Vegas routs Orlando to even WTT record at 1-1

   Sam Querrey lost the opening set again, but the Vegas Rollers dominated the rest of today's World TeamTennis match.
   Vegas defeated the Orlando Storm 24-15 at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.V., to even its record at 1-1.
   Querrey, a 32-year-old San Francisco native, lost to Tennys Sandgren 5-4 (5-3) after falling to 18-year-old Brandon Nakashima of the expansion Chicago Smash 5-3 on Sunday at The Greenbrier.
   But Monica Puig, the women's singles gold medalist in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, kick-started Vegas' victory with a 5-3 decision over Danielle Collins, a semifinalist in the 2019 Australian Open and inaugural Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic at San Jose State University in 2018.
   Puig rebounded from a 5-1 loss to Fresno product Sloane Stephens in Sunday's second set. It was Puig's first competitive match since she had elbow surgery in December.
   Collins missed Orlando's 21-18 win over the two-time defending champion Springfield (Mo.) Lasers on Sunday with an undisclosed illness. She beat three top-20 players – No. 5 Elina Svitolina, No. 7 Belinda Bencic and No. 15 Sofia Kenin – in January.
   Vegas swept today's three doubles sets behind Asia Muhammad and ex-Stanford stars Bob Bryan, Mike Bryan and Kristie Ahn.
   The Rollers will return to the court on Tuesday at 8 a.m. (ESPN2) against the San Diego Aviators (1-0).

   VEGAS ROLLERS 24, ORLANDO STORM 15 

   Men's singles – Tennys Sandgren (Orl) def. Sam Querrey 5-4 (5-3).
   Women's singles – Monica Puig (LV) def. Danielle Collins (Orl) 5-3.
   Mixed doubles – Asia Muhammad and Mike Bryan (LV) def. Darija Jurak and Sandgren 5-3.
   Women's doubles – Kristie Ahn and Muhammad (LV) def. Jurak and Jessica Pegula 5-3.
   Men's doubles – Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan (LV) def. Sandgren and James Ward 5-1.

World TeamTennis to play full season at W.V. resort

Sofia Kenin, ranked fourth, headlines the World Team-
Tennis rosters this season. 2018 photo by Paul Bauman 

   World TeamTennis will play its entire season at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.V., the league announced today.
   The regular season is scheduled for July 12-30, and the four-team playoffs are set for Aug. 1-2. Play on the men's and women's pro tours has been suspended until at least Aug. 3.
   CBS will broadcast a WTT regular-season match on July 19 and the WTT Final on Aug. 2. CBS Sports Network will carry 13 regular-season matches and the Aug. 1 semifinals.
   WTT will play at least three matches per day at The Greenbrier's 2,500-seat outdoor stadium, and an indoor court will be installed as a backup. In accordance with state health guidelines, WTT will allow up to 500 fans to attend the outdoor matches.
   The nine-team league consists of the two-time defending champion Springfield (Mo.) Lasers, Las Vegas Rollers, Orange County Breakers, San Diego Aviators, New York Empire, Orlando Storm, Philadelphia Freedoms, Washington Kastles and expansion Chicago Smash.
   This season's players include:
   –Sofia Kenin (Philadelphia), the world No. 4 and reigning Australian Open champion.
   –Sloane Stephens (Chicago), the 2017 U.S. Open champion and 2018 French Open runner-up.
   –Grigor Dimitrov (Orange County), a three-time Grand Slam semifinalist.
   –Bob and Mike Bryan (Las Vegas), who have won a record 16 Grand Slam men's doubles titles.
   –Sam Querrey (Las Vegas), a Wimbledon semifinalist in 2017.
   –Tennys Sandgren (Orlando), a two-time Australian Open quarterfinalist.
   –Neal Skupski (New York), last year's WTT Male MVP.
   Kenin won Northern California Challengers in three consecutive years – Sacramento at 17 in 2016, Stockton and Berkeley.
   Stephens grew up in Fresno, the Bryan twins starred at Stanford in 1997 and 1998, and Querrey was born in San Francisco.
   The Bryans, Sandgren and Skupski played for the Sacramento area-based California Dream in 2015, the team's only year of existence.

Federer saves seven match points, tops Sandgren

Roger Federer said he was "incredibly lucky" to defeat Tennys Sandgren tonight
in the Australian Open quarterfinals. 2017 photo by Mal Taam

   Third-seeded Roger Federer saved seven match points tonight in a 6-3, 2-6, 2-6, 7-6 (8), 6-3 victory over unseeded American Tennys Sandgren, the runner-up in the 2017 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger, in the Australian Open quarterfinals in Melbourne.

   Federer, 38, escaped three match points while serving at 4-5 in the fourth set and four in the tiebreaker.

Tennys Sandgren almost became the lowest-ranked American
to reach the Australian Open semifinals since Patrick McEnroe
in 1991. File photo by Paul Bauman

   "I was incredibly lucky today," Federer, whose only Northern California appearance came in a 2018 San Jose exhibition, said in an on-court interview. " ... I don't deserve this one, but I'm standing here and obviously very, very happy."
   Federer took an 8 1/2-minute medical timeout off the court for a groin problem at 0-3 (one service break) in the second set.

   Sandgren, an Australian Open quarterfinalist in 2018, out-aced Federer 27-5, the biggest discrepancy of the Swiss star's career.
   The 28-year-old Sandgren, at No. 100, almost became the lowest-ranked man to reach the Australian Open semifinals since No. 114 Patrick McEnroe in 1991 and the first American to advance to the final four in Melbourne since Andy Roddick in 2009.

   Federer is set to play second-seeded Novak Djokovic, the defending and seven-time champion. Djokovic eliminated 32nd-seeded Milos Raonic, an Australian Open semifinalist in 2016, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (1).
   Djokovic, 32, is 26-23 against Federer. Djokovic has won four of the past five meetings, including his epic victory in last year's Wimbledon final. Djokovic saved two championship points in the 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3) win. At 4 hours, 57 minutes, it's the longest Wimbledon final ever.

