Bay Area native, ex-Stanford star reach Fairfield final

   Last year's final in the $100,000 Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger, held at Solano Community College for the first time, featured two international players.
   This year's title match in the Northbay Healthcare Men's Pro Championships will have a Northern California flair.
   Mackenzie McDonald, who was born and raised in Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area, will meet Bradley Klahn, a former Stanford star from Poway in the San Diego region, for the first time on Sunday after the noon doubles final at Solano.
   McDonald defeated qualifier Chris O'Connell of Australia 6-4, 7-5 to reach his first Challenger final after seven semifinal losses. Although McDonald is only 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters) and 145 pounds (66 kilograms), he slugged nine aces.
   Klahn dismissed fourth-seeded Maximilian Marterer of Germany 6-1, 6-3 in a matchup of left-handers that lasted only 43 minutes. Marterer, who beat Klahn 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5) last Sunday to win a $100,000 hard-court tournament in Monterrey, Mexico, had no aces and seven double faults.
   Both McDonald, 22, and Klahn, 27, are unseeded.
   McDonald turned pro last year after sweeping the NCAA singles and doubles titles as a UCLA junior. Now based in Los Angeles, he's ranked No. 218.
   Klahn seeks his sixth Challenger singles title but first since 2014. He is fighting his way back up the rankings after undergoing his second operation for a herniated disc in his back in February 2015 and missing 21 months. Ranked a career-high No. 63 in 2104, he is now No. 313.
   In last year's Fairfield final, Colombian veteran Santiago Giraldo defeated France's Quentin Halys, then 19, in three sets. The match was suspended by rain on a Sunday with Halys leading 3-1, ad-out, and completed the next day.
   Neither Giraldo, who climbed to a career-high No. 28 in 2014, nor Halys returned to Fairfield this year.
   Also Sunday, a team with strong NorCal ties will play for the doubles title. Wild cards Akram El Salally and Bernardo Oliveira, teammates at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, will meet second-seeded Luke Bambridge of Great Britain and David O'Hare of Ireland.
   El Salally, a sophomore from Egypt, and Oliveira, a senior from Brazil, edged unseeded Mikelis Libietis of Latvia and McDonald 7-6 (5), 4-6 [10-8].
   McDonald won last year's doubles crown with Brian Baker of Nashville, Tenn., and Libietis captured the 2014 NCAA doubles title with Tennessee teammate Hunter Reese.
   Here are the Fairfield singles and doubles draws and Sunday's schedule. The tournament is being streamed live.

Rain postpones singles quarterfinals of 100K Fairfield

No. 8 seed Maximilian Marterer of Germany is scheduled to face
Quentin Halys, 19, of France today in the quarterfinals of the
$100,000 Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Persistent rain postponed the singles quarterfinals of the $100,000 Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger at Solano Community College on Friday. The doubles semifinals were played indoors 41 miles (66 kilometers) away at the San Francisco Tennis Club.
   All singles quarterfinals are scheduled for today at 10 a.m. at Solano, followed by the all-American doubles final between Sekou Bangoura and Eric Quigley and wild cards Brian Baker and Mackenzie McDonald not before noon.
   Weather permitting, the singles semifinals will be played simultaneously Saturday afternoon. More rain is forecast starting between 3 and 5 p.m., and there's a 50 percent chance of rain on Sunday.
   The singles matchups are No. 2 seed Santiago Giraldo of Colombia against Grega Zemlja of Slovenia, No. 5 Alessandro Giannessi of Italy versus Joris De Loore of Belgium, No. 8 Maximilian Marterer of Germany against Quentin Halys of France, and Tommy Paul of Boca Raton, Fla., versus qualifier Brydan Klein of Great Britain.
   Halys, who ousted No. 1 seed Frances Tiafoe in the second round, and Paul, last year's French Open boys singles champion, are 19.
   Giraldo, 28, and Zemlja (pronounced ZEM-lee-uh), 30, will meet for the second time. Zemlja won 6-1, 6-4, 6-1 in the first round of the 2013 French Open. The other quarterfinals will be first-time meetings.

