German routs NorCal's Novikov in 100K S.F. semis

   Dominik Koepfer of Germany dismissed San Jose product Dennis Novikov 6-3, 6-1 in 51 minutes today in a semifinal matchup of unseeded players in the $100,000 Kunal Patel San Francisco Open.
   Koepfer, a 23-year-old left-hander, has not lost a set in the indoor tournament at the Bay Club SF Tennis Center, surviving two tiebreakers.
  The former All-American at Tulane in New Orleans advanced to his first Challenger singles final. He won the $75,000 Columbus (Ohio) Challenger doubles crown with American Denis Kudla last September.
   Today's other semifinal also featured unseeded players. Jason Jung, a Los Angeles-area native who plays for Taiwan, beat Miomir Kecmanovic, an 18-year-old Serb, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-2 in 1 hour, 58 minutes. Jung, only 5-foot-11 (1.80 meters), had 11 aces and only one double fault.
   Kecmanovic had needed 2 hours, 38 minutes to subdue third-seeded Michael Mmoh on Friday night, while Jung had breezed past sixth-seeded Noah Rubin in 52 minutes in the following match.
  Jung, 28, seeks his third Challenger singles title and first outside of China. He will face Koepfer, also 5-foot-11, for the first time on Sunday at 4 p.m.
   Jung is ranked No. 205, 80 spots above Koepfer. Their career highs are No. 143 (October 2016) and No. 239  (last October), respectively.
   Here are the singles and doubles draws and Sunday's schedule.
   Fed Cup -- Sorana Cirstea defeated former Stanford star Carol Zhao, making her Fed Cup singles debut, 6-2, 6-2 as Romania took a 2-0 lead over Canada in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in World Group II. In the second match, Irina-Camelia Begu beat 17-year-old Bianca Andreescu 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-2.
   Zhao, ranked No. 138, will try to keep Canada alive in the best-of-five-match competition when she faces Begu, ranked No. 37, in Sunday's first match.
   Romania is missing its top singles player, No. 2 Simona Halep, and Canada is without its top two singles players, No. 116 Eugenie Bouchard and No. 123 Francoise Abanda.
   Bouchard reached the 2014 Wimbledon final and climbed to a career-high No. 5 later that year. Abanda won the $25,000 Redding (Calif.) Challenger in 2016 at age 19.
   The four victorious nations in World Group II will play the four losers in the World Group for berths in next year's World Group, which determines the Fed Cup champion.

Four unseeded players oust seeds in S.F. quarters

   Seedings meant nothing on an extraordinary day in the $100,000 San Francisco Open.
   An unseeded player beat a seed in every quarterfinal today in the indoor tournament at the Bay Club SF Tennis Center. Falling were No. 3 Michael Mmoh, No. 5 Bradley Klahn, No. 6 Noah Rubin and No. 7 Filip Peliwo.
   Miomir Kecmanovic, an 18-year-old Serb, outslugged Mmoh, a semifinalist last year at 19 years old, 7-6 (3), 6-7 (4), 6-1 in 2 hours, 38 minutes. The match featured an epic 53-point rally. Both players train in Bradenton, Fla.
   Germany's Dominik Koepfer, a former Tulane All-American, beat Southern California's Klahn, a 2012 Stanford graduate, 6-2, 7-6 (6) in a matchup of left-handers.
   Jason Jung, a Los Angeles-area native who plays for Taiwan, routed New York-area resident Rubin, the 2014 Wimbledon boys singles champion, 6-3, 6-1 in 52 minutes.
   And Dennis Novikov, a 24-year-old San Jose product, held off Canada's Peliwo, the 2012 Wimbledon boys singles champion, 7-5, 7-5.
   In Saturday's semifinals, the 215th-ranked Novikov will meet No. 285 Koepfer for the first time at 5:30 p.m., followed by No. 194 Kecmanovic vs. No. 205 Jung.
   Jung crushed Kecmanovic 6-1, 6-1 in 48 minutes last week in the quarterfinals of the $125,000 Dallas Challenger in their first meeting. Kecmanovic was coming off a 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 7-6 (4) victory over American Austin Krajicek, also in 2 hours, 38 minutes.
   Here are the San Francisco singles and doubles draws and Saturday's schedule.

No. 4 seed Kudla advances in 100K San Francisco

Denis Kudla continued his strong start in 2018.
File photo by Paul Bauman

   Continuing his strong start in 2018, fourth-seeded Denis Kudla of Arlington, Va., and Tampa, Fla., defeated Ante Pavic of Croatia 6-4, 7-6 (4) tonight in the first round of the $100,000 Kunal Patel San Francisco Open at the Bay Club SF Tennis Center.
   Kudla, a quarterfinalist in San Francisco last year, reached the second round of the Australian Open as a qualifier last month. He upended countryman Steve Johnson, ranked 48th at the time, in the first round and led Austria's Dominic Thiem, then No. 5, two sets to none before falling.
   Kudla also advanced to the semifinals of last week's $125,000 Dallas Challenger, losing to Mackenzie McDonald of Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area.
   McDonald, seeded second in San Francisco, is scheduled to play wild card Florian Lakat, a former Cal standout from France, after Tuesday's featured match at 7 between top-seeded Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan and Dennis Novikov, a 24-year-old San Jose product.
  Kudla, ranked a career-high No. 53 in 2016, tumbled to No. 207 last October. He has since climbed to No. 166.
   Kudla, a 25-year-old Ukraine native, attributes his hot start to harder offseason training.
   "I did a lot more cardio ... so I could sustain a higher level of tennis for a longer period of time," he said on atpworldtour.com. "That was a big thing. I knew the game was there, but I kept dying at a certain point, and I realized I just wasn't in good enough shape. I thought I was, but I wasn't. So that was the biggest thing. When I know I'm in shape, the game is there. It was always been there."
   Earlier today, 18-year-old Serbian phenom Miomir Kecmanovic ousted eighth-seeded Brayden Schnur of Canada 6-4, 7-6 (2).
   In the final round of qualifying, 17-year-old Jenson Brooksby of Sacramento lost to 34-year-old Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina 6-4, 6-2.
   Here are the qualifying, singles and doubles draws and Tuesday's schedule.

Results of Orange Bowl finals

ORANGE BOWL
In Plantation, Fla.
Boys finals

18 singles

   Miomir Kecmanovic (9), Serbia, def. Stefanos Tsitsipas (3), Greece, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (5).

18 doubles

   Yuta Shimizu and Yunosuke Tanaka, Japan, def. Ergi Kirkin, Turkey, and Alexei Popyrin, Australia, 7-5, 7-6 (2).

16 singles

   Sebastian Baez (9), Argentina, def. Karl Friberg (3), Sweden, 6-2, 6-1.

16 doubles

   Sebastian Baez, Argentina, and Miguel Fernando Pereira (3), Chile, def. Nicaise Muamba, Canada, and Brian Shi (2), Jericho, N.Y., 6-2, 6-3.

Girls finals

18 singles

   Bianca Andreescu (9), Canada, def. Kayla Day (6), Santa Barbara, 7-6 (7), 6-4.

18 doubles

   Pranjala Yadlapalli, India, and Tamara Zidansek (5), Slovenia, def. Eleni Christofi, Greece, and Anastasia Detiuc, Moldova, 6-2, 6-2.

16 singles

   Maria Carle (2), Argentina, def. Gabriela Tatarus, Romania, 6-2, 7-6 (7).

16 doubles

   McCartney Kessler, Calhoun, Ga., and Emma Kurtz, Atlanta, def. Ania Hertel, Poland, and Mihaela Marculescu (4), Romania, 6-3, 4-6 [10-6].