Berkeley champion Kenin earns first WTA singles title

Sofia Kenin, playing in Berkeley last July, routed Anna Karo-
lina Schmiedlova 6-3, 6-0 today to win the Hobart (Australia)
International. Photo by Paul Bauman

   You might say Sofia Kenin is in good form entering the Australian Open.
   Ditto for Ben McLachlan.
   One week after claiming her first WTA doubles title, Kenin did the same in singles.
   The 20-year-old American routed Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia 6-3, 6-0 in 71 minutes today to win the Hobart (Australia) International.
    McLachlan, a 26-year-old former Cal star, and Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany beat third-seeded Raven Klaasen of South Africa and Michael Venus of New Zealand 6-3, 6-4 to capture the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand.
   McLachlan, a New Zealand native who plays for his mother's native Japan, and Struff reached the Australian Open semifinals last year in their first tournament together.
   In the Auckland singles final, unseeded Tennys Sandgren of Gallatin, Tenn., topped wild card Cameron Norrie, a New Zealand product who plays for Great Britain, 6-4, 6-2.
   Sandgren, a surprise quarterfinalist in last year's Australian Open, avenged a 6-2, 6-3 loss to Norrie in the final of the $100,000 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger in 2017. The left-handed Norrie also won the $100,000 Stockton (Calif.) Challenger the following week, beating Darian King of Barbados.
   Kenin reeled off the last nine games against Schmiedlova in a matchup of unseeded players to become the first American champion in Tasmania since Amy Frazier in 2004. Kenin and Eugenie Bouchard of Canada won last week's women's ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand.
   "I feel in great form, and I'm really proud of myself," Kenin, who won the inaugural $60,000 Berkeley Tennis Club Challenge last July for her third title in Northern California in three years, told reporters. "I'm so happy with my start and will try to keep the momentum going."
   Kenin did not lose a set in the tournament, upsetting top-seeded Caroline Garcia of France 6-3, 6-2 in the first round, seventh-seeded Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium 7-5, 7-5 in the quarterfinals and sixth-seeded Alize Cornet of France 6-2, 6-4 in the semifinals.
   Kenin also dismissed Garcia 6-3, 6-3 on grass in Mallorca in June for her first victory over a top-10 player and her first berth in a WTA semifinal.
   Kenin will make her top-40 debut on Monday, jumping from No. 56 to No. 37. She is scheduled to play Veronika Kudermetova, a 21-year-old Russian qualifier, in the first round of the Australian Open on Monday (California time). Kenin was born in Moscow and moved to the United States as a young child.
   It will be Kenin's second main-draw appearance in Melbourne. She lost to 12th-seeded Julia Goerges of Germany 6-4, 6-4 in the opening round last year.

Kerber dominates Keys; Chung beats Sandgren

   The match shaped up as a battle between resurgent Angelique Kerber and rising Madison Keys.
   Instead, the 21st-seeded Kerber demolished the 17th-seeded Keys 6-1, 6-2 in 51 minutes today in the Australian Open quarterfinals in Melbourne.
   "It was more Kerber playing so well than Keys playing badly," Tennis Channel commentator Martina Navratilova said of the matchup between the Bank of the West Classic champions at Stanford in 2015 (Kerber) and last year (Keys).
   Kerber, a 5-foot-8 (1.73-meter) German left-hander who turned 30 last week, admittedly played spectacular defense, as usual. But the 5-foot-10 (1.78-meter) Keys, an American who will turn 23 on Feb. 17, had no aces and four double faults and made numerous errors, especially backhands down the line into the net.
   The match was reminiscent of last year's U.S. Open final, in which Fresno product Sloane Stephens whipped Keys 6-3, 6-0 in 61 minutes in the first major title match for both players.
   Kerber improved to 10-0 this year, including a run to the Sydney title. After winning her first two Grand Slam titles, the Australian Open and U.S. Open, and rising to No. 1 in 2016, she failed to reach the quarterfinals of a major in 2017 (losing in the first round in Melbourne and at Wimbledon) and ended the year at No. 21.
   Kerber will play top-seeded Simona Halep, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over sixth-seeded Karolina Pliskova, on Wednesday PST. Kerber is 4-4 against Halep with four wins in the last five meetings.
   In a men's quarterfinal between unseeded players, Hyeon Chung, 21, of South Korea defeated Tennys Sandgren, 26, of Gallatin, Tenn., in the Nashville area 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-3 at Rod Laver Arena.
   Chung. who needed six match points, will face either second seed and defending champion Roger Federer or 10th-seeded Tomas Berdych (Wednesday at 12:30 a.m. PST on ESPN2). Chung is 0-0 against Federer and 0-2 against Berdych.
   Sandgren will add $352,398 (U.S.) to his career prize money of $488,735 and soar to about No. 52 in the rankings.
   Both Chung and Sandgren eliminated rusty former Australian Open champions in straight sets during the tournament.
   Chung toppled six-time champ Novak Djokovic, seeded 14th after taking six months off to rest his sore right elbow, to become the first Korean to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal. Afterward, Djokovic said the 58th-ranked Chung has top-10 potential.
   Sandgren, ranked 97th, knocked off 2014 champ Stan Wawrinka, playing in his first tournament since undergoing knee surgery five months ago, in the second round.
   Sandgren, the runner-up in the $100,000 Tiburon Challenger in the San Francisco Bay Area last fall, was 0-2 in Grand Slam matches and was 2-8 in tour-level matches entering the Australian Open.
   Chung and Sandgren met for the first time two weeks ago in Auckland, with Chung prevailing 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 in the first round. Sandgren said the match gave him confidence that he can compete at the top level.
   Oracle Challenger Series in Newport Beach, Calif. -- Qualifier Dennis Novikov, a 24-year-old San Jose product, ousted top-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in the first round.
   The 6-foot-4 (1.93-meter), 200-pound (91-kilogram) Novikov, ranked No. 238, slugged 15 aces past Nishikori, the 2014 U.S. Open runner-up who was playing in his first match since August because of a right wrist injury.

