Brooksby overcomes big deficit to reach Challenger final

Jenson Brooksby of Carmichael, Calif., in the Sacramento
area, rallied from 2-6, 2-5, saving two match points, in
today's victory. 2018 photo by Paul Bauman

   Jenson Brooksby "Brothers" had no business winning today's match in the $52,080 Cleveland Open.

   He did anyway. As usual, mental toughness had a lot to do with it.

   After trailing 6-2, 5-2, the 20-year-old resident of Carmichael, Calif., in the Sacramento area saved two match points and reeled off nine consecutive games en route to a 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 semifinal victory over third-seeded Emilio "Estevez" Gomez of Ecuador in 2 hours, 21 minutes. 

   The unseeded Brooksby, who won turned pro in December and won his first Challenger title last month in Potchefstroom, South Africa, extended his winning streak to nine matches.

   For almost two full sets, the 29-year-old Gomez looked like the second coming of his father, 1990 French Open champion Andres Gomez, getting everything back. But as the pressure mounted, he looked like Gomez Addams, spraying shots all over the place.

   Brooksby took a medical timeout for an apparent leg problem at 6-5 in the second set but seemed fine for the rest of the match.

   Brooksby, who will jump at least 25 places to a career-high No. 229 on Monday, is scheduled to face 27-year-old American Bjorn "Borg" Fratangelo, unseeded at No. 286 after reaching a career-high No. 99 in 2016, for the first time on Saturday at noon. PDT. The match will be streamed live.

   Fratangelo, whose last title came in the 2018 Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger, defeated compatriot Aleksandar Kovacevic, a 22-year-old qualifier ranked No. 537, 6-3, 2-6, 6-1.

   ATP Tour in Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Lloyd "Kamala" Harris of South Africa became the first qualifier to reach the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final, surprising third-seeded Denis Shapovalov of Canada, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (6) in 2:41.

   Shapovalov, a 21-year-old left-hander ranked 12th, essentially threw the match away with double faults in the second set after leading 4-2. 

   Harris, 24, advanced to his first ATP 500 final with his second victory over a top-15 player in the tournament. He ousted Dominic Thiem, seeded first and ranked fourth, in the second round.

   Harris, who won the $100,000 Stockton Challenger and reached the final of the $100,000 Aptos Challenger in Northern California in 2018, is scheduled to play wild card Aslan "Forty" Karatsev of Russia for the first time on Saturday at 8 a.m. PDT (Tennis Channel). 

   Karatsev, an Australian Open semifinalist as a qualifier last month, ousted countryman Andrey Rublev, seeded second, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

   ATP Tour in Acapulco, Mexico — Second-seeded Alexander Zverev, the Acapulco runner-up in 2019, topped Dominik Koepfer, an unseeded left-hander, 6-4, 7-6 (5) in a semifinal matchup of Germans.

   The 26-year-old Koepfer, who reached NorCal Challenger finals in 2018 and 2019, double-faulted twice while serving for the second set at 5-3 in his first ATP semifinal. He eliminated fourth-seeded Milos Raonic in the second round.

   In the doubles semifinals, unseeded brothers Ken and Neal "Officer" Skupski of Great Britain beat fourth-seeded Rajeev Ram "Tough," a volunteer assistant coach at the University of California, Berkeley, from Carmel, Ind., and Joe Salisbury "Steak" of Great Britain 6-4, 7-6 (5).

   Ram, who turned 37 on Thursday, and Salisbury, 28, were playing in their first tournament since losing in the Australian Open final as the defending champions.

Italian teenagers Sinner, Musetti fall in Rome

   Both Italian teenage sensations lost in men's singles today, leaving fourth-seeded Matteo Berrettini as the only homegrown player in the Italian Open quarterfinals in Rome.

   Fifteenth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria outlasted 19-year-old wild card Jannik Sinner 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, and Dominik Koepfer of Germany defeated 18-year-old Lorenzo Musetti 6-4, 6-0 in a matchup of qualifiers.

   Sinner was coming off a victory over third-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas on Wednesday. Musetti stunned 10th-seeded Stan Wawrinka, a three-time Grand Slam singles champion, and Kei Nishikori, the 2014 U.S. Open runner-up to Marin Cilic, in the first two rounds.

   Wawrinka underwent two operations on his left knee in August 2017, and Nishikori had right elbow surgery for the second time last October.

