Slovakia shocks U.S. in Billie Jean King Cup

Danielle Collins, the San Jose champion in August, won her singles match today
in the Billie Jean Cup. 2021 photo by Mal Taam 

   Viktoria Kuzmova and Tereza Mihalikova, saving a match point in doubles, lifted Slovakia to a stunning 2-1 victory over the United States today in the round-robin phase of the Billie Jean Cup, formerly Fed Cup, in Prague.

   Kuzmova and Mihalikova edged CoCo Vandeweghe, the runner-up in the now-defunct Bank of the West Classic at Stanford in 2012 and 2017, and Caroline Dolehide 6-2, 6-7 (5) [12-10].

   The Slovaks led 8-4 in the match tiebreaker, but the Americans reeled off fourth consecutive points, escaped a match point at 8-9 and earned a match point at 10-9.

   Kuzmova defeated Shelby Rogers 6-4, 6-4 in the opening match. Danielle Collins, who won the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose in August, then defeated Anna Schmiedlova 6-3, 6-2.

   Slovakia improved to 1-1 in Group C, and the United States fell to 0-1. The Americans will meet Spain (1-0) on Wednesday. 

   Twelve teams are divided into four groups, with the group winners advancing to Friday's semifinals.

   The United States is missing its top four singles players (No. 15 Sofia Kenin, No. 20 Jessica Pegula, No. 23 Coco Gauff and No. 25 Jennifer Brady) and top five doubles players (No. 14 Nicole Melichar-Martinez, No. 16 Bethanie Mattek-Sands, No. 17 Caty McNally, No. 19 Gauff and No. 23 Desirae Krawczyk).

   WTA Tour — No. 1 seed Mayar Sherif (Fresno State, 2015-16) of Egypt edged Andrea Lazaro Garcia of Spain 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (2) in the first round of the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires. It's the first WTA tournament in Argentina in 34 years.

   In the opening round of the Dow Tennis Classic in Midland, Mich., No. 2 seed Misaki Doi of Japan edged Katie Volynets, 19, of Walnut Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (5).

   Volynets saved five match points with Doi, a 30-year-old left-hander who won last week's $80,000 Challenger in Tyler, Texas., serving at 5-2 in the third set.

   USTA Pro Circuit — No. 7 seed Maegan Manasse, an assistant coach at the University of California, Berkeley and former Bears All-American, beat No. 15 seed Alexa Graham from Garden City, N.Y., 6-4, 6-3 in the final round of qualifying for a $25,000 tournament in Orlando, Fla.

   Fernanda Contreras Gomez of Mexico and Maribella Zamarripa of St. Helena, Calif., in the Napa region triumphed in the first round of doubles.

   Meanwhile, No. 10 seed Keenan Mayo of Sacramento, Calif., outplayed No. 5 seed Oscar Mesquida Berg of Spain 6-3, 6-2 to qualify for a $15,000 tournament in Fayetteville, Ark.

   They met again in doubles, with Mesquida Berg and Matic Spec of Slovenia beating Mayo and Jake Van Emburgh from Belleair Beach, Fla., 4-1, retired. Mayo is scheduled to play in the first round of singles on Wednesday.

   In the $15,000 Dick Savitt Futures in Ithaca, N.Y., Connor Farren, a native of Redwood City in the Bay Area, and Jesse Flores of Costa Rica won in the opening round of doubles.

Mattek-Sands, Kenin lift U.S. over Latvia in Fed Cup

Bethanie Mattek-Sands celebrates after shocking Venus Williams in the first
round of the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, Calif., last July.
Photo by Mal Taam

   Sofia Kenin and Bethanie Mattek-Sands gave the United States a 3-2 victory over gutsy Latvia tonight in Fed Cup qualifying.
   Kenin, 21, and Mattek-Sands, 34, defeated Jelena Ostapenko and Anastasija Sevastova 6-4, 6-0 in the deciding match in Everett, Wash. Kenin won her first Grand Slam title last week in Australian Open singles. Mattek-Sands has fallen from No. 1 in doubles in 2017 to No. 20.
   The United States advanced to the 12-team Fed Cup Finals, April 14-19 in Budapest.
   Earlier today, Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion, beat Kenin 6-3, 2-6, 6-2, and Sevastova stunned Serena Williams, a part-time Silicon Valley resident, 7-6 (5), 3-6, 7-6 (4) in 2 hours, 25 minutes.
   Williams, 38, suffered her first Fed Cup singles loss after 14 victories. She had trounced Sevastova 6-3, 6-0 in 66 minutes in the semifinals of the 2018 U.S. Open in their only previous meeting.
   Williams' defeat was reminiscent of her 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 loss to Wang Qiang of China in the third round of the recent Australian Open. Williams had crushed Wang 6-1, 6-0 in 44 minutes in the U.S. Open quarterfinals last September in their only previous meeting.
   ITF World Tennis Tour – Top-seeded Caroline Dolehide, a 21-year-old native of Hinsdale, Ill., and Maria Sanchez, a 30-year-old product of Modesto, Calif., won the doubles title in the $100,000 Dow Tennis Classic in Midland, Mich.
   Dolehide, a U.S. Open doubles semifinalist with Vania King last year, and Sanchez outclassed second-seeded Valeria Savinykh of Russia and Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium 6-3, 6-4.

