Sekou Bangoura (Florida ’11) picked up his fourth career Futures singles title with a straight set win over #274 Darian King in the finals of the the Winston-Salem USA F18 Futures (Hard). Bangoura broke King in a one-deuce game to go up 3-1 in the first but King broke back from 30/40 to make it 3-2. Bangoura made it three breaks in a row when he broke in a two-deuce game to go up 4-2 and a few games later he had a 6-3 first set. Bangoura broke from 15/40 to start the second set and then he broke again in a four-deuce game to go up 4-1. After a pair of holds Bangoura served it out in a two-deuce game to win it 6-3, 6-2.
Bangoura came close to not even making it out of the first round when he trailed Ryan Haviland 5-3 in the third but he won that match and every other match in three sets except for today’s straight setter.
Bangoura has now won a title in each of the last four years with three of those coming in the United States. Bangoura came into this week with a career high singles ranking of 271 so when these 27 points are added in next week he should be just inside 265.
Congrats to @USTAProCircuit Winston-Salem Futures Champion Sekou Bangoura and finalist Darian King. @ITFprocircuit pic.twitter.com/W8cpbDiHGEbigtimetennis (@bigtimetennis) June 19, 2016
Evan King (Michigan ’13) won his fifth career Futures singles title, and second in as many weeks, with a straight set win over #331 Gavin Van Peperzeel in the finals of the Buffalo, New York, USA F19 Futures (Clay). There were no breaks of serve in the first set but King went up an early mini-break in the tiebreak and made it hold up to take it 7-4. There was only one break in the second set and it came when King broke Van Peperzeel at love to go up 5-3. King went up 40-15 on his final service game and then after losing two straight points he won the final two to close out the 7-6(4), 6-3 win.
All five of King’s titles have come in the last 12 months and this was the third of those five that have come in the United States. It’s amazing that King was able to win last week in Japan on a hard court and then turn around and win in Buffalo this week on clay. The points from King’s win in Japan were added in today and that bumped him up to a new career high ranking of 336.
Arthur Rinderknech (Texas A&M Rising Jr) made it to his first career singles final, after coming all the way from the qualifying draw, but he couldn’t get that last win and fell to #362 Niels Desein in the finals of the Binche, Belgium, F1 Futures (Clay). Desein broke Rinderknech to start the match and then broke him again to go up 4-1 and would ultimately take the first set 6-2. Rinderknech opened up a 5-2 lead in the second but Desein held from 40/30, broke from 30/40, and then held from 40/15 to even it at 5-5. The set went to a tiebreak and Rinderknech took it 7-3 to force a third set. There were three straight holds to start the third set until Desein broke Rinderknech from 15/40 to go up 3-1. Desein would break again from 15/40 to go up 5-1 and then he’d serve out the match from 40/15 to win it 6-2, 6-7(3), 6-1.
The Wimbledon qualifying draw was released today and there are 12 former collegians in the draw with four of them set to face each in the opening round. Play gets underway on Monday morning at 11 a.m. London time – see the order of play here.
Marcelo Arevalo (Tulsa ’11) vs. Constant Lestienne
Daniel Nguyen (USC ’12) vs. Marton Fucsovics
[30] Saketh Myneni (Alabama ’10) vs. Tristan Lamasine
Alexander Sarkissian (Pepperdine ’14) vs. Andrey Rublev
Marek Michalicka (Wisconsin ’11) vs. Ramkumar Ramanathan
[W] Joe Salisbury (Memphis ’14) vs. Alessandro Giannessi
[22] Austin Krajicek (Texas A&M ’11) vs. JP Smith (Tennessee ’11)
Ed Corrie (Texas ’11) vs. Tommy Paul
Aleksandr Nedovyesov (Oklahoma State ’10) vs. [11] Lukas Lacko
[28] Dennis Novikov (UCLA ’13) vs. [W] Lloyd Glasspool (Texas ’15)
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