   Both Koepfer and Sinner played in last year's $81,240 Aptos, Calif., Challenger. Koepfer, who starred at Tulane University in New Orleans, reached the final to earn $6,360, and Sinner advanced to the second round one week after winning the Lexington, Ky., Challenger. Three weeks later, Koepfer reached the fourth round of the U.S. Open as a qualifier to pocket $280,000.

   Koepfer, a 26-year-old left-hander ranked 97th, is scheduled to face top-ranked Novak Djokovic on Saturday not before 5:30 a.m. PDT (Tennis Channel). Djokovic, a four-time Italian Open champion, beat fellow Serb Filip Krajinovic 7-6 (7), 6-3 to improve to 28-1 this year.

   Berrettini, a U.S. Open semifinalist last year, topped countryman Stefano Travaglia, a wild card, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (1) to set up a match against unseeded Casper Ruud, 21, of Norway. Ruud, the son of former top-40 pro Christian Ruud, reached the semifinals of the $100,000 Fairfield, Calif., Challenger in 2018.

   In the bottom half of the draw, Dimitrov will meet 12th-seeded Denis Shapovalov of Canada, and second-seeded Rafael Nadal will play eighth-seeded Diego Schwartzman of Argentina.

   Shapovalov, a 21-year-old left-hander, advanced to his first Grand Slam quarterfinal in the U.S. Open. Nadal seeks his third consecutive Italian Open title and 10th overall. 

   Highlighting the women's quarterfinals will be a showdown between two-time Grand Slam singles champions Garbine Muguruza, seeded ninth, and Victoria Azarenka, who's unseeded. Azarenka has won 15 of her last 16 matches, losing to Naomi Osaka in the U.S. Open final, after going 0-3 since August 2019.

   Also, top-seeded Simona Halep will face Kazakhstan's Yulia Putintseva, a U.S. Open quarterfinalist. Halep, a two-time Italian Open runner-up, has won 11 straight matches and 16 of her last 17.

   Second seed and defending champion Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic will meet 11th-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium, and fourth-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine will play 12th-seeded Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic.

   Osaka out of French Open — Osaka, who won her second U.S. Open singles title on Saturday, withdrew from the French Open because of a left-hamstring injury.

   Osaka pulled out of the Western & Southern Open final on Aug. 29 because of the hamstring and played in the U.S. Open with her left thigh wrapped. 

   Top-ranked Ashleigh Barty chose not to play in the U.S. Open or defend her French Open title because of coronavirus concerns. Roland Garros is scheduled for Sept. 27 to Oct. 11.

Volynets, 18, shocks Olympic gold medalist Puig

Katie Volynets, from Walnut Creek in the San
Francisco Bay Area, beat 19th-seeded Monica
Puig 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 in the first round of quali-
fying for the Western & Southern Open in Flush-
 ing Meadows, N.Y. 2019 photo by Paul Bauman 

Katie Volynets scored her first victory over a top-100 player today.

The 18-year-old wild card from Walnut Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area stunned Puerto Rico's Monica Puig, seeded 19th at No. 91 in the world, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 in the first round of qualifying for the Western & Southern Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. 

The tournament moved from the Cincinnati area this year to form a bubble with the U.S. Open, Aug. 31 to Sept. 13, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

Volynets, who won the USTA 18 National Championships last August and turned pro in December, pounded three aces and committed 11 double faults in the 2-hour, 24-minute battle. Puig had zero and six, respectively.

Puig, a singles gold medalist in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, was competing in her first tournament since reaching the quarterfinals in Luxembourg last October, although she played World TeamTennis for the Las Vegas Rollers last month. Puig underwent elbow surgery in December.

Volynets also defeated Shelby Rogers, a 2016 French Open quarterfinalist, in Acapulco in February for her first win on the WTA Tour. Rogers had knee surgery in May 2018 and missed the rest of the season.

Volynets, who will rise at least 23 places in the world rankings to a career-high No. 328 on Monday, is scheduled to meet 12th-seeded Kirsten Flipkens, 34, of Belgium for the first time on Friday at 8 a.m. PDT in the final round of qualifying.

The 79th-ranked Flipkens, a Wimbledon semifinalist in 2013, outlasted Katarina Zavatska of Ukraine 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (2) in 3 hours, 13 minutes.

Also advancing today were 24th-seeded Kristie Ahn, a 28-year-old Stanford graduate from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., in the New York area, and wild card CiCi Bellis, a 21-year-old San Francisco native who grew up in nearby Atherton.

The 97th-ranked Ahn, who reached the fourth round of the U.S. Open last year, defeated Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany 7-5, 6-0. 

