Team USA Wins Sixth Straight Master’U BNP Paribas; Michnev Wins Another Title, Verbeek Wins First Career Title, Tragedy in Binghamton

Tagged with: Bernardo Saraiva, Caitlyn Williams, Evan King, John Lamble, Master'U BNP Paribas, Petr Michnev, Sem Verbeek, Stefani Lineva

Team USA came to France seeking to win a sixth straight Master’U BNP Paribas and that’s exactly what they did after defeating Russia 4-1. North Carolina senior Hayley Carter kicked off the day with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Alena Tarasova but Russia countered with a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 win by Vladimir Korolev (13.44) over Northwestern senior Strong Kirchheimer (14.14). Ohio State sophomore Francesca Di Lorenzo (12.55) put Team USA back in front with a 7-6(2), 7-5 win over Viktoria Kamenskaya (WTA 190/12.60) and then Georgia Tech junior Chris Eubanks (14.45) made it 3-1 with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Ivan Davydov (13.44). Hayley Carter and UCLA freshman Ena Shibahara clinched the title with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Frolova and Kamenskaya. Team USA has now won the event seven times in the last eight years.

 

 

Other players with US college tennis ties that participated were Ireland’s Bjorn Thomson (Texas Tech Soph) and Jane Fennelly (Notre Dame Sr), Germany’s Christopher Aumueller (Nebraska ’12), and Great Britain’s Alicia Barnett (Northwestern ’16)

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Petr Michnev (Hawaii Pacific ’14) won his fifth singles title of the year, sixth overall, with a 7-6(2), 6-4 over Niels Lootsma at the $10K Czech Republic F11 Futures (Hard) in Ricany. Michnev has a 22-2 record at his last five Futures events and when the 18 points from this title are added in next week he’ll have a new career ranking of around 290.

Sem Verbeek (Pacific ’16) and John Lamble (Santa Clara ’14) won a pair of matches on Sunday to win the doubles title at the $10K Israel F16 Futures (Hard) in Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan. Verbeek and Lamble knocked out the top seeds Jonas Luetjen (Ole Miss ’13) and David Pichler 6-3, 6-3 in the semifinals then a few hours later defeated Bernardo Saraiva (San Francisco ’15) and Martin Beran 6-4, 6-4. The title was the first of Verbeek’s career while it was Lamble’s second of the year and third of his career. Verbeek also won his first career main draw singles match before falling in the second round to the third seed in three sets. Saraiva was appearing in his fourth doubles final of the year (0-4) but this was his first finals appearance without John Lamble as his partner. 

Evan King (Michigan ’13) played in both the singles and doubles final at the $10K Dominican Republic F1 Futures (Clay) in Santiago de los Caballeros but unfortunately he came up short in both matches. King jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the singles final against the fourth seed Bruno Sant’Anna but the Brazilian came back to win 7-5, 6-3. King and Hunter Reese (Tennessee ’15) took on Sant’Anna and Eduardo Dischinger in the doubles final and despite having break leads in both sets they ended up falling in straight sets 6-3, 7-6(4). 

Caitlyn Williams (Tennessee ’15) played in her second career doubles final, first since 2009, but she and Ani Vangelova came up short falling 6-2, 4-6, 10-7 to Agnes Bukta and Anastasiya Shoshyna at the ITF $10K in Antalya, Turkey. The third set supertiebreak was on serve at 8-7 but Williams and Vangelova dropped both points to lose the match

 

*didn’t stay at school for all four years

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It was a sad weekend for the Binghamton University community after an apparent hit-and-run claimed the life of Stefani Lineva. The Middle Village, New York, native had recently transferred to Binghamton from Adelphi after playing at No. 1 singles each of the last two years. Please keep the Lineva family in your prayers.