Ruud Takes ITF Grade 1 Coffee Bowl Title; Daavettila Wins Two Wild Cards for Dow Corning Classic; Rain Continues to Plague Pro Circuit Events

Last night in Costa Rica, 16-year-old Casper Ruud of Norway won his first ITF Grade 1 event, taking the boys singles title at the Coffee Bowl.  The fifth-seeded Ruud, the son of former ATP top 40 pro Christian Ruud, defeated No. 2 seed Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 in front of the usual large stadium court crowd at the Costa Rica Country Club.   Next for Ruud is the Grade 1 Copa Gatorade in Venezuela next week, where he is the No. 3 seed.

The field in Venezuela is not as strong as Costa Rica, with several the top players leaving for Australia's Grade 1 in Traralgon and the Australian Open juniors. Americans in the draw in Venezuela include No. 2 seed Ulises Blanch, No. 4 seed Emil Reinberg, No. 8 seed Ndindi Mwaruka, No. 13 seed Anna Dollar, No. 14 seed Andrea Kevakian and Micheline Aubuchon.  Marcelo Barrios Vera of Chile and Evgeniya Levashova of Russia are the top two seeds.

I plan on covering the women's $100,000 Dow Corning Tennis Classic in Midland early next month, for a few days at least, so I was particularly interested in the tournaments they held this weekend for wild cards into the main draw of singles and doubles, and Williamston High School junior Sara Daavettila won them both. Daavettila, who won the Division 3 state high school title last spring, lost in the first round of qualifying at the Dow Corning as a wild card last February.  In this weekend's tournament, she was the No. 4 seed, and she defeated No. 2 seed Caroline Dolehide 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 in semifinals and No. 1 seed Elizabeth Profit 6-1, 6-0 in the final.  She and 14-year-old Alyvia Jones of Midland won the doubles wild card, beating top seeds Profit and Bianca Moldovan 6-4, 7-5.  Complete results can be found at the TennisLink site.

Rain in Florida and in California made for a difficult day for the Pro Circuit events there.  The semifinals of the Los Angeles $15,000 Futures, rained out completely yesterday, were finished just a short while ago, with Mitchell Krueger defeating Dimitar Kutrovsky of Bulgaria 6-4, 6-2 and Jason Jung outlasting Taylor Fritz 1-6, 7-6(7), 6-4.  Jung and Krueger will play the final later tonight.  The qualifying for the $15,000 Futures in Long Beach next week was also washed out.

I'm not sure on the status of the final of the $10,000 Futures in Plantation, where Baylor's Julian Lenz and Sweden's Christian Lindell were tied 3-3 in the first set when rain set in there this morning.  The first round of qualifying for the $25,000 women's event in Plantation was rained out with just a few matches completed, and the qualifying for the $10,000 men's tournament in Sunrise is also behind schedule due to the rain.

At the $50,000 Challenger in Happy Valley, Australia, Ryan Harrison won his first tournament since claiming the Savannah Challenger back in 2013, defeating Marcos Baghdatis 7-6(8), 6-4 in the final.  At the $75,000 Noumea Challenger, Austin Krajicek and Tennys Sandgren took the doubles title, beating Jarmere Jenkins and Bradley Klahn 7-6(2), 6-7(5), 10-5 in an all-collegiate final.