Virginia senior Thai-Son Kwiatkowski got an early Christmas present on Saturday when he won his first career pro singles title at the $10K Mayaguez, Puerto Rico F1 Futures with a straight set win over 22 year-old American Alexios Halebian. Kwiatkowski broke Halebian four times in a 33-minute first set which Thai-Son took 6-1. After the second set began with nine consecutive holds, Kwiatkowski broke Halebian at love to close out the match 6-1, 6-4 in 1 hour and 23 minutes. Kwiatkowski won 30 of 40 (.75) points on serve and 33 of 62 (.53) points on Halebian’s serve. Kwiatkowski entered the week with an ATP ranking of 675 and when these 18 points are added in next week he should move up to a career high of around 573.
Elena Kordolaimi (Houston ’15) was attempting to win her third career singles title but she came up short against Panna Udvardy in the finals of the ITF $10K in Casablanca, Morocco. Udvardy jumped out to a 3-0* first set lead but Kordolaimi rallied to even it at 4-4. Udvardy held for 5-4 and then broke Kordolaimi from 15/40 to take the opening set 6-4. Kordolaimi turned it around in the second set and opened up a 5-1 lead and it looked like she’d force a third set when she served up 5-2, 40-0. Udvardy got it back to deuce and would then fight off another two set points before breaking for 5-3. Udvardy held from 40/30 for 5-4 and then she fought off another set point (sixth total) to break in a one-deuce game for 5-5. After an exchange of holds, Udvardy controlled the tiebreak to close out the match 6-4, 7-6(3). Kordolaimi earned 7 points for the runner-up finish and will rise to a new career high of around 490 when the points are added in next week.
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