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Sunday, May 29, 2016

Collins and Carter Meet for Women's D-I Singles Title; McDonald and Torpegaard in Men's Championship Match; US Girls 6-0 in First Day of French Junior Championships

Virginia's Danielle Collins won her first NCAA Division I women's singles title in 2014 and will play for a second in Tulsa on Monday against North Carolina's Hayley Carter.  Collins, the No. 2 seed, defeated No. 7 seed Luisa Stefani of Pepperdine 7-6(7), 6-4, while Carter, the top seed, saved a match point in her 1-6, 7-5, 6-2 win over No. 8 seed Sinead Lohan of Miami.


Collins didn't make it easy on herself in either set, getting big leads in both, only to see Stefani fight back.

In the first set, Collins served for the set at 5-2, 5-4 and 6-5, unable to close, but outlasted the freshman from Brazil in the tiebreaker. In the second set, Collins built a 4-0 and 5-1 lead, but Stefani won three games in a row and was up 40-15 serving at 4-5.  Collins got the game to deuce and blistered a forehand return on the deciding point to close out the match.

Collins' press conference after the match can be found here.



Carter trailed 6-1, 5-4, when Lohan served for the match. After Lohan went down 15-40, she had a match point on the deuce point, but Carter won it, the second of the six straight games she would take from the sophomore from Ireland. Lohan would get that break back, but Carter took over after winning a deciding point at 2-all, closing out the match by taking four straight games.

Carter's press conference after the match can be found here.

Collins and Carter, both playing No. 1 for their teams, met three times this year, with Carter winning the March dual match meeting 7-6(5) 6-3 in Charlottesville. In the semifinals of the ACC tournament, Collins lead 6-3, 2-2 when North Carolina clinched the dual match. Carter was leading 6-4, 2-6, 5-4 with match points when Virginia clinched the round of 16 match in the team event in Tulsa a week ago Thursday, leaving that match unfinished.  Back in the September, they were set to meet in the final of the Oracle Masters in Malibu, but Carter was unable to compete due to an injury.

The winner of Monday's match is expected to get a main draw wild card into the US Open, the usual protocol for the USTA if the champion is an American.

In the men's final, No. 6 seed Mackenzie McDonald of UCLA will face
top seed Mikael Torpegaard of Ohio State after both won matches completed indoors due to lightning in the area.


Torpegaard, a sophomore from Denmark, and No. 5 seed Cameron Norrie of TCU were on serve at 3-4 in the first set when play was halted, although Norrie was down 0-30 on his serve. Torpegaard broke and held for the first set, then broke Norrie to open the second set. Torpegaard gave the break back on a deciding point to make it 3-3, but won a deciding point at 4-4 to break Norrie and served out the match.

Torpegaard's press conference is here.


McDonald had more difficulty with Virginia Tech's Joao Monteiro, a 9-16 seed, before posting a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory.  McDonald had secured the first set, winning three straight deciding points from 3-2 up, when the match was moved inside. Monteiro appeared to adjust more quickly and claimed the second set, then took a 2-0 lead in the third. But McDonald won a deciding point to get it back to 2-2, then won three straight games with some aggressive ground strokes that eventually wore Monteiro down. The senior from Portugal held on a deciding point/ match point at 5-2, but McDonald earned three more with a great backhand winner for 40-15 and the junior from California closed it out on his third match point.

McDonald will also play for the doubles title on Monday with partner Martin Redlicki. In a match played outdoors, that finished after 9:30 p.m. local time, the No. 2 seeds defeated unseeded Alex Lawson and Quentin Monaghan of Notre Dame 7-5, 6-7(5), 10-8.  McDonald and Redlicki will play unseeded Arthur Rinderknech and Jackson Withrow of Texas A&M, who beat unseeded David Biosca and Rogerio Ribeiro of East Tennessee State, 6-2, 5-7, 10-7.

The women's doubles final could have, but will not feature one of the singles finalists, after Carter and Whitney Kay, the top seeds, lost to No. 4 seeds Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr of Cal 6-4, 4-6, 10-7.  Manasse and Starr will play No. 3 seeds Brooke Austin and Kourtney Keegan of Florida, who defeated No. 5 seeds Catherine Harrison and Kyle McPhillips of UCLA 4-6, 6-3, 10-5.

The finals will be streamed on NCAA.com, with commentary, beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Complete results can be found on the Tulsa tournament central page.

In the first day of the French Open Junior Championships, all six US girls who played advanced to the second round.  No. 9 seed Usue Arconada defeated Tatiana Pieri of Italy 1-6, 6-4, 6-0; Caty McNally took out No. 6 seed Katie Swan 6-4, 6-3; No. 3 seed Kayla Day downed Loudmilla Bencheikh of France 6-2, 6-3; Claire Liu beat Sandra Bozinovic of France 6-1, 6-1; Alexandra Sanford defeated Emiliana Arango of Colombia 6-2, 6-1 and Morgan Coppoc ousted No. 11 seed and Wimbledon girls champion Sofya Zhuk of Russia 6-1, 6-0.

The US boys won three and lost three.  JJ Wolf fell to Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada, the No. 11 seed, 6-2, 6-1; Brandon Holt lost to Juan Carlos Aguilar of Bolivia 6-3, 6-2 and Vasil Kirkov, who served for the match at 5-4 in the third, lost to No. 12 seed Jurij Rodionov of Austria 6-1, 4-6, 7-5.  No. 3 seed Ulises Blanch defeated Duarte Vale of Portugal 6-2, 6-2, Nathan Ponwith took out No. 16 seed Youssef Hossam of Egypt 7-6(5), 6-4 and qualifier Gianni Ross prevailed over Yuta Shimizu of Japan 6-4, 5-7, 6-1.

Americans playing their first round matches Monday are Maria Mateas, No. 10 seed Sonya Kenin, Michaela Gordon, No. 2 seed Amanda Anisimova, No. 15 seed John McNally and Sam Riffice.  All of today's winners play their second round matches Monday, except for Sanford. The schedule for Monday is here.

The doubles draws were released today, with Arconada and Day the No. 2 seeds in the girls draw.  Blanch and Mate Valkusz of Hungary are the top seeds in the boys draw.

The ITF's article on the first day of play is available here.

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