   Both Giraldo and Zemlja are former top-50 players who have reached the third round of Grand Slam tournaments. Giraldo has plunged from a career-high No. 28 in September 2014 to No. 124. Zemlja has tumbled from a high of No. 43 in July 2013 to No. 161.

   Baker, 31, seeks his second Challenger doubles title in two weeks. He won last week's $100,000 Stockton Challenger with Sam Groth of Australia.

   Groth lost in the singles and doubles quarterfinals of the $100,000 Monterrey (Mexico) Challenger this week. He played doubles with former Cal All-American John Paul Fruttero.

   The 6-foot-4 (1.93-meter), 218-pound (99-kilogram) Groth holds the unofficial record for the world's fastest serve at 163.7 mph (263.4 kph) in the 2012 Busan (South Korea) Challenger.
   McDonald, a 21-year-old native of Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area, turned pro in June after sweeping the NCAA singles and doubles titles as a UCLA junior.

No. 1 seed Tiafoe, No. 3 Smyczek ousted in Fairfield

Quentin Halys, 19, of France stretches for a forehand during his
victory over top-seeded Frances Tiafoe, 18, in the second round
of the $100,000 Fairfield Challenger. Photo by Paul Bauman

   FAIRFIELD, Calif. -- Well, it was nice while it lasted.
   Top-seeded Frances Tiafoe's stay in the top 100 in the world rankings will last one week after his 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 loss to fellow teenager Quentin Halys on Wednesday in the second round of the $100,000 Fairfield Challenger at Solano Community College.
   Tiafoe, who rose 17 places to No. 100 by winning the $100,000 Stockton Challenger last week, will drop only about three notches when the new rankings are released Monday. But now he's on the verge of having to qualify for Australian Open in January rather than getting straight into the main draw.
   Tiafoe isn't worried about his slip in the rankings.
   "That's alright," said the 18-year-old native of Hyattsville, Md., a semifinalist in Fairfield last year. "It's not a big deal. I've just got to keep working and getting better because obviously my goal is to be higher than 80 or 90 in the world. Hopefully I'll be top 20 or top 10 one day, so I'm working toward that."
   It was a bad day for highly seeded Americans against Europeans. Also, No. 3 Tim Smyczek (pronounced SMEE-check) lost to hard-serving Joris De Loore of Belgium 6-4, 7-6 (5).

   Tiafoe hopes to make big runs in $50,000 Challengers next week in Las Vegas and the week of Oct. 31 in Charlottesville, Va., then end his season.

Tiafoe fell to 0-5, including two junior matches, against Halys. "I haven't
really found any answers for him yet," Tiafoe said. Photo by Paul Bauman

   "I'll play until I feel I'm secure in the top 100 and secure for the Australian Open," said Tiafoe, who led No. 20 seed and then-No. 1 American John Isner two sets to none in the first round of the U.S. Open in August before losing in a fifth-set tiebreaker. "If I have to keep playing until Champaign (Ill., the season-ending Challenger in mid-November), I will, but I'm trying to make it not so many events.
   "It's been a long season, and I'm really tired. It's definitely tough to bring good tennis if I have to do it a lot of weeks, so I'm trying to focus on the next couple (tournaments)."
   Tiafoe's loss to Halys (pronounced Ah-LEECE) was hardly shocking. The 19-year-old Frenchman entered the match 4-0 against Tiafoe, having beaten him twice in the juniors (saving one match point) and twice on clay this year. Halys also was fresher after losing to qualifier Brydan Klein of Great Britain in the first round in Stockton. Plus, Tiafoe had an unfavorable schedule in Fairfield.
   "I mean, it's tough," Tiafoe moaned. "I played Sunday, had one day off and played Tuesday and Wednesday. I was hoping for a Tuesday-Thursday. Obviously, I wasn't so interested in the doubles match (later Wednesday), but luckily we were able to win."
   Tiafoe, playing half-heartedly at times, and Darian King of Barbados survived a match point and edged qualifiers Michael Kwong of Australia and Matt Seeberger, a 32-year-old San Francisco native and former UC Santa Cruz star, 4-6, 7-5 [10-8] in the opening round.