Ahn, playing two miles (3.2 kilometers) from the hospital where she was born, is set to face Leyla Fernandez, a 17-year-old Canadian left-hander, for the first time on Friday at about 10 a.m.

Fernandez, the Acapulco runner-up to Heather Watson of Great Britain as a qualifier, ousted second-seeded Anna Blinkova of Russia 6-1, 6-4.

Bellis outplayed 13th-seeded Madison Brengle, 30, of Bradenton, Fla., 6-3, 7-6 (4). Brengle won Northern California Challengers in Stockton (2018) and Berkeley (2019). She has beaten Serena Williams once and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova three times, including at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.

Both Bellis, ranked No. 249, and Brengle, ranked No. 82, own career highs of No. 35. 

Bellis is playing in her sixth tournament since undergoing three operations on her right wrist and one on her right elbow. She is scheduled to play Ysaline Bonaventure, a 25-year-old left-hander from Belgium at about 10 a.m.

 Bonaventure, ranked No. 121, eliminated eighth-seeded Nao Hibino, a Japanese player who won the 2015 Stockton title, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-3. 

Bellis and Bonaventure have met once. At age 15 in 2014, Bellis coasted to a 6-2, 6-1 victory in the final of a $25,000 tournament in Florence, S.C.

In the first ATP tournament since the tours shut down in March, wild card Mackenzie McDonald, a 25-year-old product of Piedmont in the Bay Area, topped 24th-seeded Yuichi Sugita of Japan 7-6 (3), 6-3 at Flushing Meadows.

McDonald won his first Challenger title in Fairfield (Calif.) in 2017, advanced to the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2018 and climbed to a career-high No. 57 in April last year. He had hamstring tendon surgery in June 2019 and missed the rest of the year.

McDonald, who will improve at least 14 spots to No. 257, will meet Dominik Koepfer, a 26-year-old German left-hander. Koepfer, ranked No. 92, beat fifth-seeded Juan Ignacio Londero of Argentina 6-4, 7-6 (0).

Koepfer reached NorCal Challenger finals in 2018 and 2019. As a qualifier, he advanced to the fourth round of the U.S. Open last summer. 

Koepfer defeated McDonald 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the $108,320 Dallas Challenger in February in their only previous meeting.

Djokovic quits with injury; Wawrinka reaches quarters

Stan Wawrinka led 6-4, 7-5, 2-1 when
Novak Djokovic quit with a left-shoulder
injury in the U.S. Open round of 16.
 File photo by Paul Bauman

   Stan Wawrinka is regaining the form that carried him to three Grand Slam singles titles.

   Novak Djokovic, meanwhile, is hurting. 

   Wawrinka, seeded 23rd, led 6-4, 7-5, 2-1 when the top-ranked Djokovic retired with a left-shoulder injury in the U.S. Open round of 16 on Sunday in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

   On the women's side, 18th-seeded Qiang Wang of China ousted second-seeded Ashleigh Barty of Australia 6-2, 6-4, and eighth-seeded Serena Williams rolled her right ankle in a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Petra Martic of Croatia.   

   Wawrinka, 34, had two operations on his left knee in August 2017, returned too soon and sat out again from February to May last year.

   Djokovic, 32, won his third U.S. Open singles title last year. On Sunday, he was seeking his third Grand Slam singles title of 2019 and 17th of his career, which would have pulled him within one of second-place Rafael Nadal. Roger Federer has 20.

   Wawrinka, the 2016 U.S. Open champion, is scheduled to play fifth-seeded Daniil Medvedev of Russia on Tuesday. Medvedev, 23, eliminated qualifier Dominik Koepfer, the runner-up in the Aptos (Calif.) Challenger three weeks ago, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (2).
   Medvedev beat Wawrinka in four sets in the first round at Wimbledon in 2017 in their only previous meeting.

   Wawrinka's Swiss countryman, the third-seeded Federer, thrashed 15th-seeded David Goffin of Belgium 6-2, 6-2, 6-0 in 79 minutes. The 38-year-old Federer, who won the last of his five (consecutive) U.S. Open crowns in 2008, will meet resurgent Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria.

   Dimitrov, known as "Baby Fed" because his playing style is similar to Federer's, beat Alex De Minaur of Australia 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.

   Federer is 7-0 against Dimitrov, who has tumbled from a career-high No. 3 in November 2017 to No. 78.
   Barty also lost in the round of 16 at Wimbledon after winning her first Grand Slam singles title in the French Open. The 37-year-old Williams, who has a residence in Silicon Valley, will face Wang for the first time. 

