Altamirano avenges loss, gains first ITF singles final

Collin Altamirano, shown in 2014, beat University of Virginia
teammate Carl Soderlund to reach the final of a $25,000 pro-
fessional tournament in Long Beach. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Collin Altamirano's victory today was especially sweet.
   The 21-year-old wild card from Sacramento avenged last week's loss to a University of Virginia teammate to reach his first ITF Pro Circuit singles final.
   Altamirano, a junior at two-time defending NCAA champion Virginia, outlasted No. 7 seed Carl Soderlund, a freshman from Sweden, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in 2 hours, 5 minutes in the Legends $25,000 Tennis Tournament in Long Beach.
   Soderlund beat Altamirano 7-6 (7), 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the USC/Los Angeles $25,000 Tennis Tournament en route to the final.
   Altamirano, who owns one ITF doubles title, will face unseeded Marcos Giron, 23, of Thousand Oaks in the Los Angeles area.
   Giron, the 2014 NCAA singles champion from UCLA, topped Germany's Sebastian Fanselow, a 25-year-old former Pepperdine All-American, 6-7 (1), 7-6 (6), 6-2 in 2 hours, 46 minutes.
   Altamirano, 6-foot-2 (1.88 meters), and Giron, 5-11 (1.80), have split their two meetings. Giron seeks his fifth ITF singles title.
   In 2013, Altamirano became the first unseeded player to win the USTA Boys 18 National Championships in the tournament's then-71-year history.

Altamirano routs McDonald in all-NorCal matchup

Collin Altamirano, shown in 2014,
reached the semis of 25K Long
Beach. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Collin Altamirano and Mackenzie McDonald have much in common.
   Both are 21-year-old Northern California products with sterling NCAA credentials.
   The main difference is size. Altamirano is 6-foot-1 (1.85 meters), while McDonald is 5-10 (1.78) and weighs only 145 pounds (66 kilograms).
   Altamirano, a wild card from Sacramento, routed the fourth-seeded McDonald, who grew up in Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area, 6-3, 6-1 on Friday in the quarterfinals of the Legends $25,000 Tennis Tournament in Long Beach.
   Two rounds of singles were played Friday after rain wiped out play on Thursday. McDonald, who won last week's USC/Los Angeles $25,000 Tennis Tournament, dismissed U.S. qualifier Mico Santiago 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hour, 17 minutes earlier in the day.
   Altamirano had a tougher time against McDonald in the 2013 U.S. Open boys round of 16, prevailing 3-6, 6-4,
6-3. Altamirano then lost to top-seeded Alexander Zverev, a German now ranked No. 24 in the world at 19 years old and touted by Rafael Nadal as a future No. 1.
   Both Altamirano and McDonald won NCAA titles last year. Altamirano helped Virginia win its second consecutive team championship as a sophomore. He is returning to the team this season. McDonald swept the NCAA singles and doubles crowns as a UCLA junior, then turned pro.
   Altamirano will meet his Virginia teammate, freshman Carl Soderlund of Sweden, for the second straight week. Soderlund won 7-6 (7), 6-3 in the Los Angeles quarterfinals en route to the final.
   Soderlund, seeded No. 8 in Long Beach, upset No. 1 Tommy Paul of Boca Raton, Fla., 6-3, 7-5 in Friday's quarterfinals. In 2015, Paul joined John McEnroe (1977) and Bjorn Fratangelo (2011) as the only Americans in the Open Era (since 1968) to win the French Open boys singles title.  
   In the other semifinal, Marcos Giron, the 2014 NCAA singles champion from UCLA, will face Sebastian Fanselow, a former Pepperdine All-American from Germany.

Altamirano upsets seed again in first round of 25K

Collin Altamirano practices with Ryan
Harrison during Altamirano's hometown
Sacramento Challenger in 2014. Photo
by Paul Bauman