Teens Volynets, Ma show promise in Berkeley losses

Katie Volynets, a 17-year-old wild card from Walnut
Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area, celebrates after
winning a point during her 5-7, 6-2, 7-6 (3) loss to
unseeded Caroline Dolehide on Wednesday in the
first round of the $60,000 Berkeley Tennis Club
Club Women's Challenge. Photo by Paul Bauman

   BERKELEY, Calif. – The wave began with CiCi Bellis, now an "old lady" of 20.
   Bellis, who grew up across San Francisco Bay in Atherton, burst onto the international tennis scene at 15 by stunning 12th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova in the first round of the 2014 U.S. Open.
   Bellis reached a career-high No. 35 in 2017 and was named the WTA Newcomer of the Year.
   The right-hander is practicing after undergoing four operations on her right wrist/arm in one year and hopes to return by the U.S. Open, which begins Aug. 26. She has been sidelined since March 2018.
   Now, along come three more promising Northern California teenagers: 17-year-old Katie Volynets  and 16-year-olds Connie Ma, Allura Zamarripa and Maribella Zamarripa. Volynets and Ma, like Bellis, are undersized players from the Bay Area.
   One day after the Zamarripas, identical twins from Saint Helena in the Napa region, narrowly lost to Madison Brengle and Sachia (pronounced Sa-sha) Vickery, seeded 1-2 in singles in the $60,000 Berkeley Tennis Club Women's Challenge, in the first round of doubles, Volynets and Ma showed top-100 potential in opening-round singles losses on Wednesday.
   The appropriately named Volynets, a 5-foot-6 (1.68-meter) wild card from Walnut Creek, fell to unseeded Caroline Dolehide, a 20-year-old native of Hinsdale, Ill., now based in Orlando, Fla., 5-7, 6-2, 7-6 (3) in 2 hours, 34 minutes in the featured evening match.
   Dolehide has plunged from a career-high No. 102 last July to No. 256 but reached the singles semifinals and doubles final in a $60,000 tournament in Honolulu last week.
   Last year, Dolehide played in the main draw of three Grand Slam tournaments, reaching the second round of the French Open as a qualifier, and advanced to the third round at Indian Wells, coming within a tiebreaker of beating Simona Halep, then ranked No. 1.
   Volynets, ranked No. 393, needed some time to put her loss in perspective.
   "Right after the match, it's always difficult to look at it (as encouraging) because it was so close," said Volynets, a rising high school senior who's still deciding whether to attend college or turn pro. "But I can see that my level can be there, so that's definitely encouraging to me."

Connie Ma, a 16-year-old qualifier from Dublin in the Bay Area,
rips a forehand during her 6-3, 6-1 loss to top-seeded Madison
Brengle. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Ma, a 5-foot-4 (1.63-meter), 100-pound (45.4-kilogram) qualifier from Dublin, lost to Brengle, an American ranked No. 83 in the world after reaching a career-high No. 35 in 2015, 6-3, 6-1 in 64 minutes. But Ma held her own in rallies.
   "It was good experience and a good match for me to be able to play someone like her," Ma, ranked No. 732, said after her first match against a top-100 player.
   Volynets, who relies on consistency and mental toughness, ultimately succumbed to the 5-foot-10 (1.78-meter) Dolehide's power, disappointing a vocal group of supporters including Volynets' Ukrainian parents, Andrey and Anna.
   "There's always room for improvement," said Volynets, who recently added renowned Joseph Gilbert of Sacramento to her coaching team. "She's definitely one of the biggest servers I've ever seen. That tells me that I'd also like to improve my return against these huge servers."
   Many of Dolehide's kick second serves bounced above Volynets' head. The match ended when Volynets sailed one of them long.
   In the January/February issue of Tennis Magazine, International Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin wrote of Dolehide: "Her kick serve is already one of the best on tour. She's got so much power but also has all-court abilities, including net coverage. She's still maturing."
   So is Ma. When Brengle was asked if Ma reminds her of herself at 16, Brengle cracked: "No, she's a little more composed than I was at that time."
   Brengle has a soft, stiff-armed serve because of arm pain caused by a long-term reaction to an anti-doping blood test for which she sued the Women's Tennis Association and International Tennis Federation in April 2018. The WTA and ITF have not publicly commented on the case.
   That Brengle has remained in the top 100 says something about her groundstrokes, return of serve and intelligence.