   In the other quarterfinal in the bottom half of the women's draw, fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine is set to play 16th-seeded Johanna Konta of Great Britain.

   Svitolina, coming off her first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon, beat Madison Keys, who won the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford and reached the U.S. Open final in 2017, 7-5, 6-4.

   Konta took out third-seeded Karolina Pliskova 6-7 (1), 6-3, 7-5. In 2016, Konta won the Bank of the West Classic, and Pliskova advanced to the U.S. Open final.

   Svitolina, 24, is 4-0 against Konta, 28.

Aptos runner-up Koepfer gains last 16 in U.S. Open

Dominik Koepfer, shown in Aptos, Calif., three weeks ago,
had never played in a Grand Slam tournament, even in
qualifying, before this year. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Qualifier Dominik Koepfer, who has reached the final of a Northern California Challenger in each of the past two years, surprised 17th-seeded Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia 6-4, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-1 on Friday to reach the round of 16 in the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   Koepfer, a 25-year-old German left-hander, graduated from Tulane in New Orleans in 2016 and lives in Tampa, Fla. He had never played in a Grand Slam tournament, even in qualifying, before this year. Koepfer, 5-foot-11 (1.80 meters), lost in the second round of qualifying in the Australian Open and French Open and reached the second round of the main draw at Wimbledon as a wild card.
   Koepfer, the runner-up in Aptos three weeks ago and San Francisco in 2018, is scheduled to play fifth-seeded Daniil Medvedev of Russia on Sunday. Medvedev, 6-foot-6 (1.98 meters), topped Feliciano Lopez, a 37-year-old left-hander from Spain, 7-6 (1), 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4 in 3 hours, 19 minutes.
   In Medvedev's three other tournaments since Wimbledon, he reached the finals in Washington, D.C., and Montreal and won his first Masters 1000 title in Cincinnati.
   Even if Koepfer loses, he will catapult 34 places to a career-high No. 84 after the U.S. Open and pocket $280,000, almost doubling his career earnings of $332,732.
   Top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who won his third U.S. Open title last year, and 38-year-old Roger Federer, the third seed and a five-time champion in Flushing Meadows, won in straight sets.
   Djokovic, who was hampered by a left shoulder injury against Juan Ignacio Londero on Wednesday night, said in an on-court interview that he played "almost pain-free."
   Eighth-seeded Serena Williams, a 37-year-old part-time resident of Silicon Valley, dismissed Karolina Muchova, 23, of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-2. Muchova reached the quarterfinals in her Wimbledon main-draw debut last month.
   Williams, who needs one more Grand Slam singles title to tie Margaret Court's record of 24, will meet 22nd-seeded Petra Martic of Croatia for the first time on Sunday.
   Martic, 28, eliminated 12th-seeded Anastasija Sevastova, a U.S. Open semifinalist last year and quarterfinalist in 2016 and 2017, 6-4, 6-3.

Johnson wins Aptos again, this time without late father

Top-seeded Steve Johnson beat fourth-seeded Dominik Koepfer 6-4, 7-6 (4)
today to win the $81,240 Nordic Naturals Challenger in Aptos, Calif. Johnson
also won the title in 2012, six weeks after he turned pro. Photo by Paul Bauman

   APTOS, Calif. – It was practically a lifetime ago that Stevie Johnson won the Challenger singles title at the Seascape Sports Club for the first time.
   In 2012, he had been a professional for only six weeks after completing one of the most decorated careers in NCAA history at USC.
   Since then, Johnson has risen as high as No. 21 in the world, won four singles titles on the ATP World Tour, compiled a 5-3 record in Davis Cup singles and doubles, won an Olympic bronze medal in doubles and earned almost $6 million in prize money.

Steve Johnson, whose father/mentor died of a heart attack at 58 in 2017, says
a prayer before the final. " ... I don't know if I was meant to be a pro by myself,"
Johnson said. "I love the game of tennis, but sometimes I wish my partner
in crime was with me." Photo by Paul Bauman

   The biggest change, however, is that Johnson's beloved father is no longer with him. Steve Johnson, a tennis coach, died of a heart attack at 58 in May 2017. Three weeks later, Stevie captured the hearts of fans worldwide when he broke down on television after his second-round win in the French Open.
   Stevie has said his father "taught me pretty much everything I know."
   Before and after beating Dominik Koepfer 6-4, 7-6 (4) today to win the $81,240 Nordic Naturals Challenger, Johnson went through his usual rituals. Beforehand, he walked to the back of the court, squatted briefly while facing the wall and said a prayer. Afterward, he crossed himself, gazed at the sky and pumped his fist.

