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Evan King Wins Edwardsville F23 Future Title

by | Aug 3, 2015 | Blog

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The Southern Illinois swing of the USTA Pro Futures Circuit came to an end today in Edwardsville at the F23 Future hosted by the EGHM Foundation with Evan King and Clay Thompson giving the 150+ fans in attendance an entertaining match to watch.

Chicago’s Evan King, who is a 2013 Michigan graduate, had the slight edge in crowd support because of him being an Illinois native as well as being a frequent participant in the Edwardsville Future. This was King’s 4th visit to Edwardsville in the last 5 years with Evan making the semis in 2013, quarters in 2012, and finals in 2011 so he was hoping to add a Championship to that list of accomplishments.

Venice Beach’s Clay Thompson, who is a 2014 UCLA graduate, was making his first appearance in Edwardsville though he had become familiar with the area after playing in Godfrey (22 miles away) last week. The charismatic Thompson had his group of fans as well because if you’ve seen him play it’s hard not to pull for him.

King came into the match ranked #646 with a 1-3 record in Future Finals while Thompson came in ranked #750 with a 1-0 record in finals. Ironically both guys won their one career title on the same day with King winning in Zimbabwe and Thompson winning in Mexico.

Evan King in Future Finals
2015 Zimbabwe F3(July): lost to Tucker Vorster 6-1, 3-6, 6-3
2015 Zimbabwe F1(June): def. Tyler Hochwalt 6-4, 7-5
2013 Houston Future (Oct): lost to Jeff Dadamo 6-3, 6-1
2011 Edwardsville Future (Aug): lost to Blake Strode 7-6(4), 6-3

Clay Thompson in Future Finals
2015 Mexico F7 (June): def. Lucas Gomez 6-2, 6-3

Temperatures earlier in the week were right around 100 with the heat index over 115 but things felt a little better today with the match time temperature at 87 and the heat index at 92.  It was comfortable for the fans sitting in the shade though it was a tad toasty on the court for the players.  Clay came out in all black which probably made it even hotter for him.

The big serving Thompson started things off by holding from 40-30 though King did the same with the point below coming from his opening service game.

Thompson, who was doing a lot of serving and volleying when he landed his first serve, held from 40-15 with this backhand winner to go up 2-1

King would fall behind 0-30 on his next service game and fight off a break point at 30-40 before holding for 2-2 when Thompson sent a forehand long.

Thompson would then come back from 0-30 down by serving and volleying on 2 points in a row (1st clip) before hammering 1 of his 8 aces (2nd clip) to hold for 3-2

King finished off a love hold with an ace to even it at 3-3 (1st clip) before Thompson held from 40-15 with a serve and volley winner to go up 4-3 (2nd clip)

King would then hold from 40-30 by finishing off game point at the net to even it at 4-4 and then he’d get his first break of the match to go up 5-4 when Thompson double faulted after falling behind 15-40 (he yells out what’s wrong with me in the clip).

With King serving for the set he’d fall behind 15-40 before winning the next 4 points to take the opening set 6-4.  King hit a nice running forehand winner on set point.

These 2 tweets I made after the 1st set told the story of the opening set and ultimately the match

Thompson would hold from 40-15 to open the 2nd set before King held from love to even it at 1. Thompson then came back from 0-30 down to hold from 40-30 but King held from 40-15 to even it at 2.  Both guys would exchange 40-15 holds with King hitting a forehand winner on his service game to make it 3-3.

Thompson’s serve and forehand would let him down on his next service game as King would break at love to go up 4-3.  The below clip show Thompson pushing a forehand long on break point.

King would hold at love by hitting the last of his 3 aces to go up 6-4, 5-3.

Thompson would be serving to stay in the match but his service game wouldn’t be much better than his previous one as his serving troubles put him in a 0-30 hole. Thompson would push a forehand wide (clip below) to set up match point for King at 15-40

King wouldn’t have to return another shot as Thompson would hit his 8th and final double fault of the match to give King the 6-4, 6-3 win in a match that lasted 1 hour and 7 minutes. There would be no toss of the shirt like we saw last week as King walked to the net and shook Thompson’s hand like it was business as usual.

Thompson’s 1st serve % was below 50% which made it tough for him to finish points at the net with King pushing him back with his deep returns. Thompson only had the 3 break point opportunities and he wasn’t able to convert any.
With the win Evan King earns 27 ATP points and $2160 while Clay Thompson picks up 15 ATP points and $1272.
Here is Clay Thompson’s post match speech:

Here is an audio file of Clay talking to some media members:
Here is Evan King’s post match speech:

Here is an audio file of Evan talking to the media:

Evan accepting the microphone from Tournament Director Dave Lipe:

Evan with his proud parents, Evelyn and Van, who were able to come down from Chicago to watch.

Before the singles final got underway they had the double final which was won by 2014 Santa Clara graduate John Lamble and his doubles parter Alan Kohen.  Lamble and Kohen, who had never met before this week, knocked off the #1 seeds Scott Clayton and Richard Gabb 3-6, 7-6(4), 10-7. Lamble and Kohen split the cash prize of $930 and pick up 27 ATP points while Clayton and Gabb split $540 and earn 15 ATP points. Below is match point and below that is Lamble and Kohen’s celebratory speech.

I didn’t realize it at the time but Kohen had a crazy last few days. He played in the doubles semifinals in Edwardsville on Friday, drove 115 miles to Decatur to play in the opening round of singles qualies on Saturday, drove back to Edwardsville for the doubles finals today, then immediately after the match drive back to Decatur to play another round of qualies. Kohen went 4-0 in those 4 matches.

I will have to stay that I was pleasantly surprised by the large turnout (150+) after being in Godfrey last weekend and seeing less than 30 people for the finals.

I asked Dave Lipe, Tournament Director, how he got that many people out there and he said that he’s been talking the tournament up for a while at all the local tournaments and he’d been handing out tickets to everyone he ran into. It was free to get into the event but passing out the tickets is a great idea to remind everyone of the dates plus who doesn’t like free tickets.

Virtually all the seating was covered which was very nice plus they sold T-Shirts and had a concession area running as well.

Another interesting tidbit that Dave filled me in on was how they handed out the local wild cards. Some tournaments give out wild cards in a subjective manner such as they go strictly to local players or maybe players that went to X Tennis Academy. But in Edwardsville all the local wild cards were earned through play-in tournaments.  Felix Corwin (Minnesota Soph) earned a main draw wild card when he won the Edwardsville Open in mid-June by defeating Tim Kopinski in a 3rd set supertiebreak. Gabriel Friedrich (South Carolina R-Fresh) earned his main draw wild card by winning the Edwardsville Pro Wild Card Challenge the week prior by beating Tim Kopinski. Michael Lippens (Louisville ’15), Alex Jesse (Illinois Sr), and Daniel Rueda (Northwestern Ohio Sr) earned qualifying wild cards based off their results in the Pro Wild Card Challenge.

Dave mentioned that many players weren’t aware of these Wild Card Tournaments so if you are tennis player reading this and you want to play in a Futures Event always check with the tournament director in advance to see how they handle wild cards.

All in all I thought it was a very well run tournament with a great guy driving the bus to make sure all the seats were full.