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Alex Rybakov,
Ashley Lahey,
Chris Eubanks,
Daniel Nguyen,
Moez Echargui,
Nik ScholtzWhat a tremendous week for players with college tennis ties with 46 winning or finishing as runner-up at pro tournaments across the globe. Georgia Tech rising senior Chris Eubanks won his first career pro title with a long three-set win over 2012 Georgia Tech graduate Kevin King. King spent this past season as a volunteer coach at Georgia Tech while rehabbing an injury and he and Eubanks also played doubles this week with the pair finishing as runner-up to USC’s Brandon Holt and Riley Smith. In Sunday’s final at the USA F17 Futures in Winston-Salem, Eubanks came back from a 2-0 first set deficit to take the set 7-5 but King bounced back in the second set and took it 6-2. There are were no breaks of serve in the third set with the only break opportunity coming when King served 3-4 (ad-out). King went up a mini-break to start the third set tiebreak but he wouldn’t lead again as Eubanks led 4-2 at the changeover and ended up taking it 8-6.
King actually out-aced Eubanks 17-8 and won more points (105 to 103) but Eubanks won the points that counted the most in the tiebreak. Eubanks entered the week with a ranking of 621, which was a career-high, and when these 27 points are added in a week from now he should jump inside the top 500 to around 497.
Pepperdine rising sophomore Ashley Lahey won her first pro title on Sunday with a straight set win over Ohio State rising junior Francesca Di Lorenzo at the ITF $25K in Sumter, South Carolina. The 17 year-old from Hawthorne, California, broke Di Lorenzo three times in the opening set to take it 6-3 but Di Lorenzo bounced back in the second set and opened up a 5-1 lead. Lahey held at love for 2-5, broke from 15/40 for 3-5, held from 40/30 for 4-5, and then broke in a one-deuce game that Di Lorenzo led 40/15 for 5-5. Di Lorenzo broke from 30/40 to go up 6-5 but Lahey broke back from 30/40 to send the set to a tiebreak. Lahey jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the tiebreak but Di Lorenzo won the next three to even it at 4-4. Lahey managed to take the next three to win the match 6-3, 7-6(4).
Lahey had only won one main draw pro singles match before this tournament but she managed to go 5-0 this week to claim the title.
TCU rising junior Alex Rybakov had played in two previous Futures finals but on Sunday he got his first title after coming back from a set down to defeat Japan’s Naoki Nakagawa at the USA F18 Futures in Buffalo. Rybakov was only broken once in the match and it came at 3-3 in the first set and Nakagawa would use that break to take the set 6-4. Rybakov then won 11 straight games, to go in front 4-6, 6-0, 5-0, before Nakagawa held for 1-5. Rybakov served it out from 40/30 to get the win in 1 hour and 38 minutes. Rybakov’s ranking should rise to around 690 when these 18 points are added in a week from now.
The Buffalo News had an article on Rybakov’s win which included plenty of quotes so check that out at this
link.
Below are all of this weekend winners and runner-ups that have college ties. For those currently in school I listed the year of when they’d be expected to graduate while for the others I listed the year of graduation. For those that didn’t stay all four years I listed the last year they were in school and marked it with an asterisk. If I’ve left someone off let me know!