   "I've done that for a long time," Johnson said. "It's just a bit more meaning the last couple of years. He was here when I won in 2012, so I like to look up and see him up there, but that's the way life goes sometimes."

Steve Johnson's lethal forehand helped him beat Dominik
Koepfer in their first career meeting. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Johnson, who wears a cross necklace, has tumbled from No. 33 at the beginning of the year to No. 93. He will rise to No. 79 on Monday.
   "Mentally, it's just been hard to do it week in, week out," said Johnson, 29, of Redondo Beach in the Los Angeles area. "I don't know if I was meant to be a pro by myself. I love the game of tennis, but sometimes I wish my partner in crime was with me."
   The top-seeded Johnson, who didn't lose a set in his five matches during the week, collected $10,800 – pocket change for him – in his first Challenger since March 2018 and second since 2014.
   The fourth-seeded Koepfer, a 25-year-old left-hander from Germany now based in Tampa, Fla., received $6,360 after playing in the singles final of a Northern California Challenger for the second consecutive year. The Tulane graduate lost to Jason Jung, a Los Angeles-area native who plays for Taiwan, 7-6 in the third set indoors in San Francisco in February 2018.
   Johnson and Koepfer met for the first time on a gorgeous, 70-degree (21.1 Celsius) day in the 32-year-old tournament, the longest-running men's Challenger in the United States.
   Johnson, 6-foot-2 (1.88 meters), triumphed with his booming serve, lethal forehand and consistent slice backhand. He pounded 10 aces, committed only one double fault and won 85 percent of the points (29 of 34) on his first serve.
   "I served well when it mattered," Johnson said. "My serve has been an issue all year. This week, it was great on Day 1, not so good on Days 2 and 3, great on Day 4 and good when it needed to be today."

Dominik Koepfer, 25, will rise to a career-high No. 113.
Photo by Paul Bauman

   Koepfer, who has surprising power at 5-foot-11 (1.80 meters), had three aces and four double faults and won 68 percent of the points (28 of 41) on his first serve.

   Like everyone, Koepfer targeted Johnson's backhand during rallies.
   "That was the game plan, to approach to his backhand," said Koepfer, who will rise nine spots to a career-high No. 113. "He doesn't have a great two-handed backhand, but it's not a nice ball to hit off his slice. It stays low every time. You've got to be patient. I thought I did a pretty good job with it. It just wasn't enough.
   "He doesn't give you a lot of free points. Obviously, if you hit it to his forehand, he has you on the run. That's the danger playing him."
   Johnson raced to a 3-0 lead (one service break) in the first set against an admittedly nervous Koepfer, who won his first Challenger singles title in June on grass in Ilkey, England, before Koepfer rallied to even the set at 4-4. After Johnson held serve, he broke for the set on a spectacular forehand cross-court passing shot with Koepfer at the net.
   Both players held serve throughout the second set, although Koepfer saved a championship point while serving at 5-6 with an overhead smash.
   Johnson led 4-2 in the tiebreaker, but Koepfer leveled at 4-4 with a cross-court backhand winner after Johnson missed his first serve.
   After Johnson made a tremendous lunging backhand volley winner to lead 5-4, Koepfer sprayed a swinging forehand volley to give Johnson his second championship point. He capitalized with a runaround forehand passing shot set up by – what else? – an inside-out forehand to the opposite corner.
   "At 6-5 (in the third set), I thought I played a pretty bad match point," Johnson said. "I played really passively, didn't try to win. That's kind of the way my year has been.
   "I was thinking about that, so when I got to the 6-4 point (in the tiebreaker), I was playing to win. I was going to try to hit as many forehands as possible and go for it. That's the way I've got to play, and it paid off."

Left to right, top-seeded Marcelo Arevalo and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela
beat unseeded Max Schnur and Nathan Pasha for the doubles title. Photo by
Paul Bauman

   In the doubles final, top-seeded Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela of Mexico beat unseeded Nathan Pasha of Atlanta and Max Schnur of New York 5-7, 6-3 [10-8] to share $4,650.
   Pasha and Schnur, who split $2,700, played in the tournament only because third-seeded Leander Paes of India and Max Purcell of Australia withdrew after Paes strained a calf muscle.
   Paes, 46, has won 18 major titles, eight in men's doubles and 10 in mixed doubles with a career Grand Slam in each event.
   Here are the complete Aptos singles and doubles draws.