Sandgren stuns Thiem; ex-Cal star in doubles QFs

Unseeded Tennys Sandgren, who has played regularly in
Northern California Challengers, beat fifth-seeded Dom-
inic Thiem in five sets today to reach the Australian Open
quarterfinals. File photo by Paul Bauman

   Two weeks ago, Hyeon Chung defeated Tennys Sandgren in the first round of the ASB Classic in Auckland.
   Little did anyone know that the young South Korean and unheralded American would meet in the Australian Open quarterfinals.
   Chung, 21, ousted six-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic 7-6 (4), 7-5, 7-6 (3) today in the fourth round in Melbourne and became the first Korean to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal. Djokovic later said the 58th-ranked Chung, who won the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan last November, has top-10 potential.
   Djokovic, seeded 14th, was playing in his first official tournament in six months because of a sore right elbow. He also was treated for a hip injury during his 6-2, 6-3, 6-3 victory over 21st-seeded Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain in the previous round.
   Sandgren, the last remaining U.S. man, stunned fifth-seeded Dominic Thiem of Austria 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (7), 6-3 in 3 hours, 54 minutes. 
   Thiem saved a match point while serving at 5-6 in the fourth-set tiebreaker with a spectacular one-handed backhand down-the-line passing shot. Sandgren applauded with one hand on his racket strings.
   "I'm starting to disbelieve what is happening now," Sandgren, a 26-year-old resident of Gallatin, Tenn., in the Nashville area, said in an on-court interview. "But maybe it's not a dream? He played some really, really great tennis, especially in the fourth-set tiebreak. Goodness gracious! I knew I had to take my chances and he, from behind the court, would outlast me. I had to stay aggressive and serve well."
   Meanwhile, ex-Cal star Ben McLachlan continued his surprising doubles run. McLachlan and Jan-Lennard Struff, playing in their first tournament together, defeated Pablo Carreno Busta and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4, 7-6 (5) in a clash of unseeded teams to reach the quarterfinals.
   Carreno Busta and Garcia-Lopez, both from Spain, advanced to the semifinals of last year's Australian Open and the final of the 2016 U.S. Open.
   Sandgren, who lost to Chung 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 in Auckland, became the first man to reach the Australian quarterfinals in his main-draw debut since Alexandr Dolgopolov seven years ago and the first American man to advance to the quarters in Melbourne since Andy Roddick in 2010.
   In the second round, Sandgren dismissed ninth seed and 2014 champion Stan Wawrinka 6-2, 6-1, 6-4. Wawrinka was playing in his first official tournament since undergoing knee surgery five months ago.
   Sandgren's mother, Lia, suffered a broken rib in Gallatin while celebrating Tennys' success in the tournament. While jumping up and down, she fell on a pool table and was hospitalized. Tennys, who was named after his Swedish great grandfather, said Lia did not suffer a concussion, as reported by ESPN's Brad Gilbert.
   Sandgren will add at least $352,398 (U.S.) to his career prize money of $488,735 and jump from No. 97 in the world to about No. 52 or better.
   A former University of Tennessee All-American, Sandgren has played on the U.S. Challenger circuit for most of the past six years. A regular in Northern California, he won the Sacramento doubles title in 2012 with ex-Volunteers teammate Rhyne Williams, had hip surgery in 2014 and reached the singles final in Tiburon in the San Francisco Bay Area last fall.
   Sandgren had been 0-2 in Grand Slam singles matches entering the Australian Open and had won only two tour-level singles matches.
   After last season, Sandgren cut his long hair and shaved off his handlebar mustache.
   "I decided I couldn't go through life like this," Sandgren quipped to reporters. "I thought it was time to look more professional."

   McLachlan, a 25-year-old New Zealand native who plays for his mother's native Japan, and Struff, a 27-year-old German, were coming off a victory over ninth-seeded Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez of Spain. The Lopezes, who are not related, won the 2016 French Open and advanced to the final of last year's U.S. Open.
   McLachlan and Struff will take on top-seeded Lukasz Kubot of Poland and Marcelo Melo of Brazil. Kubot, the 2014 champion with Robert Lindstedt of Sweden, and Melo beat 16th-seeded Rajeev Ram of Carmel, Ind., and Divij Sharan of India 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-4.

Sandgren reaches round of 16 in Australian Open

Tennys Sandgren defeated Maximilian Marterer in four sets
today in the third round of the Australian Open. File photo
by Paul Bauman

   Even though he's only 26, Tennys Sandgren has taken a long, hard road to success.
   A resident of Gallatin, Tenn., in the Nashville area, Sandgren has toiled for years in front of few fans for little prize money on the Challenger circuit in places like Stockton, Calif., Charlottesville, Va., and Champaign, Ill.
   In addition, Sandgren underwent left hip surgery in 2014, missing more than six months and plunging to No. 714 in the world rankings.
   Sandgren's persistence has paid off. He defeated German left-hander Maximilian Marterer 5-7, 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 (5) today to reach the round of 16 in the Australian Open in Melbourne.
   Sandgren had ousted ninth-seeded Stan Wawrinka, the 2014 champion, in straight sets in the second round. Wawrinka was playing in his first official tournament since having knee surgery five months ago.
   The last American man in singles, Sandgren will play fifth-seeded Dominic Thiem of Austria on Sunday PST for a quarterfinal berth.
   "He's a beast," Sandgren said in his on-court interview. "I'm looking forward to it."
   Even if Sandgren loses, he will take home $192,218 (U.S.) and jump from No. 97 in the world to about No. 67.
   As usual, Sandgren played all three stops on the Northern California Challenger circuit last fall, reaching the final in Tiburon and the quarterfinals in Stockton and Fairfield. Marterer played Fairfield, advancing to the semifinals.
   Sandgren, by the way, was not named after tennis. He was given his great grandfather's Swedish name.
   In the second round of men's doubles, Spaniards Pablo Carreno Busta and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez defeated former Stanford All-American Scott Lipsky, 36, of Irvine in the Los Angeles area and David Marrero, 37, of Spain 3-6, 7-6 (5), 6-3.
   Lipsky led Stanford to the NCAA team title in 2000 and reached the 2002 NCAA doubles final with David Martin. Two of Lipsky's 16 ATP doubles titles came in San Jose (2008 with Martin and 2011 with Rajeev Ram).
   Also today, 13th-seeded Daniela Vismane of Latvia beat Stanford-bound Niluka Madurawe of Sunnyvale in the San Francisco Bay Area 6-3, 6-4 in the first round of girls singles.