Singles Champions
ITF $25K Sumter, SC, USA (Hard) – Ashley Lahey (Pepperdine ’20) – first title
$25K Winston-Salem, NC, USA F17 Futures (Hard) – Chris Eubanks (Georgia Tech ’18) – first title
$15K Buffalo, NY, USA F18 Futures (Clay) – Alex Rybakov (TCU ’19) – first title
$15K Taipei, Taiwan, F1 Futures (Hard) – Daniel Nguyen (USC ’12) – 11th singles title (3rd straight)
$15K Hammamet, Tunisia, F23 Futures (Clay) – Moez Echargui (Nevada ’15) – first title
$15K Harare, Zimbabwe, F1 Futures (Hard) – Nicolaas Scholtz (Ole Miss ’15) – 10th singles title
Singles Runner-Ups
$25K Winston-Salem, NC, USA F17 Futures (Hard) – Kevin King (Georgia Tech ’12)
ITF $25K Sumter, SC, USA (Hard) – Francesca Di Lorenzo (Ohio State ’19)
ITF $15K Guimaraes, Portugal (Hard) – Marta Gonzalez (Georgia ’20)
ITF $15K Hammamet, Tunisia, (Clay) – Andrea Lazaro Garcia (Florida International ’19)
$15K Martos, Spain, F17 Futures (Hard) – JC Aragone (Virginia ’17)
Doubles Champions
$127K Nottingham, UK Challenger (Grass) – Ken Skupski (LSU ’07)/Neal Skupski (LSU ’12)
$127K Caltanissetta, Italy Challenger (Clay) – James Cerretani (Brown ’04)/Max Schnur (Columbia ’15)
$64K Lyon, France Challenger (Clay) – Sander Gille (East Tennessee St ’12)/Joran Vliegen (East Carolina ’14)
$43K Lisbon, Portugal (Clay) – Ruan Roelofse (Illinois ’09*)
ITF $25K Sumter, SC (Hard) – Kaitlyn Christian (USC ’14)/Giuliana Olmos (USC ’16)
ITF $15K Guimaraes, Portugal (Hard) – Arianne Hartono (Ole Miss ’18)/Lily Miyazaki (Oklahoma ’18)
$25K Winston-Salem, NC, USA F17 Futures (Hard) – Brandon Holt (USC ’20)/Riley Smith (USC ’20)
$15K Buffalo, NY, USA F18 Futures (Clay) – Sasha Gozun (South Florida ’17)/Tomas Stillman (UTSA ’15)
$15K Sopot, Poland, F1 Futures (Clay) – Mikelis Libietis (Tennessee ’15)/Hunter Reese (Tennessee ’15)
$15K Hua Hin, Thailand, F2 Futures (Hard) – KU Singh (Georgia ’12)
$15K Martos, Spain, F17 Futures (Hard) – Robert Galloway (Wofford ’15)/Evan King (Michigan ’13)
$15K Harare, Zimbabwe, F1 Futures (Hard) – Nate Lammons (SMU ’16)/Benjamin Lock (Florida State ’16)
Doubles Runner-Ups
ATP 250 s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands (Grass) – Rajeev Ram (Illinois ’03*)
$127K Nottingham, UK Challenger (Grass) – JP Smith (Tennessee ’11)
ITF $25K Sumter, SC (Hard) – Luisa Stefani (Pepperdine ’19)/Ellen Perez (Georgia ’17*)
$25K Winston-Salem, NC, USA F17 Futures (Hard) – Kevin King (Ga Tech ’12)/Chris Eubanks (Ga Tech ’18)
$25K Gyula, Hungary, F4 Futures (Clay) – Peter Nagy (Texas A&M Corpus Christi ’15)
$15K Buffalo, NY, USA F18 Futures (Clay) – Christian Lakoseljac (Penn State ’20)/David Volfson (Cornell ’19)
$15K Hammamet, Tunisia, F23 Futures (Clay) – Florian Lakat (Cal ’17)/Arthur Rinderknech (Texas A&M ’18)
$15K Martos, Spain, F17 Futures (Hard) – JC Aragone (Virginia ’17)
$15K Harare, Zimbabwe, F1 Futures (Hard) – Nicolaas Scholtz (Ole Miss ’15)
Ohio State rising senior Mikael Torpegaard won both the singles and doubles titles at the Pearson Ford Open at Woodstock Club in Indianapolis. Torpegaard came back from a set down to defeat recent Valparaiso graduate Jeffrey Schorsch 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the singles final and then he and Hugo Di Feo defeated Schorsch and Charlie Emhardt 6-0, 7-5 in the doubles final. Torpegaard won $4300 for winning both events while Schorsch won $2175 for finishing as runner-up.
Schorsch can keep the money since he’s already graduated while Torpegaard can only keep the money that equals his expenses unless he choses not to come back for his final year.
Full results from all the weekend’s matches are available here.
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