Johnson back in Aptos final; Koepfer ends foe's streak

Steve Johnson has dropped from a career-high No. 21
in 2016 to No. 93, but he said that's deceiving. Photo
by Paul Bauman

   APTOS, Calif. – What today's Nordic Naturals Challenger semifinals lacked in drama, they made up for with significance.
   Steve Johnson returned to the final at the Seascape Sports Club after seven years, and Dominik Koepfer ended Ernesto Escobedo's winning streak at 10 matches.
   As fog rolled in from the nearby Pacific Ocean, the fourth-seeded Koepfer beat the unseeded Escobedo 6-4, 6-3 to improve to 2-1 in their head-to-head series, and the second-seeded Johnson dispatched sixth-seeded Egor Gerasimov 6-2, 6-1 in 55 minutes in their first career meeting.
   Johnson, the 2012 Aptos champion and a longtime regular on the ATP World Tour, is playing in his first Challenger since March 2018 and second since 2014.
   Koepfer will play in the final of a Northern California Challenger for the second straight year. He lost to Jason Jung, a Los Angeles-area native who plays for Taiwan, 7-6 in the third set indoors in San Francisco in early 2018.
   Neither Johnson nor Koepfer has lost a set in four matches this week. They will meet for the first time on Sunday after the noon doubles final, in which top-seeded Marcelo Arevelo of El Salvador and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela of Mexico will play unseeded Nathan Pasha of Atlanta and Max Schnur of New York.

Dominik Koepfer ended Ernesto Escobedo's winning streak
at 10 matches. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Johnson and Koepfer wouldn't seem to have much in common. Johnson is four years older at 29 and three inches (7.6 centimeters) taller at 6-foot-2 (1.88 meters). Johnson, a right-hander, is a lifelong Southern Californian. Koepfer is a German left-hander based in Tampa, Fla.
   Both, however, are ex-college stars. Johnson had one of the most decorated careers in NCAA history, ending his stay at USC in 2012 with four NCAA team titles, NCAA singles crowns in his last two years and a 72-match winning streak in singles. He plans to finish his degree in human performance after retiring from tennis.
   Koepfer, a two-time All-American at Tulane in New Orleans, was ranked No. 1 nationally for most of his senior year in 2016. He graduated with a degree in finance.
  Johnson did not face a break point against Gerasimov, a 6-foot-5 (1.96-meter) Belarusian who ousted defending champion Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second round, and converted four of six break-point opportunities.
   "I thought I capitalized on break points well," said Johnson, who reached the third round at Wimbledon last month. "I served much better today than in the last two rounds. Whenever you can take care of business on your serve, it's always a plus."

Egor Gerasimov, who ousted defending champion Than-
asi Kokkinakis in the second round, fell to Steve Johnson
in 55 minutes. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Johnson, who would have had to qualify in the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Montreal this week, was candid when asked if it was tough to play a Challenger after competing at the top level of men's tennis for so many years.

   "I'd be lying if I said no," he said. "I'd rather be in Montreal and Cincinnati (next week), but I won here, and everyone here has treated me incredibly well over the years (2011-13). It's California, so it's kind of close to home. I've had a lot of luck here, so I'd like to get one more here tomorrow. Anytime you enter a tournament and come out the winner, that's the goal."
   Johnson, a Davis Cup veteran and an Olympic bronze medalist in doubles with Jack Sock in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, has dropped from a career-high No. 21 in 2016 to No. 93. He was devastated when his father, mentor and confidant, also Steve, died of a heart attack at 58 in May 2017. Steve Jr. was hospitalized with exhaustion that summer, and anxiety attacks have led him to consult a psychologist when he's at home in Redondo Beach in the Los Angeles area. Still, he began the year at No. 33.
   "Tennis hasn't been easy the last couple of years with everything that's gone on, but I'm doing my best to put my best foot forward every day," Johnson said. "If you look at this year, if I could change (fewer) than 10 points, I think I'm top 30 in the world. I lost six matches 7-6 in the third, I think (actually four, including last week to former world No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov in Los Cabos), and four other matches where I had match points. It's been a bummer of a year from that standpoint, but you can't hang your head and feel sorry for yourself. You've got to get better and go out and try to win."

