©Colette Lewis 2007--
Tulsa, OK--
The first day of a tournament is always buffet style. I try to sample a little of this and some of that, check out players whose names I may know, but whose faces I don't. Today at the Michael Case Tennis Center, one of the selections available on the tennis menu was indoor tennis, due to rain showers in the area this morning.
It's definitely an advantage to have six courts of the same surface immediately available and when I arrived shortly after 8 a.m., five of the courts were being used for boys' matches. By 10:30, the courts had dried and matches were moved outside, and I watched most of the matches and took all of my photographs outdoors today.
But I did see Raymond Sarmiento, Evan King and Bradley Klahn win inside, and truly enjoyed the quality of tennis in No. 14 seed Denis Kudla's 6-2, 6-1 win over Brett Cromwell of New York. Both boys were hitting winners; Cromwell served and volleyed often, and there was variety and thought in nearly every point. Junior tennis can be maddeningly inconsistent, with stretches of brilliance followed by inexplicable errors, lapses of concentration and monotonous rallies. So I don't take sustained excellence for granted, and try to appreciate when I see it. Thanks to Kudla and Cromwell, the gloomy, rainy day got off to a very bright start.
There were no major upsets today on the boys' side; the three seeds losing were in the 9-16 category, and all fell to Americans in straight sets. David Holland took out No. 9 seed Christopher Diaz of Guatemala 6-0, 6-4; Wil Spencer upended No. 10 seed Milos Raonic of Canada 6-3, 6-4 and Walker Kehrer eliminated No. 15 seed Andres Bucaro of Guatemala 6-2, 6-4.
But No. 6 seed Jose Hernandez of the Dominican Republic had his hands full with Luke Marchese, battling more than three hours before emerging with a 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 win.
The girls all played outdoors, in the afternoon, and due to byes for the top six seeds, there weren't any opportunities for big upsets, and like the boys, there were three seeded players from other countries eliminated by U.S. girls. Monica Yajima of Connecticut upset the seventh seed Francesca Segarelli of the Dominican Republic 6-2, 6-2. Kelly Irving of Tennessee blitzed No. 10 seed Olivia Bennett of Trinadad and Tobago 6-0, 6-0 and Noel Scott of Maryland took out No. 14 seed Nicole Smith of Canada 6-2, 6-2.
Second round action begins again at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, with doubles first round action also on the schedule. The forecast is good for the remainder of the week, so we've probably seen the last of the indoor courts.
For complete draws, see the Tennis Link site.
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