'Lefty Andy Murray' advances to Stockton semis

   STOCKTON, Calif. — If Michael Mmoh is right, Cameron Norrie has a very bright future.
   When it was suggested to Mmoh that the left-hander's game resembles his British countryman Andy Murray's, Mmoh replied: "Lefty Andy Murray is a pretty good comparison. He has a really good backhand and a pretty good forehand. He's very talented at moving you around the court and really dictating that baseline, so he'll just push you from corner to corner. He can do that all day. He has very good precision."
   That doesn't necessarily mean Norrie, who will face Mmoh today in the semifinals of the $100,000 Stockton Challenger, will ascend to No. 1 and win three Grand Slam singles titles like Murray.
   Norrie, 22, is far behind Murray at the same age. Murray won the first of his 45 ATP titles, 14th in the Open era (since 1968) and fourth among active players, in the now-defunct SAP Open in San Jose at 18 years old in 2006 and repeated in 2007. Norrie is ranked No. 136 and could crack the top 100 by the end of the year. That would be an impressive feat, considering he turned pro only four months ago after his junior year at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
   Norrie, seeded eighth, beat Tennys Sandgren, seeded second, 6-3, 7-6 (5) on Friday at the University of the Pacific's Eve Zimmerman Tennis Center.
   The third-seeded Mmoh, 19, of Bradenton, Fla., led 34-year-old Russian qualifier Dmitry Tursunov, a former top-20 player who has been plagued by injuries, 6-3 when Tursunov retired with a hamstring injury.
   It's the third consecutive tournament in which Tursunov, who trained in Northern California from age 12 into his 30s, has retired and the second straight because of a hamstring problem.
   In the other semifinal, sixth-seeded Darian King of Barbados will meet unseeded veteran Tim Smyczek of Tampa, Fla., for the first time.
   King, 25, defeated fourth-seeded Stefan Kozlov, 19, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., 6-4, 6-4. Smyczek, 29, eliminated Elias Ymer, a 21-year-old Swede, by the same score.
   Both King and Smyczek qualified for the U.S. Open in August and lost in the first round.   
   Sandgren, 26, of Gallatin, Tenn., in the Nashville area was the only top-100 player in the Stockton Challenger at No. 97. Top-seeded Ruben Bemelmans, a Belgian who lost to Ymer in the first round, dropped from No. 92 when the draw came out last Saturday to No. 101 in the latest rankings on Monday.
   Norrie's victory wasn't really an upset. He improved to 3-0 against Sandgren, including a 6-2, 6-3 victory in the final of the $100,000 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger on Sunday.
   "I think I've had a little bit of luck (against Sandgren)," the 6-foot-2 (1.88-meter) Norrie said modestly. "I've been winning the long rallies against him, and that's what he usually does well. That's paid dividends, and I've been coming forward when I've needed to and knocking off some volleys when he's on the run and slices. I've been staying positive and staying tough."
   Sandgren led 4-1 (one service break) in the second set, but Norrie broke back for 3-4 when Sandgren sailed a high backhand volley long. Both players then held serve to force the tiebreaker, in which Norrie bolted to a 5-1 lead and held on for the match.
   "He played a good game to break me (early in the second set)," said Norrie, who reached the second round of the U.S. Open as a qualifier before losing to eventual semifinalist Pablo Carreno Busta. "I felt like I was playing well. I just tried to focus on the present. Then I fought back and played a very good tiebreaker and served really well. It's the best I've served the last two weeks. I'm feeling really good about the match."
   Mmoh, the son of former journeyman pro Tony Mmoh from Nigeria, skipped college and turned pro last year. He was happy that his match against Tursunov lasted only 39 minutes.
   Mmoh was coming off a 1-6, 6-2, 7-6 (4) victory over Mackenzie McDonald, who grew up in Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area, on Thursday. Mmoh saved two match points in the 2-hour, 34-minute battle.
   "I had a super-long match yesterday and was pretty sore this morning," conceded Mmoh, who was named after Michael Jordan and has much of his namesake's athleticism. "Having a 30-minute match or whatever it was is going to help me the rest of the tournament and if I decide to play Fairfield (next week) as well."
   Norrie is 2-0 against Mmoh, including a 7-5, 6-2 win last week in the Tiburon quarterfinals.
   "I need to be a little more aggressive and take my chances," said the 6-foot-1 (1.85-meter) Mmoh, ranked No. 156. "I don't think I'm going to have a lot of success just putting the ball in play and hoping he's going to miss because he can make a ton of balls. I'm going to look to use my firepower and take it upon him."
   Here are the Stockton singles and doubles draws and today's schedule. The tournament is being streamed live.
   Also, here are the singles qualifying draw and today's schedule for the $100,000 Northbay Healthcare Men's Pro Championships at Solano Community College in Fairfield, Calif.