Ernesto Escobedo won a Challenger in Granby, Quebec,
two weeks ago and was coming off two tough matches
in Aptos. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Koepfer won his first Challenger singles title in June, on grass in Ilkey, England, and advanced to the second round at Wimbledon last month as a wild card in his Grand Slam main-draw debut. He will achieve a career-high ranking of at least No. 113 on Monday.
   Despite – or perhaps because of – Escobedo's winning streak, Koepfer said he had an edge in the matchup of hard hitters. Whereas Koepfer was fresh, Escobedo won a Challenger in Granby, Quebec, two weeks ago and was coming off two tough matches in Aptos. He saved two match points in a 7-6 (2), 6-7 (5), 7-6 (12) victory over fifth-seeded Bjorn Fratangelo that lasted 2 hours, 47 minutes on Thursday and outlasted top-seeded Damir Dzumhur 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 on Friday.
   "Yeah, for sure," said Koepfer, who won the last four games of the match. "(Escobedo) was struggling a little bit, especially toward the end of the second set. You could see he wasn't as physical anymore. He couldn't go after his serve as much. It always helps playing quicker matches in early rounds to be fresh when it counts in the semis and finals."
   Escobedo, a 23-year-old resident of West Covina in the Los Angeles area, hedged when asked if his previous two matches took a toll on him against Koepfer.

   "Maybe in a way, but at the same time, I still had to prepare myself for this match," said Escobedo, ranked No. 214 after reaching a career-high No. 67 in 2017. "It's been a long two weeks. I went through the whole summer and won a Challenger. It kind of did (take a toll), but it's not an excuse."

Bernardo Saraiva, a former University of
San Francisco standout, lost in the doubles
semifinals. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Escobedo had his left thigh taped after the first set and re-taped after he broke serve to lead 2-1 in the second set.
   "I pulled a quad a little bit," said Escobedo, who clinched the U.S. Open Wild Card Challenge with his victory over Fratangelo to earn a main-draw berth in the year's last Grand Slam tournament. "It's nothing major. I just need some rest, and I'll be fine for the Open. I felt it a little bit this morning."
   Pasha and Schnur are playing in the tournament only because third-seeded Leander Paes of India and Max Purcell of Australia withdrew after Paes strained a calf muscle.
   Paes, 46, has won 18 major titles, eight in men's doubles and 10 in mixed doubles with a career Grand Slam in each event.
   Pasha and Schnur – who starred at the University of Georgia and Columbia, respectively – beat unseeded Evan Hoyt of Great Britain and Bernardo Saraiva, a former University of San Francisco standout from Portugal, 6-3, 6-4.
   Saraiva, 26, attended Albany High School in the East Bay as a senior when his father, Antonio, was a visiting scholar for a year at Cal as a professor of anthropology and geography.
   Bernardo is based in San Francisco and Lisbon. He said the cities have "a lot of similarities – the hills, the cable cars, the bridge. The weather is better in Lisbon, and San Francisco is quite more expensive," Saraiva added with a laugh.
   Here are the updated Aptos singles and doubles draws and Sunday's schedule. Live streaming is available.

