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Thursday, June 26, 2014

Rubin, Gordon Advance in Wimbledon Junior Qualifying; US Women Have Good Day at Wimbledon; USTA Clay Court Wild Cards; Altamirano and Donaldson Meet in 2013 Kalamazoo Final Rematch

CiCi Bellis and Taylor Fritz lost today in the semifinals at the ITF Grade 1 in Roehampton, the warmup tournament for the Wimbledon Junior Championships, which begin on Saturday.  Bellis, the top seed, fell to No. 5 seed Kristina Schmiedlova of Slovakia 6-4, 6-2, while the unseeded Fritz was beaten by top seed Andrey Rublev of Russia 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.  Schmiedlova will meet unseeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in Friday's final, with Rublev's opponent No. 6 seed Johan Sebastien Tatlot of France.

For complete draws see the LTA website's home page.

The first round of qualifying for the Wimbledon Junior Championships was completed at Roehampton today, with Noah Rubin and Michaela Gordon advanced to the the second and final qualifying round.  Rubin, the top seed, beat Mateusz Terczynski of Poland 6-2, 6-3 and No. 5 seed Gordon, playing her first match on grass this season, defeated Morgane Michiels of Belgium 6-1, 6-2.  No 11 seed Raquel  Pedraza, the other US player in qualifying, lost to Mirabelle Njoze of Great Britain 6-2, 6-4.

The draws and Friday's order of play can also be found at the LTA website.

John Isner is the last US man standing in the men's singles draw at Wimbledon, with Jack Sock, Sam Querrey and Denis Kudla all losing their second round matches today.  The news for the US women was much better, with Madison Keys, Serena Williams and Alison Riske joining Lauren Davis and Venus Williams in the round of 32.  Vicky Duval's second round match with 2013 ITF junior champion Belinda Bencic of Switzerland had to be rescheduled for Friday due to evening rain at Wimbledon.



Nineteen-year-old Australian Nick Kyrgios, the only teenager in the ATP Top 200, saved nine match points today to defeat No. 13 seed Richard Gasquet of France 10-8 in the fifth set and will play another former ITF world No. 1 junior,  Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic in the third round.

Complete draws can be found at the Wimbledon website.

Lisa Stone at the Parenting Aces blog has posted the names of the wild cards for the USTA Clay Courts next month.  I would be willing to bet that all eight wild cards WILL be used for the Kalamazoo 18s this year.

Two players who will need them--last year's finalist Jared Donaldson and winner Collin Altamirano--will meet again tomorrow in the quarterfinals of the $15,000 Futures in Oklahoma City.

10 comments:

Dan said...

Elite US Juniors gave up on clays (and most of the USTA tournaments), and we now have a very so-so tournament down in Florida this year.

Lesson for USTA - Best players will seek out the best tennis and it is not in the land of the #1000 ranked national player who got in under a quota.

disaster said...

The USTA's first mission should not be Coaching Players but to provide a Tournament Structure which provides the best competition for our USA players. If USTA wants to develop players, then provide a tournament structure that gets the best players to play their respected best events. This seems it would be so simple after ALL these years but it is massively regressing.

USTA Nationals are getting weaker and weaker. As are the Sectional tournaments.

Everything should be synced from: Local, State, Sectional and National.

Joe said...

Haven't you noticed? The best USA players have essentially told the USTA to stick their tournaments up their you know what and are playing ITF tournaments instead.

ITFs feeling it said...

Ironically the ITF system is also feeling the weight with ITF 5s and 4s filling with average players who are fleeing their section as well. It's not the best players, but people that can afford to travel to ITFs. They are playing ITFs when they haven't won anything in their section, let alone anything nationally. Those ITF levels have become so watered down in the last 12 months and look more like the old national 4s and 5s (sectional) events in terms of tennis level. What a domino effect on junior tennis.

Cory said...

Blue chips and 5 stars - in response to the comment below, I tried to find a tournament that fell the same time as a national tournament - there is one where players need to choose as their is some overlap.

National L3 - End of Oct
Evert ITF October - End of Oct.

http://www.itftennis.com/juniors/tournaments/tournament/info.aspx?tournamentid=1100029441

This is a weak field? Almost every player is a blue chip or a 5 star at the ITF.

Now compare that field to the national that weekend Oct 2013 level 3.

Night and day -
the players at the L3 ( 5 star to 3 star)
and the ITF ( blue chip and 5 star).

Weak field at Clay said...

Clay courts are terrible this year. I guess it all blew up in the USTA's face... Looks like a L3.

Changing landscape said...

Agree, ITFs are changing. ITF 5s in North America have become very entry level compared to the clout they use to have. Now many mid level players see them as a good place to start and get out the USTA and overcrowded US ITF system, which is good if you can afford the travel. The old rule was you didn't play ITFs till you dominated or won some national events. Not true anymore, they have become a training ground with pretty weak draws. The US ITFs will get better players because of the fleeing from the national system and their cost effectiveness. The quota system is wreaking havoc. Why spend the money/time to send a top player to play 3 or four sub-par rounds before you hit someone worth playing in the semis or finals, if you ever do.

In terms of clays, it's clay and its U.S. For many college coaches it doesn't mean so much and players have caught on to that. Combine that with lack of interest in a national ranking and a player's resources could be better spent elsewhere.

Marty Collins said...

With no names attached all this stuff is pejorative pablum. Baseless assumptions. Happy Sunday

Mr. No Name said...

sounds like someone needs a hug…:)

Names don't validate a thing... said...

It is apparent to me that these posts are made by parents of junior players that are living it everyday and have experience raising their kid through the junior system. Don't need their names to make the points any more valid than they are. Many times it is obvious, whether named or not, those that have never personally raised a player to high levels or at all, and give opinions because they are involved with jr. tennis, but only as an outlier. That includes many coaches that don't foot the bill or really understand the national and ITF systems.