Sandgren, with quirky game, gains Stockton quarters

   STOCKTON, Calif. — Tennys Sandgren is a bit of an enigma.
   Let's start with his first name. No, he was not named after tennis. He was given his great grandfather's Swedish name.
   Then there's Sandgren's game. He's a strapping American with a whipping forehand but stands far behind the baseline, loves to chase down balls and slides on hard courts as if he was playing on clay.
   "I'm 6-2 — 6-3 with shoes — but play like I'm 5-8, 155 pounds ... with a serve," the second-seeded Sandgren quipped after outslugging Liam Broady of Great Britain 7-6 (7), 6-4 today to reach the quarterfinals of the $100,000 Stockton Challenger. "I use my height and reach to play defensively."
   Sandgren is the only top-100 player in the field at No. 97. Top-seeded Ruben Bemelmans, a Belgian who lost to Elias Ymer of Sweden in the first round on Tuesday, was No. 92 when the draw came out on Saturday but fell to No. 101 in the latest rankings on Monday.
   Both Sandgren, 26, of Gallatin, Tenn., in the Nashville area and Broady, a 23-year-old left-hander, have reached recent $100,000 Challenger finals in Northern California. Sandgren lost to Cameron Norrie of Great Britain on Sunday in Tiburon in the San Francisco Bay Area. Broady fell to Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan in Aptos, a two-hour drive south of Tiburon, in August.
   On a warm, calm morning at the University of the Pacific's Eve Zimmerman Tennis Center, Broady squandered leads of 5-1 in the tiebreaker — making numerous errors, including one on set point with an open court — and 3-1 in the second set.
   "At 5-1 in the breaker, I was like, OK, I'm just gonna make as many balls as I can, at least make him beat me the next two points — I'm not gonna give him one free point," Sandgren said. "One point turned into two points, and maybe he got a little tight and gave me one. Then I'm back serving at 4-5.
   "It went back and forth, and he ended up having set point at 7-6. I was able to turn it around, thankfully, but the first set was huge because we were going back and forth against each other and whoever got that one had a lot of momentum, especially if it was him because I thought maybe he outplayed me a little bit in the first set and I was able to sneak away with it."
   Sandgren, who weighs 192 pounds (87 kilograms), hammered eight aces in the match.
   "My serve gets me out of a lot of jams," Sandgren said. "I put myself in jams, and my serve gets me out of them. I rely on my serve a lot. I've been serving well the last five matches, and it helped me out a ton (today). (Eight) aces in a match where we're scrapping for every point is a big deal."
   Sandgren played with his lower left leg taped.
   "Too many landings on the serve," Sandgren complained, "but it's better than feeling 100 percent fresh because I lost in the first round last week. I'll take that and work with that as best I can. I don't think it will affect me too much.
   "I had some plantar fasciitis in this foot at the beginning of the year, and I've been playing on it, so it hasn't really gotten better. It just moved up my leg into the shin. Something has to take the load. I've been dealing with this on and off for a couple months now."
   Sandgren will face Norrie, seeded eighth, on Friday. Norrie, a 22-year-old left-hander, outlasted Brydan Klein of Great Britain 4-6, 7-6 (1), 6-4 in 2 hours, 37 minutes this afternoon. Norrie is ranked No. 136 only four months after turning pro, forgoing his senior year at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
   "I feel like I may be the underdog in that match," Sandgren said before Norrie's battle against Klein. "He's gotten me the last two times, and he's playing well. I don't feel I have as much to lose. I feel like I can go out there and try to do some different things, try some different tactics, because what I've been doing the last couple times hasn't been the most efficient. He's been running me around and wearing me down too much.
   "I'll be excited about it for sure. I wish we were in different halves, but it is what it is. He's a great player and a good competitor. If I can rise to the occasion, it will be a good match. If I don't, he'll take me down."
   In another quarterfinal, fourth-seeded Stefan Kozlov, 19, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., will meet sixth-seeded Darian King of Barbados.
   Kozlov defeated Denis Kudla, who has tumbled from a career-high No. 53 in May last year, to No. 166 in the world, 6-4, 6-4. King eliminated Noah Rubin, the runner-up in last year's inaugural Stockton Challenger, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2. Both Kudla, 25, and Rubin, 21, are American.
   The other quarterfinal matchups will be determined Thursday. 
   Here are the Stockton singles and doubles draws and Thursday's schedule. The tournament is being streamed live.

Britain's Norrie rises to the occasion in Tiburon

Cameron Norrie defeated Tennys Sandgren 6-2, 6-3
on Sunday to win the $100,000 Tiburon (Calif.)
Challenger. Photo by Paul Bauman

   TIBURON, Calif. -- Cameron Norrie earned more than a title and $14,400 on Sunday.
   The 22-year-old South African/Kiwi/American/Briton gained redemption with his 6-2, 6-3 victory over Tennys Sandgren in the $100,000 Tiburon Challenger.
   "Obviously, it was a big match for me," crowed Norrie, who won his second and biggest Challenger singles title only four months after turning pro out of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. "My last final, I had a terrible performance. I wanted to make sure I got every detail right.
   "I stuck to my game plan. I tried to be aggressive and be the one dictating play. I played really well when I needed to. My serve went (away) a little bit at the start of the second set, but it started coming around. I really wanted to win, and I'm happy I beat him today."
   Two weeks ago in the final of a $50,000 hard-court tournament in Cary, N.C., Norrie lost to unheralded American Kevin King 6-4, 6-1. In the second round, Norrie defeated Sandgren 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 to even their head-to-head series at 2-2.
   This time, Norrie was fresher than Sandgren on a typically gorgeous fall day at the Tiburon Peninsula Club in the hills across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. While the eighth-seeded Norrie dispatched unseeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran of India 6-3, 6-2 in 57 minutes in Saturday's semifinals, the second-seeded Sandgren needed 1 hour, 48 minutes to subdue local favorite Mackenzie McDonald 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3).
   "Cam played too good today," conceded Sandgren, a 26-year-old American. "I feel like my legs are a little tired from yesterday's match. It kind of took a lot out of me against Mackie yesterday, but Cam played too good. He came up with some fantastic shots on some big points. I feel like the longer the points went, the better it was for him, but he's not a particularly easy guy to finish points off quickly against. All credit to him."
   The 1-hour, 16-minute final was more competitive and entertaining than the score indicates. Norrie and Sandgren engaged in many long, athletic points, eliciting "oohs" and "aahs" from the estimated crowd of 600.
   Both players, however, had serving issues.
   Norrie overcame eight double faults, including three in a game twice. He managed to hold serve the first time his serve deserted him but was broken the second time in the opening game of the second set. It was the only time Norrie lost his serve in the match, as he saved five of six break points against him.

