him."

The girls doubles final ended after just one point, when an ill Beatrice Capra and her partner Alexandra Cercone retired. Capra became sick during the night on Friday, and was in no condition to compete, giving the title to Gabriela Dabrowski and Nicole Gibbs.

For complete results, see the TennisLink site.

Tags: junior tennis, Eugenie Bouchard, Sekou Bangoura Jr., Pan-American Closed, Colette Lewis

Frank & Bangoura Meet for Boys Title; Goldfeld & Bouchard in Girls Final at Pan-American Closed

©Colette Lewis 2009--
Tulsa, OK--

The sun finally made an appearance at the Pan-American Closed for Friday's semifinals, and it shone on two contrasting story lines. Ester Goldfeld and Mitchell Frank advanced to the finals with the loss of one game each, while Eugenie Bouchard and Sekou Bangoura Jr. navigated their way through three-hour ordeals.

Bangoura's 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 win over fourth seed Raymond Sarmiento was marred by officiating that had both boys frustrated and on the verge of meltdowns. At one stage the boys were relying on each other rather than on the chair and linespeople, with Bangoura agreeing to play a let on a winner by Sarmiento that was called out by a line judge. As the line calling errors mounted, the players lost all confidence in the officials, and few points were decided without disagreement on a call.

"It was unreal. I don't even know what to say," said Bangoura, seeded ninth. "I'd be wanting to just blow up right there, but I said to myself the match would be over, you'd lose for sure. So keep going, just keep going. I got lucky I guess."

The key stage in the match was in the third game of the final set. Sarmiento took a 2-0 lead, as he had in the opening two sets, but couldn't make it 3-0, wasting six game points in the eight-deuce game. There was controversy on nearly every point; the chair called the score wrong three or four times and once Sarmiento dropped that game, he was unable to recover. He called a trainer for treatment on his right leg after being broken for the second time in the third set, and limped a bit in the remaining games, all of which he lost.

"At the end there he mentally checked out I think," said Bangoura. "I thought he was moving well, that's why I was surprised when he called the trainer. I don't know for sure, but it seemed like he mentally checked out. It was just one call after another after another and not just against him but against me too, but that affects him too."

Asked why he thought he won the three-hour match, Bangoura responded, "It's always been my nature to stay cool. I just wanted it. I wanted the match, so I just kept telling myself keep going no matter what the calls were, just try to stay cool and put the ball back in the court."

Bangoura is expecting another lengthy match on Saturday against Frank.

"He doesn't miss at all," said Bangoura, who also lists consistency as one of his own strengths. "I'll be a tough match, a long one."

Frank, who defeated unseeded Nick Chappell 6-0, 6-1 in a match that took an hour and twenty minutes to complete, agreed that the final could be a marathon.

"He's always tough, no matter the situation. He's very consistent and he doesn't miss much," said Frank, who celebrated his 17th birthday Friday. "It should be a good battle."

Goldfeld's 6-0, 6-1 win over No. 4 seed Katarena Paliivets of Canada was as easy as the score indicates. Paliivets rarely was able to get a lead in a game, and in less than 45 minutes the No. 7 seed was in the final.

Bouchard took just shy of three hours to down No. 5 seed Monica Puig 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, but the 15-year-old Canadian had plenty of experience with three-setters throughout the week.

"It was my fourth of this tournament," said Bouchard, who recently returned from Mexico after competing on the Canadian Junior Fed Cup team. "Definitely I feel more confident and I believe in myself, so even if I'm down, or I lose a set, I know I can do it, pull it out in the end."

In the opening set, Bouchard was serving for the first set at 5-1, but Puig, who competes for Puerto Rico, began to find her rhythm off the ground to bring it all the way back to 5-4. She dropped her serve to give Bouchard the first set, and then took a 5-0 lead in the second set, only to see Bouchard win three straight games, but drop serve at 3-5.