Madison Brengle will face another U.S. teenage
qualifier, 18-year-old Alycia Parks, today at noon
in the second round. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Is her arm OK?
   "It will never be OK," Brengle lamented.

   Also Wednesday:
   –Hailey Baptiste, 17, of Washington, D.C., surprised eighth-seeded Katie Swan of Great Britain 7-5, 6-3. Baptiste is scheduled to face Dolehide in today's featured match not before 5 p.m.
   –Qualifier Alycia Parks, an 18-year-old Venus Williams lookalike from Port St. Lucie, Fla., defeated Giuliana Olmos, a 26-year-old product of Fremont in the Bay Area, 6-2, 6-3. Parks will face Brengle at noon.
   –Sixth-seeded Kristie Ahn, a 27-year-old Stanford graduate, beat qualifier Tara Moore of Great Britain 6-3, 6-3. Ahn will take on unseeded Usue (pronounced OO-sway) Arconada, a 20-year-old American who has won 11 consecutive matches and 18 or her last 19, today at about 2 p.m. Ahn has played Arconada once, winning 6-1, 6-1 in the semifinals of a $25,000 tournament in Rancho Santa Fe in the San Diego area in February.
   –Vickery, 24, of Miramar, Fla., defeated U.S. wild card Maegan Manasse, a 24-year-old former Cal star, 6-4, 6-4.
   –Jovana Jaksic, a 25-year-old Serb who lives in Sacramento, eliminated Natasha Subhash, a 17-year-old wild card from Fairfax, Va., 6-2, 6-4.
   Here are the Berkeley singles and doubles draws and today's schedule. Live streaming is available.

Ex-Stanford stars Gibbs, Klahn advance to singles finals

Nicole Gibbs, playing in Berkeley last July, is
competing in her first tournament since having
cancer surgery in May. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Nicole Gibbs and Bradley Klahn have much in common.
   Both are from Southern California. Both won NCAA singles titles at Stanford. Both have had major surgeries. And both reached singles finals on the USTA Pro Circuit today.
   The second-seeded Gibbs, playing her first tournament since having surgery for a rare cancer in the roof of her mouth in May, outlasted unseeded American Caroline Dolehide 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-4 in the $60,000 Tennis Championships of Honolulu. The match lasted 2 hours, 41 minutes in 86-degree (30 Celsius) heat and 56 percent humidity.
   In the January/February issue of Tennis Magazine, International Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin wrote of the 20-year-old Dolehide: "Her kick serve is already one of the best on tour. She's got so much power but also has all-court abilities, including net coverage. She's still maturing."
   The top-seeded Klahn, who underwent operations for a herniated disc in his back in 2011 and 2015, dispatched fourth-seeded Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-2, 6-3 in the $54,160 Nielsen Pro Tennis Championship in Winnetka, Ill.
   Istomin reached the fourth round of the 2017 Australian Open, stunning six-time champion Novak Djokovic in the second round. Istomin also reached the final of the 2012 SAP Open in San Jose, falling to Milos Raonic, and climbed to a career-high No. 33 later that year.

Bradley Klahn, playing in San Francisco early last year,
reached the singles final and won the doubles title in Win-
netka, Ill. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Klahn and JC Aragone won the Winnetka doubles crown, beating Christopher Eubanks and Thai-Son Kwiatkowski 7-5, 6-4 in a matchup of unseeded American teams. Aragone and Kwiatkowski helped Virginia with three consecutive NCAA titles (2015-17).
   The 26-year-old Gibbs, ranked No. 129, is scheduled to play fifth-seeded Usue (pronounced OO-sway) Arconada, 20, of Naples, Fla., for the first time on Sunday.
   Arconada, ranked No. 214, beat unseeded Jamie Loeb, a 24-year-old product of the John McEnroe Tennis Academy in New York, 6-2, 6-4.
   Gibbs reached the final of the $60,000 Berkeley Tennis Club Challenge last July, losing to Sofia Kenin. Arconada teamed with Kenin to win the doubles title in the $60,000 Stockton (Calif.) Challenger in 2017.
   Klahn, a 28-year-old left-hander ranked No. 87, is set to play 12th-seeded Jason Kubler of Australia on Sunday at noon (Tennis Channel). Kubler, ranked No. 188, beat 13th-seeded Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia by walkover.
   Klahn won his only previous match against Kubler 6-2, 6-3 in the semifinals of the $75,000 Gatineau (Canada) Challenger last July en route to the title.
   Gibbs captured two NCAA titles in singles (2012 and 2013) and one in doubles (2012) before giving up her senior year and turning pro. Klahn won the 2010 NCAA singles crown as a sophomore and graduated in 2012.