Tennys Sandgren received a check for $8,480 from Wells Fargo executive
Thomas Sands, left, and tournament director Brendan Curry. Photo by
Paul Bauman

   Sandgren was called for two foot faults. Even though he lost his serve both times, once in each set, he said the miscues were not a factor in the outcome of the match.
   Norrie, a left-hander, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to a Scottish father and Welsh mother. The family moved to New Zealand, and Norrie starred at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth for three years. He reached the NCAA quarterfinals in 2015 and semifinals in 2016, and also was the runner-up to British countryman Daniel Evans in the $100,000 Aptos (Calif.) Challenger last year. Aptos is a two-hour drive south of affluent Tiburon.
   After leading the Horned Frogs to the NCAA quarterfinals in May as a junior, Norrie bypassed the individual tournament and turned pro.
   "I thought I was going to get into the French Open (qualifying)," he explained. "I ended up missing out my a couple of spots (in the rankings), and I needed a break before the grass-court season. It was the smartest move possible for my pro career, and I couldn't really gain anything from winning (the NCAA singles title), so there was no point in playing the individual tournament for me."
   Norrie said he "feels British. My parents are both British, and I lived in London for three or four years before college. I feel at home there. My dad has a filthy Scottish accent, so I feel British."
   Norrie receives financial support from the British federation, but that's only one reason he plays for Great Britain.
   "No one cares about tennis in New Zealand," Norrie groused. "All the money goes into rugby, and New Zealand is so far away to play tournaments, and there's no tournaments in New Zealand. To me, it was a no-brainer to move (to Great Britain)."

Former Cal stars Florian Lakat, left, and Andre Goransson
won the doubles title. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Sandgren has his own family story. For the record, he was not named after tennis. He was given his great grandfather's Swedish name. Tennys, however, is from Tennessee. He rebounded from 2014 hip surgery to crack the top 100 for the first time in June. Sandgren was seeking his fourth Challenger singles title and third this year.
   Both Norrie and Sandgren played in their first two Grand Slam singles main draws this year. Norrie lost in the first round at Wimbledon and reached the second round of the U.S. Open. Sandgren fell in the first round of the French Open and U.S. Open.
   Both players also attained career-high rankings with their Tiburon results. Sandgren, who earned $8,480, improved seven places to No. 97. Norrie jumped 29 spots to No. 136.
   Wild cards Andre Goransson and Florian Lakat, both of whom completed their eligibility at Cal in May, surprised top-seeded Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela of Mexico 6-4, 6-4 for the doubles title.
   Goransson, from Sweden, and Lakat, from France, collected $3,100 each.
   Here are the completed Tiburon Challenger singles and doubles draws.
   Also, here are the $100,000 Stockton (Calif.) Challenger singles qualifying draw, singles and doubles main draws and Monday's schedule. The tournament is being held at the Eve Zimmerman Tennis Center at the University of the Pacific.

For McDonald, loss is same old, same old

Tennys Sandgren, above, improved to 5-0 against Mackenzie
McDonald today with a win in the semifinals of the $100,000
Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger. File photo by Paul Bauman

   Mackenzie McDonald couldn't end two winless streaks today.
   He had his chances, though.
   Playing in his native San Francisco Bay Area, the unseeded McDonald lost to second-seeded Tennys Sandgren of Gallatin, Tenn., 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) in the semifinals of the $100,000 Tiburon Challenger at the Tiburon Peninsula Club.
   McDonald fell to 0-5 against Sandgren and 0-7 in Challenger semifinals. Seven weeks ago, Sandgren routed McDonald 6-1, 6-2 in the second round of a $100,000 Challenger in Aptos, a two-hour drive south of affluent Tiburon.
   Sandgren, 26, will face eighth-seeded Cameron Norrie of Great Britain on Sunday not before 2:30 p.m. Norrie, a 22-year-old left-hander, dismantled unseeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran of India 6-3, 6-2.
   Sandgren saved four set points serving at 4-5 in the first set against the 22-year-old McDonald, who was playing in his third consecutive Tiburon semifinal.
   McDonald, who grew up across the bay in Piedmont, served for the second set at 5-4, but Sandgren broke. Sandgren also trailed 0-3 in the tiebreaker.
   Overall, the 6-foot-2 (1.88-meter) Sandgren escaped seven of eight break points against him and blasted 10 aces against three double faults. McDonald, only 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters), had three aces and three double faults.
   Sandgren, ranked No. 104, is 2-2 against Norrie, ranked No. 165. They met only two weeks ago, when Norrie won 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 in the second round of a $50,000 hardcourt tournament in Cary, N.C. Norrie reached the final, in which he lost to American Kevin King.
   Sandgren, who underwent hip surgery in 2014, seeks the fourth Challenger singles title of his career and third of the year. Norrie, who turned pro in June after his junior year at Texas Christian, won a $50,000 tournament in Binghamton (N.Y.) in July for his only Challenger title. He was the runner-up to countryman Daniel Evans in Aptos last year.
   The Tiburon title will be the biggest of either player's career.        
   In Sunday's doubles final at noon, top-seeded Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela of Mexico will meet unseeded former Cal stars Andre Goransson of Sweden and Florian Lakat of France.
   Here are the Tiburon Challenger singles and doubles draws and Sunday's schedule. The tournament is being streamed live.
   Here are the singles qualifying draw, singles main draw and Sunday's schedule for next week's $100,000 Stockton (Calif.) Challenger at the University of the Pacific's Eve Zimmerman Tennis Center.