The third set didn't feature any big leads, but Puig began to double fault with regularity in her service games, and Bouchard was able to force errors from Puig's forehand when she could get Puig on the run. On match point, the 16-year-old from Miami double faulted, the second consecutive match that Bouchard had won in that anticlimatic fashion.

Goldfeld defeated Bouchard in the first round at last year's International Grass Courts, but both are playing in their first Grade 1 final.

"I'm sure she'd confident, like I am," said Bouchard, who has trained with Goldfeld at Nick Saviano's Academy in Florida. "I'm excited to go out there, and we'll see what happens."

The boys doubles semifinals and finals were both played on Saturday, with the final taking place under the lights at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center. No. 4 seeds Brandon Burke of Jamaica and Darian King of Barbados claimed the championship with a 7-6(4), 3-6, 10-8 win over No. 8 seeds Emmett Egger and Shane Vinsant.

Burke and King took a 7-1 lead in the deciding match tiebreaker, only to see the Americans win 7 of the next 8 points to make it 8-8. Egger missed a volley to give Burke and King a match point, and they converted it, with Burke slashing a winner up the middle for the victory.

It was the fifth doubles win of the year for the pair, and their experience as a team helped them through those tense moments according to King.

"It comes from all the practice matches we play, all the matches in total," said King. "We play a lot together so we are really accustomed to each other's games. The momentum started to go their way a little when it came back to 7-6 and then 8-all, so I'm glad we came through with the victory."

The girls doubles final on Saturday will feature the top two seeds. Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Nicole Gibbs, the No. 2 seeds, will play top seeds Beatrice Capra and Alexandra Cercone.

Dabrowski and Gibbs earned a rare straight-set win in the semifinal, defeating unseeded Elisabeth Abanda and Elianne Douglas-Miron of Canada 6-3, 6-2. There was only one deuce/deciding point in the 16 games played, another rarity in the no-ad, match tiebreaker format.

Capra and Cercone trailed 6-2 in their match tiebreaker before winning the final eight points against No. 7 seeds Brooke Bolender and Lauren Herring. Capra and Cercone won 4-6, 6-1, 10-8.

For draws and results, see the TennisLink site.

Tags: junior tennis, Pan-American Closed, Ester Goldfeld, Eugenie Bouchard, Sekou Bangoura Jr., Mitchell Frank, Colette Lewis

Bangoura Defeats Top Seed Kudla as Pan-American Finally Goes Outdoors

©Colette Lewis 2009--

The drizzle and rain of the past three days finally subsided, allowing all of Thursday's matches to be played outdoors at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center on the campus of the University of Tulsa. It was cold and cloudy, but Sekou Bangoura Jr. pronounced it a "good day", as the No. 9 seed ousted top seed Denis Kudla 7-6(6), 6-3 in the boys quarterfinals.

Kudla was serving for the first set at 5-3 but Bangoura broke twice in succession, only to lose his serve up 6-5.

"It was a weird set," said the 17-year-old Floridian. "I went up a break, then he went up a break, then in the tiebreak, I went up 4-1 and he brought it back and it was 8-6. It was just a momentum changing match, one after another."

Usually calm and unemotional on court, Bangoura gave an emphatic first pump and "c'mon" when he converted his third set point to win the tiebreaker. He had lost to Kudla the last three times they had played, so was obviously eager to end that streak, sensing that Kudla was not at his best.

"I just wanted to go out and grind my way through it," Bangoura said, although with his relaxed and fluid strokes, that verb doesn't seem apt. "Keep the ball in play and look for my opportunities. On these courts, the ball doesn't bounce very high and I hit really flat, so I would be on the run and hit a flat ball and it would kind of skid, and he'd make an error. In some instances, I got pretty lucky."