Joris De Loore of Belgium beat a highly seeded
American in the early rounds for the second
consecutive week. Photo by Paul Bauman

   In singles, Tiafoe escaped one match point serving at 4-5 in the third set when Halys, ranked No. 170, netted a low slice backhand. But after Tiafoe held for 5-5, Halys held his serve and broke Tiafoe for the match.
   From 30-30 in the last game, Tiafoe netted a backhand and had an opportunity for a forehand putaway, but it clipped the tape and went wide. Tiafoe furiously smashed his racket on the court three times.
   Halys, who reached the second round of the Australian Open and French Open this year, said his "game plan was to be very aggressive because I knew he was very confident from the last few weeks and he's in good shape now. I know him since a very long time and we always have tough matches (except the first one). Today it went my way."
   The 6-foot-3 (1.91-meter), 166-pound (76-kilogram) Halys pounded 12 aces, committed eight double faults and saved 12 of 14 break points against him.
   "He has a good serve," Tiafoe observed. "He can hit big at any time. He's pretty erratic. He doesn't really give you much rhythm. He'll miss shots, and you'll be like, 'Wow, it's bad,' and he'll hit some shots where you're like, 'Wow, it's really good.' He's definitely tough to play, and I haven't really found any answers for him yet."
   De Loore, ranked No. 184, upset a highly seeded American in the early rounds for the second consecutive week. He ousted top-seeded Bjorn Fratangelo in the first round in Stockton before losing to eventual runner-up Noah Rubin, 20, of the United States.
   Against the 134th-ranked Smyczek, De Loore blasted 13 aces and had only one double fault. He put in 71 percent of his first serves, won 85 percent of the points on his first serve (41 of 48) and saved five of six break points against him. De Loore, who moves well at 6-foot-3 (1.90 meters), also displayed impressive groundstrokes.

Smyczek, only 5-foot-9 (1.75 meters), lost to the hard-serving
De Loore, who's 6-foot-3 (1.90 meters). Photo by Paul Bauman

   "If I keep serving like this, every game (opponents) have to be at their best to beat me," said De Loore, who has defeated three top-100 players this year. "The return is one of the points I have to work on, but today I returned good."
   The key point in the match came at 5-5 in the second-set tiebreaker. Returning Smyczek's second serve, De Loore slugged a forehand cross-court passing shot. De Loore then hammered an ace for the match.
   "That 5-all point in the tiebreaker -- I was actually getting a weak reply when I could get him jammed to his forehand side -- but that one, he took a rip on, and it panned out for him," said Smyczek, who pounded seven aces despite being only 5-foot-9 (1.75 meters).
   In Friday's quarterfinals, De Loore will meet No. 5 seed Alessandro Giannessi of Italy, and Halys will play No. 8 Maximilian Marterer of Germany. The other quarterfinals will be determined today.
   Marterer, a 21-year-old left-hander, withstood 20 aces to beat 6-foot-11 (2.11-meter Reilly Opelka, a 19-year-old American wild card, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5. Opelka was playing in his first tournament since retiring from his second-round qualifying match in the U.S. Open with his sixth stress fracture in one foot or the other in 18 months.
   "I felt it today," Opelka said.
   Opelka broke through in Atlanta on the ATP World Tour earlier in August, beating then-No. 28 Kevin Anderson, who's 6-foot-8 (2.03 meters), en route to the semifinals.
   Rain is forecast for Friday through Sunday in Fairfield.
   Here are the updated singles and doubles draws and today's schedule. The tournament is being streamed live.