McDonald to face nemesis in Tiburon semis

Mackenzie McDonald, from Piedmont in the San
Francisco Bay Area, will play Tennys Sandgren
in the semifinals of the $100,000 Tiburon (Calif.)
Challenger. 2016 photo by Paul Bauman

   Local favorite Mackenzie McDonald reached the semifinals of the $100,000 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger for the third consecutive year today.
   Now comes the hard part.
   The unseeded McDonald, who grew up in nearby Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area, beat Alejandro Gonzalez, a former top-70 player from Colombia, 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 at the Tiburon Peninsula Club.
   McDonald, 22, will take on second-seeded Tennys Sandgren, a 26-year-old resident of Gallatin, Tenn., who routed wild card Christian Harrison of Bradenton, Fla., 6-1, 6-2. Harrison's older brother, 51st-ranked Ryan, reached the Tiburon final in 2010 at age 18.
   McDonald, ranked No. 196, is 0-4 against Sandgren, ranked No. 104, and 0-6 in Challenger semifinals. This will be their fourth meeting of the year and first ever past the second round.
   In their last encounter, Sandgren demolished McDonald 6-1, 6-2 in one hour in the second round of a $100,000 Challenger in Aptos, Calif., a two-hour drive south of Tiburon, in August.
   Saturday's other semifinal will be a matchup of 6-foot-2 (1.88-meter) left-handers. Eighth-seeded Cameron Norrie, 22, of Great Britain will meet unseeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran, 27, of India for the first time.
   Norrie, the Aptos runner-up last year, outclassed fourth-seeded Michael Mmoh of Bradenton, Fla., 7-5, 6-2. Mmoh reached the 2016 Tiburon final as an 18-year-old qualifier.
   Gunneswaran held off another former top-70 player, 33-year-old Frank Dancevic of Canada, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
   Sandgren has rebounded from 2014 hip surgery to break through this year. He played in his first two Grand Slam main draws, first-round losses in the French Open and U.S. Open, and cracked the top 100 for the first time in June.
   McDonald turned pro in June 2016 after sweeping the NCAA singles and doubles titles as a UCLA junior. He has yet to play in the main draw of a Slam.
   In the doubles semifinals, unseeded former Cal stars Andre Goransson of Sweden and Florian Lakat of France will play second-seeded Luke Bambridge of Great Britain and David O'Hare of Ireland on Saturday at 11 a.m. The winner will face top-seeded Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela of Mexico on Sunday.
   As soon as his doubles match ends Lakat will rush to Stockton, where he is scheduled to play 34-year-old Dmitry Tursunov of Russia not before 3 p.m. in the first round of qualifying. Stockton is a one-hour, 40-minute drive east of Tiburon.
   Tursunov moved from his native Moscow to Los Altos in the Bay Area at age 12 to train and climbed to No. 20 in the world in 2006. He owns residences in Moscow and the Sacramento suburb of Folsom.
   Here are the Tiburon Challenger singles and doubles draws and Saturday's schedule. The tournament is being streamed live.
   Here are the singles qualifying draw for the $100,000 Stockton Challenger at the University of the Pacific's Eve Zimmerman Tennis Center and Saturday's schedule.

Top seed Bemelmans to face Stanford star in Tiburon

   Top-seeded Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium will face wild card Tom Fawcett, a Stanford senior from Winnetka, Ill., on Monday or Tuesday in the first round of the Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger.
   The singles draw for the $100,000 tournament at the Tiburon Peninsula Club, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, was held today.
   Bemelmans, a 29-year-old left-hander, reached the third round of Wimbledon as a qualifier in July. He is ranked No. 92 in the world. Fawcett, 6-foot-5 (1.96 meters), is No. 8 in the college preseason rankings.
   Second-seeded Tennys Sandgren of Gallatin, Tenn., will meet Dennis Novikov of Milpitas in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sandgren, who lost in the first round of the French Open and U.S. Open this year in his first two Grand Slam main-draw appearances, is ranked No. 100.
   Sixth seed and defending champion Darian King of Barbados will play Mackenzie McDonald, who grew up in Piedmont in the Bay Area.
   Fourth-seeded Michael Mmoh, last year's runner-up, will take on Noah Rubin, the 2014 Wimbledon boys champion, in a matchup of top American prospects.
   In the first round of qualifying today, top seed and 2015 champion Tim Smyczek of Tampa, Fla., beat Christopher O'Connell of Australia 6-4, 5-7, 6-2.
   Smyczek, 29, will face another Australian, Greg Jones, on Sunday after a 10 a.m. match on Center Court.
   Andre Goransson of Sweden defeated Bernardo Saraiva of Portugal 6-4, 6-3 in a matchup of former Cal and USF standouts, respectively.
   Falling were wild cards Florian Lakat of France, John Lamble of Saratoga in the Bay Area and Stevie Gould of nearby Corte Madera. Lakat played with Goransson at Cal, and Lamble starred at Santa Clara. Gould is ranked No. 1 in the Northern California 18s.
   Here are the singles main draw, singles qualifying draw and Sunday's schedule.

U.S. sensation Fritz reaches semis at 100K Aptos

After practicing, Taylor Fritz glances at a match
on Center Court in Aptos, Calif., on Wednesday.
Photo by Paul Bauman

   Wild card Taylor Fritz, one of the United States' top prospects, defeated sixth-seeded Tennys Sandgren of Gallatin, Tenn., 6-5, 7-6 (1) today in the quarterfinals of the $100,000 Nordic Naturals Challenger at the Seascape Sports Club in Aptos, Calif.

