Elias Ymer, the 18-year-old from Sweden, was once again a Davis Cup hero this past weekend, winning the fifth rubber against Latvia to keep his country in the Europe/Africa Group 1. Ymer had also won a fifth rubber last fall against Denmark in another relegation playoff. NCAA doubles champion Mikelis Libietis of Tennessee was on the Latvian team, but saw action only in the doubles match, which Sweden's Robert Lindstedt(Pepperdine) and Johan Brunstrom(SMU) won in five sets.
At the Grade 5 tournament in Burlington, Ontario last week, 16-year-old Matthew Gamble of New York won his first ITF junior tournament, having played only one ITF tournament previously--the same tournament last year. The unseeded Gamble defeated second seed, Felix Auger Aliassime of Canada, who is 14, 7-5, 6-0. Gamble had defeated top seed Elijah Ogilvy of Canada in the semifinals.
This week the ITF Junior Circuit in the US begins its late fall run at the Grade 4 in Atlanta, with Andie Daniell and Emil Reinberg as the top seeds. 2013 girls champion Kennedy Shaffer is also in the field.
Naomi Cavaday of Great Britain had retired, but at age 25, she is returning to tennis. In this article from the Mail, Cavaday describes her struggles with bulimia and depression as she attempted to deal with the pressures of a professional career. In addition to the $10,000 event in Egypt the article mentions, Cavaday just won another $10K tournament last week in Sweden.
As I mentioned yesterday, CiCi Bellis has been supplanted at the top of the ITF Junior rankings by Osaka Mayor's Cup champion Shilin Xu of China. But as Jonathan Kelley notes in his weekly post for his On The Rise blog, Bellis is moving up in the WTA rankings after her two $25K titles this month. She is at a career-high 257. Macon finalist Grace Min is also at a career-high of 102. Min leads in the USTA Australian Open wild card race, with the current standing below. The final round of qualifying for the second women's $50K tournament of the three, in New Braunfels Texas, is Tuesday. University of Virginia junior Julia Elbaba and University of Florida freshman Josie Kuhlman are among those still alive for a main draw berth. Anna Tatishvili and Min are the top two seeds.
Qualifying was completed today at the first men's Challenger in the Wild Card series, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Kevin King(Georgia Tech), Daniel Nguyen(USC), France's Laurent Lokoli and Denmark's Frederik Nielsen are the four qualifiers. The big news of the day however, was the defaulting of Darian King of Barbados, who angrily slammed his racquet at the back curtain near a line judge after losing a point to Ed Corrie. The line judge went down--in the slow motion it looks like the racquet bounced off the curtain and hit her--and he was immediately defaulted. The video is below.
Daniel Rayl, who has committed to Notre Dame for next year, won the Indiana State High School singles title for the second straight year. With Ronnie Schneider winning the title in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and Rayl in 2013 and 2014, Bryan Smith has coached the last five champions. For more on Rayl's victory this year, see this article in the Indianapolis Star.
The USTA has announced that the Collegiate Clay Court Championships this weekend in Orlando will again be streamed on ESPN3 and WatchESPN. Times and dates for that streaming can be found here. There is no mention of juniors in the release, so I assume they are not playing this year as they did last year.
The Junior Team Tennis 18 and under National Championships were won by the North Richland Hills, Texas(Advanced) and Yardley, Pennsylvania (Intermediate) teams. For more on the competition last weekend in South Carolina, see the USTA website.
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