Bangoura admitted that he was having trouble with his serve throughout the match, so he was a bit nervous when serving for it at 5-3 in the second. Down 0-30, he won the next three points with help from his first serve, but hit a backhand into the net on his first match point. A long forehand gave Kudla a break point, but Bangoura saved that with a sharply angled cross court forehand winner after a long rally. Two Kudla forehand errors later, Bangoura had sealed the victory.

Bangoura's semifinal opponent is No. 4 seed Raymond Sarmiento, who continued his cruise through the draw with a 6-1, 6-3 win over No. 6 seed Dennis Novikov. In the other semifinal, also between two Americans, No. 3 seed Mitchell Frank will face unseeded Nick Chappell.

Chappell reached his second consecutive Grade 1 semifinal with a 6-3, 7-5 win over No. 5 seed Junior Ore, and the Indiana junior has yet to lose a set in the tournament. Frank, a junior from Virginia, is also 8 for 8 in sets this week, although he did need tiebreakers in Wednesday's third round and in today's quarterfinal, where he came back from 4-1 down in the opening set for a 7-6(2), 6-3 win over No. 7 seed Bob van Overbeek.

In the girls quarterfinals, every match featured a seeded player against an unseeded player, and in all four instances, the favorite prevailed.

Number seven seed Ester Goldfeld, the sole American remaining in the girls singles, defeated Blair Shankle 6-4, 6-3. Shankle had upset No. 2 seed Madison Keys in the second round on Wednesday. Goldfeld will face No. 4 seed Katarena Paliivets of Canada, who ended the run of Oklahoma's Mia Lancaster 6-2, 6-3.

Puerto Rico's Monica Puig, seeded fifth, defeated Kaitlin Ray 6-3, 6-4 in a match that featured lengthy point after lengthy point, and was much tighter than the score indicates. Number eight seed Eugenie Bouchard of Canada beat Rachel Kahan 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-3. Kahan, who had taken out top seed Beatrice Capra in third round play Wednesday, was two points from victory serving at 5-4 30-15 in the second set, but two double faults in that game proved her undoing. Bouchard picked up her game late in the tiebreaker, staying in points longer, and Kahan made more ground stroke errors than she had against Capra.

At 3-3 in the third set, Kahan's serve continued to give her trouble, and as the double faults piled up, Bouchard had only to hold her serve once to record the win.

The doubles semfinalists were determined Thursday afternoon, with six of the eight matches decided by match tiebreakers.

No. 2 boys seeds Kudla and Ore lost to No. 6 seeds Nikolai Haessig and Edward Nguyen of Canada 6-3, 1-6, 10-5. The Canadians will face No. 8 seeds Emmett Egger and Shane Vinsant, who defeated No. 3 seeds Pavel Krainik and Dennis Novikov 4-6, 6-3, 10-7. No. 4 seeds Brandon Burke and Darian King beat unseeded Damien David and Samuel Monette 3-6, 7-6(4), 10-7 to move to the semifinals against unseeded Alexis Carlos and Marco Aurei Nunez. Carlos and Nunez defeated unseeded Chase Curry and Jeffrey Offerdahl 6-4, 6-3.

The TennisLink website hasn't updated the scores, so I won't give them for the girls, but No. 7 seeds Brooke Bolender and Lauren Herring were the only team to advance to the semifinals in straight sets. Bolender and Herring defeated No. 4 seeds Bouchard and Monica Turewicz in their second match of the day. They will play top seeds Beatrice Capra and Alexandra Cercone, who dropped the first set, but came back to win the match tiebreaker against No. 8 seeds Khristina Blajkevitch and Kate Fuller.

Unseeded Elizabeth Abanda and Elianne Douglas-Miron won a match tiebreaker from No. 6 seeds Fausthyara Pietersz and Sachia Vickery to earn a semifinal contest with No. 2 seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Nicole Gibbs. Dabrowski and Gibbs were down 6-2 in the match tiebreaker against Goldfeld and Annie Mulholland, seeded fifth, but won the final eight points to end the match.

For draws, see the TennisLink site.