Escobedo ousts top seed Dzumhur in Aptos quarters

Ernesto Escobedo, serving in Aptos last year, extended his winning
streak to 10 matches. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Resurgent Ernesto Escobedo of West Covina in the Los Angeles area outlasted top-seeded Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 today in the quarterfinals of the $81,240 Nordic Naturals Challenger at the Seascape Sports Club in Aptos, Calif.
   The unseeded Escobedo, ranked No. 214 after climbing to a career-high No. 67 in 2017, broke serve in the last game when Dzumhur sprayed a forehand.
   Escobedo, a hard hitter who began working with former top-20 player Jan-Michael Gambill in March, extended his winning streak to 10 matches. He won an $81,240 tournament in Granby, Quebec, two weeks ago for his first Challenger title in three years.
   Both Escobedo, 23, and Dzumhur, 27, saved match points and won third-set tiebreakers on Thursday. Escobedo, with his dramatic victory over fifth-seeded Bjorn Fratangelo, earned a main-draw berth in the last Grand Slam tournament of the year by winning the U.S. Open Wild Card Challenge.
   Dzumhur also has plunged in the rankings, from a career-high No. 23 in July 2018 to No. 109. But he has reached two quarterfinals on the ATP World Tour this year, stunning then-No. 12 Stefanos Tsitsipas indoors in Rotterdam in February and three-time Grand Slam singles champion Stan Wawrinka on clay in Geneva.
   Escobedo will face his fourth seed in the tournament when he meets No. 4 Dominik Koepfer, a 25-year-old left-hander from Germany, on Saturday after an 11 a.m. doubles semifinal.
   Koepfer, ranked No. 122, beat seventh-seeded Marcos Giron of Thousand Oaks in the Los Angeles area 6-1, 6-4.
   Koepfer, who graduated from Tulane in New Orleans, had an outstanding grass-court season in England. He reached the quarterfinals and won $165,571 Challengers in Nottingham and Ilkey, respectively, and advanced to the second round at Wimbledon.
   Escobedo and Koepfer have split two career matches. Escobedo prevailed 6-1, 2-6, 7-5 on an indoor hardcourt in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, and Koepfer won 6-1, 7-5 on an outdoor hardcourt in Houston last year.
   After the Koepfer-Escobedo match, second-seeded Steve Johnson, 29, of Redondo Beach in the Los Angeles region will face sixth-seeded Egor Gerasimov, 26, of Belarus for the first time.
   Johnson, the 2012 Aptos champion, is playing in his first Challenger since March 2018 and second since 2014. He downed 10th-seeded Go Soeda, 34, of Japan 6-3, 7-6 (4).
   Johnson has tumbled from a career-high No. 21 in 2016 to No. 93, but he reached the third round at Wimbledon last month. Soeda won the Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger 10 years ago and advanced to the Aptos semifinals in 2014.
   The 146th-ranked Gerasimov, who ousted defending champion Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second round, dispatched third-seeded Taro Daniel, the local favorite from Japan, 6-3, 6-4.
   Daniel was born in New York to an American father, Paul, and Japanese mother, Yasue. The family moved to Japan when Taro was an infant and to Spain when he was 14. Paul Daniel grew up in Santa Cruz, near Aptos.
   The 6-foot-5 (1.96-meter) Gerasimov won his sixth career Challenger singles title in Recanati, Italy, on hardcourts in early July and last year reached two quarterfinals on the ATP Tour, in Los Cabos and Moscow. He defeated three top-60 players, including then-No. 28 Sam Querrey in Los Cabos, en route to the quarters in those tournaments.

Jung edges Koepfer in thriller for 100K S.F. title

   Jason Jung could have folded after he was broken while serving for the title in the $100,000 San Francisco Open.
   He could have folded when he lost three consecutive points, the last two on his serve, to trail 3-4 in the third-set tiebreaker.
   But the Los Angeles-area native, who plays for Taiwan, recovered to beat Dominik Koepfer of Germany 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (5) today in an indoor battle of unseeded players at the Bay Club SF Tennis Center. It was the first meeting between Jung, 28, and Koepfer, a 23-year-old left-hander.
   Jung jumped from No. 205 in the world to No. 155, near his career high of No. 143, with his third Challenger singles final, the second-biggest of his career and his first outside of China.
   Koepfer, a former All-American at Tulane in New Orleans, rose from No. 285 to a career-high No. 229 after his first Challenger singles final.
  Jung graduated from the University of Michigan in political science in 2011 and worked for an oil company in his native Torrance for one month before being laid off. He planned to go to law school but didn't do as well on the admission test as he had hoped, so he launched his professional tennis career.
   Jung broke serve to lead 5-4 in the third set, but Koepfer broke back at love as Jung got tight and made several errors. Koepfer saved a break point to hold for 6-5, and Jung sent the match to a tiebreaker.
   Jung bolted to a 3-1 lead, but Koepfer rallied for a 4-3 advantage. Koepfer, probably feeling nerves of his own, then double-faulted for 4-4. With Koepfer serving at 5-6, he netted a forehand to end the match after 2 hours, 5 minutes.
   Jung pocketed $14,400, and Koepfer collected $8,480.
   Here are the completed singles and doubles draws.
   Fed Cup -- Canadian captain Sylvain Bruneau substituted 19-year-old Katherine Sebov for former Stanford star Carol Zhao, 22, in today's first match against Romania in World Group II.
   It didn't help.
   Irina-Camelia Begu, ranked 37th, defeated Sebov, ranked 319th, 6-2, 6-4 to clinch Romania's 3-1 victory in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In a meaningless doubles match, Gabriela Dabrowski and Zhao edged Ana Bogdan and Raluca Olaru 6-4, 1-6 [10-6]. The second reverse singles match was abandoned.
   Zhao, ranked No. 138, lost to No. 38 Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-2 on Saturday.
   Romania was missing its top singles player, No. 2 Simona Halep, and Canada was without its top two singles competitors, 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.
   Romania advances to the World Group playoffs, and Canada drops to the World Group II playoffs.

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.