After a week with no titles the former/current guys are storming back this week with several in contention at Futures, Challengers, and ATP Masters events across the world.
The big story yesterday was #13 John Isner (Georgia ’07) knocking off the great #2 Roger Federer 7-6(3), 3-6, 7-6(5) in the 3rd round of the Paris Masters. Isner hammered 27 aces with 0 double faults and won 73% of points on his serve. Big John also won a higher % of points on Federer’s serve (29%) than Roger won on John’s (27%). Next up for John in the quarterfinals is the speedy Spaniard David Ferrer. Ferrer owns a 5-1 H2H advantage though that was the same margin that Federer had against John prior to yesterday.
2 former collegians are into the quarterfinals of the $50K Charlottesville (Va) Challenger (Hard-Indoor) with #537 Noah Rubin (Wake Forest ’15) set to meet #409 Stefan Kozlov and #367 Dimitar Kutrovsky (Texas ’10) matched up against #102 Tim Smyczek. For more details on the Charlottesville Challenger check out Jonathan Kelley’s blog On the Rise with Jo on site this week providing daily recaps and several intriguing interviews including ones with Noah Rubin and Ryan Shane,
2 former collegians and 2 current ones are into the quarterfinals of the $10K Birmingham, Alabama USA F31 Future (Clay). Mississippi State junior #967 Rishab Agarwal will meet East Tennessee State junior #1881 David Biosca after Agarwal beat #581 Jared Hiltzik (Illinois Sr) 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(1) and Biosca upset #478 Wil Spencer (Georgia ’12) 6-3, 6-4. #569 Jean-Yves Aubone (Florida St ’10) will meet #1419 Mikhail Vaks after a 6-4, 6-2 win over Alabama sophomore Korey Lovett. #471 Evan King (Michigan ’13) will face #562 Evan Song after a 6-4, 7-5 win over Memphis sophomore #2076 Ryan Peniston. Ryan Lipman (Vanderbilt ’14), Piotr Lomacki (Miami FL Soph), and Alex Rybakov (TCU Commit) came up short in the 2nd round.
#106 Benjamin Becker (Baylor ’05) is playing the $35K Eckental, Germany Challenger (Carpet-Indoor) this week and he’ll meet #111 Dustin Brown in today’s quarterfinals.
#643 Lloyd Glasspool (Texas ’15) is into his 3rd Futures final since July after knocking off #500 Sam Barry 6-2, 6-4 in the semis of the $15K Tipton, Great Britain F10 Future (Hard-Indoor). Glasspool will meet #796 Neil Pauffley in the finals
#711 Eric Johnson (USC ’15) is into his 4th Futures semifinal since July after defeating #933 Gonzales Austin (Vanderbilt ’15) 6-7(5) 7-6(8), 6-0 in the $15K Heraklion, Greece F10 Future (Hard). Next up for EJ is #395 Alexandar Lazov.
#455 Nik Scholtz (Ole Miss ’15) is into his 7th Futures semifinal since June after a 6-7(1), 6-3, 6-2 win over #531 Javier Pulgar-Garcia (San Diego State ’12) in the quarters of the $10K Stellenbosch, South Africa F1 Future (Hard). Scholtz will meet #460 Lucas Miedler (19 yr old) in the semis.
#787 Anis Ghorbel (Drake ’13) is into his 2nd career Futures semifinal after a 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 win over #790 Antonie Hoang at the $10K El Kantaoui, Tunesia F30 Future (Hard). Next up is the #1 seed #246 Dmitry Popko (19 yr old) who is into his 14th Future semifinal this year.
#426 Marcos Giron (UCLA ’14) was looking for his first ever Challenger semifinal but came up just short falling 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(1) to the former junior #1 and former Wimbledon and Australian Open Junior champ #203 Luke Saville at the $50K Canberra Australia Challenger (Hard). Giron had a 2-0 lead in the 3rd set but wasn’t able to hold on to it. Giron will move back inside the top 400 and should be around 390 with his career high of 368 coming last December. Giron is back in action next week at the Wollongong Australia $15K Future.
Latest Comments