Chang Streaking in Godfrey, Perez Wins Another Doubles Title, Kirchheimer Gets E-Ville WC, Ole Miss Schedule

The weather in Greater St. Louis has been extremely hot and humid this week but that hasn’t slowed down 2013 Rice graduate Jonathan Chang as he has blazed his way into the quarterfinals at the $25K Godfrey, Illinois, USA F24 Futures. Chang came into this week’s Futures event having won just one main draw match but he’s managed to come through qualies and knock off a pair off a pair of guys that spent most of last year in the ITA top 10. Chang defeated Georgia Tech’s Chris Eubanks 6-2, 6-3 in the opening round then today he came back from a 5-2 third set deficit to beat recent Tulane graduate Dominik Koepfer 6-7(3), 6-2, 7-5 in a match that lasted 3 hours and 2 minutes. Chang’s quarterfinal opponent will be former Tennessee All-American Rhyne Williams while the other quarterfinal match in the top half of the draw will be between former Tennessee Vol Tennys Sandgren and former Georgia Bulldog Wil Spencer.

The doubles title in Godfrey will be decided on Friday afternoon as Emil Reinberg (Georgia Rising Soph) and Nathan Ponwith (Georgia commit) take on Jesus Bandres (East Tennessee St ’13) and Facundo Mena. Neither Reinberg or Ponwith had earned an ATP doubles point coming into this week while Bandres has one Futures doubles title to his name.

Doubles maestro Ellen Perez (Georgia Rising Jr) won her third consecutive Futures doubles title (with her third different partner) as she and Abbie Myers defeated Fatma Al Nabhani and Estelle Cascino 7-6(5), 6-2 in the finals of the ITF $10K in Saint-Gervais, France.

There will be an all-college doubles final at the $10K Knokke, Belgium, F6 Futures as SMU’s Hunter and Yates Johnson meet Joran Vliegen (East Carolina ’14) and Sander Gille (East Tennessee State ’12).

Another Georgia Bulldog will play for a Futures doubles title as Jan Zielinski (Rising Soph) and Michal Dembek face off against the top seeded team of Laurynas Grigelis and Liukas Mugevicius at the $10K Lithuania F1 in Vilnius.

A Mississippi State Bulldog will be guaranteed to win a doubles title at the $10K Serbia F1 Futures in Belgrade as Strahinja Rakic (Rising Soph) and his partner Nebojsa Peric face Ivan Bjelica (MSU ’08) and Arsenije Zlatanovic.

Nicolas Barrientos (West Florida ’08) and Ruben Gonzales (Illinois ’08) are playing for a doubles title at the $50K Gomcheon, Korea, Challenger against Cheng-Peng Hsieh and Tsung-Hua Yang. Winner team splits $3100 and gets 80 ATP points.

Northwestern rising senior Strong Kirchheimer earned a main draw wild card into next week’s Edwardsville, Illinois, USA F25 Futures by winning the Pro Wildcard Challenge with a 6-3, 6-2 win over 16 year-old Alafia Ayeni.

Ole Miss released it’s schedule for the 2016-17 season and the dual-match portion begins with a trip to Hawaii. Ole Miss will play SMU during the ITA Kickoff Weekend and then depending on the outcome of that match they’d meet Texas A&M or Baylor. The Rebels only other substantial non-conference opponent will be North Carolina with the Rebs going to Chapel Hill the week of the National Team Indoors. The Toby Hansson coached team will have to replace Stefan Lindmark who played at No. 1 most of the season as well as Vinod Gowda who started in two SEC matches.

Pepperdine head coach Marcelo Ferreira announced the hiring of Martin Parkes (Campbell ’04) as the Waves new men’s assistant coach. Parkes had been the assistant men’s and women’s coach at St. Leo (D2) for the last four years and prior to that had spent a number of years coaching juniors and pros at Saddlebrook in Wesley Chapel, Florida.