   Wild card Collin Altamirano, a 21-year-old amateur from Sacramento, upset a seed in the first round of a $25,000 professional tournament for the second straight week today.
   Altamirano, a junior at two-time defending NCAA champion Virginia, ousted No. 8 Dennis Nevolo of Gurnee, Ill., 7-6 (5), 6-4 in Long Beach.
   Altamirano, who won the USTA national boys 18 title in 2013, stunned No. 1 Tommy Paul of Boca Raton, Fla., last week in Los Angeles en route to the quarterfinals.
   In 2015, Paul joined John McEnroe (1977) and Bjorn Fratangelo (2011) as the only Americans in the Open Era (since 1968) to win the French Open boys singles title.
   Altamirano has a good chance to reach the quarterfinals again. He will meet wild card Logan Smith, a USC sophomore, in the second round on Thursday. The winner likely will face No. 4 seed and Los Angeles champion Mackenzie McDonald, a San Francisco Bay Area product, in Friday's quarterfinals.
   The 21-year-old McDonald defeated qualifier J.C. Aragone, a Virginia senior from Yorba Linda in the L.A. area, 7-5, 6-2. Richard Nixon was born in Yorba Linda.
   McDonald will play qualifier Mico Santiago, a 22-year-old American who beat 16-year-old qualifier Jenson Brooksby of Carmichael in the Sacramento area 6-3, 6-4.
   McDonald turned pro last June after sweeping the NCAA singles and doubles titles as a UCLA junior. He became the first man to accomplish the feat since Matias Boeker of Georgia in 2001.
   Altamirano and Brooksby, the USTA national boys 12 champion in 2013, train at the JMG Tennis Academy at the Arden Hills Resort & Spa in Sacramento.

Aussie qualies to begin; Brooksby, 16, in 25K draw

Dennis Novikov serves in the first round of doubles
at the U.S. Open last September. Novikov and fellow
American Denis Kudla lost to Robin Haase of the
Netherlands and Artem Sitak, a Russia native who
plays for New Zealand. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Two men with Northern California ties are scheduled to play seeds today in the first round of qualifying for the Australian Open in Melbourne.
   Dennis Novikov of Milpitas in the San Francisco Bay Area will meet No. 14 Tobias Kamke of Germany, and former Stanford star Bradley Klahn will face No. 31 Thomas Fabbiano of Italy.
   Kamke, only 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters), also has a NorCal connection. He won the 2010 Tiburon Challenger.
   Klahn, a 26-year-old left-hander from the San Diego suburb of Poway, returned to competition in November after missing almost two years with injuries. He underwent his second operation for a herniated disc in his back in February 2015.
   Ranked as high as No. 63 in March 2014, Klahn has tumbled to No. 855. Novikov, a 23-year-old Moscow native who starred at UCLA, is ranked No. 148.
   Men's qualifying begins today at 3 p.m. (PST), women's qualifying starts on  Wednesday, and the main draw opens on Sunday.
   Brooksby, 16, qualifies -- Jenson Brooksby, 16, of Carmichael in the Sacramento area defeated Thibault Forget (pronounced For-ZHAY), a USC junior from France, 7-6 (2), 6-0 on Monday to qualify for the Legends $25K Tennis Tournament in Long Beach, Calif.
   Brooksby, the runner-up in the USTA national hard court and clay court 16s last summer, is scheduled to meet another American qualifier, 22-year-old Mico Santiago, on Wednesday.
   Brooksby will play in the main draw of an ITF Pro Circuit tournament for the second time. He lost to Connor Farren, a former USC standout from Hillsborough in the Bay Area, in the first round of the $25,000 Berkeley Futures last October.
   Forget's father, Guy (pronounced Ghee), reached No. 4 in the world in singles in 1991 and No. 3 in doubles in 1986. He helped France win two Davis Cup titles and served as the team captain (coach) from 1999 to 2012.
   The Long Beach main draw features two other NorCal products. No. 4 seed Mackenzie McDonald, a Berkeley native who grew up in Piedmont, will face qualifier J.C. Aragone, a senior at two-time defending NCAA champion Virginia from Yorba Linda in the Los Angeles region.
   McDonald, also 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters), won the title in last week's USC/Los Angeles $25,000 Tennis Tournament.
   Wild card Collin Altamirano of Sacramento will take on No. 8 seed Dennis Nevolo from Gurnee, Ill. Altamirano, a junior at Virginia, reached the quarterfinals in Los Angeles last week.
   Altamirano and Brooksby -- the USTA boys 18 and 12 national champions, respectively, in 2013 -- train at the JMG Tennis Academy at the Arden Hills Resort & Spa in Sacramento. It's highly unlikely, but they could meet in the Long Beach quarterfinals.