   Fritz, 19, of Palos Verdes in the Los Angeles area, saved three sets points while serving at 5-6 in the second set.
   Fritz made his Challenger debut two years ago in Aptos, losing to veteran Mischa Zverev, now ranked 26th, in the first round. Two months later, Fritz won the Sacramento and Fairfield Challengers, also in Northern California, back to-back at 17.
   He became the second-fastest American man to reach an ATP World Tour final last year at Memphis and stunned then-No. 7 Marin Cilic, the 2014 U.S. Open champion, at Indian Wells in March.
   Ranked a career-high No. 53 one year ago, Fritz has tumbled to No. 131 because of knee problems.
   Fritz's mother (Kathy May), father (Guy Fritz) and uncle (Harry Fritz) all played professionally.  May peaked at No. 10 in the world in 1977 and played in three career Grand Slam quarterfinals.
   Taylor Fritz will meet qualifier Liam Broady of Great Britain in today's second semifinal. Broady, a 23-year-old left-hander, beat Raymond Sarmiento of Los Angeles 6-4, 6-4. Sarmiento, a 25-year-old former USC All-American, played in the Aptos quarterfinals for the second consecutive year.
    In the first semifinal, which will follow an 11 a.m. doubles semi, Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan will face Sam Groth of Australia.
   Bublik, a 20-year-old Russia native, eliminated wild card Dennis Novikov of Milpitas in the San Francisco Bay Area 6-1, 6-4 in 64 minutes. Milpitas is a one-hour drive north of Aptos.
   Bublik, 6-foot-4 (1.93 meters) and only 165 pounds (75 kilograms), qualified for the Australian Open and Wimbledon this year. He shocked France's Lucas Pouille, then ranked 16th, in the first round in Melbourne before losing to Malek Jaziri of Tunisia. Bublik fell to top-ranked Andy Murray 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 in the opening round at Wimbledon.
   Groth held off countryman Akira Santillan, a 20-year-old Tokyo native, 7-5, 7-6 (4). Groth pounded 17 aces, and Santillan had 15.
   Groth, 29, set an unofficial record with a 163.7-mph (263.4-kph) serve in the 2012 Busan (South Korea) Challenger and climbed to a career-high No. 53 in 2015.
    Both semifinals will be first-time meetings.
    The Aptos tournament, the oldest men's Challenger in the United States, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Past competitors include International Tennis Hall of Famers Patrick Rafter and Michael Chang, as well as future Hall of Famers Andy Murray, Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan.

Sandgren routs NorCal's McDonald in 100K Aptos

   APTOS, Calif. -- Mackenzie McDonald met a nemesis on Wednesday, and it wasn't pretty.
   Sixth-seeded Tennys Sandgren of Gallatin, Tenn., routed McDonald, a wild card playing near his childhood home of Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area, 6-1, 6-2 in 1 hour to reach the quarterfinals of the $100,000 Nordic Naturals Challenger at the Seascape Sports Club.
   Sandgren, who's big at 6-foot-2 (1.88 meters) and 192 pounds (87 kilograms) yet very athletic, improved to 4-0 against McDonald, only 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters) and 145 pounds (66 kilograms). Three of the victories have come this year, but McDonald extended Sandgren to three sets in the other two.
   McDonald, 22, was coming off a grueling three-set win over 2015 champion John Millman on Tuesday that lasted 2 hours, 24 minutes. But that wasn't the main problem.
   "Sandgren didn't make many errors today," observed McDonald, who turned pro last year after sweeping the NCAA singles and doubles titles as a UCLA junior. "He played really tough, and it was tough to match that. He's playing really good right now, so it's difficult."
   Sandgren, 26, played spectacular offense and defense and hustled relentlessly. It looked as if he were on clay, his favorite surface, as he slid into shots and his shoes screeched on the hardcourt a la Novak Djokovic and Gael Monfils. At times, Sandgren did the splits.
   On one point early in the second set, Sandgren raced to reach a well-executed drop shot, somehow hit a sharply angled forehand cross-court passing shot and wound up sitting on the court.
   Sandgren has had a breakthrough year, winning three Challenger titles, playing in his first Grand Slam tournament (losing in the first round of the French Open) and reaching the third round in Washington, D.C., on the ATP World Tour last week. He is ranked No. 102 after climbing to a career-high No. 100 in June.
   Sandgren -- who's named after his great grandfather, not tennis -- will face 19-year-old wild card Taylor Fritz of Palos Verdes in the Los Angeles area for the first time on Friday in a blockbuster quarterfinal.
   Fritz, one of the United States' top prospects, beat 27-year-old qualifier Austin Krajicek of Bradenton, Fla., 2-6, 6-1, 6-2.
   Fritz recorded the first top-10 win of his career at Indian Wells in March, stunning then-No. 7 and 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic in the second round before losing to Malek Jaziri of Tunisia in the third round.
   Krajicek, the Aptos runner-up in 2015, dominated the top-seeded Jaziri 6-2, 6-1 in the first round of the Nordic Naturals Challenger.
   Also in Friday's quarterfinals, Sam Groth will meet fellow Australian Akira Santillan for the first time.
   Groth, who set an unofficial record with a 163.7-mph (263.4-kph) serve in the 2012 Busan (South Korea) Challenger, defeated Jason Jung, a native of Torrance in the Los Angeles region who plays for Taiwan, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0.
   Santillan, a 20-year-old Tokyo native who won his first Challenger title last month in Winnetka, Ill., beat Darian King of Barbados 6-3, 6-4 after ousting second-seeded Jordan Thompson of Australia in the first round.
   The other two quarterfinal matchups will be determined today.
   Here are the Nordic Naturals singles and doubles draws and today's schedule.

Novikov falls in semis; Altamirano leads Virginia

Dennis Novikov, serving in doubles at the U.S. Open
last September, lost to Tennys Sandgren in the semi-
finals of the $75,000 Tempe (Ariz.) Challenger.
Photo by Paul Bauman

   The singles champion of the $75,000 Tempe (Ariz.) Challenger still hasn't been decided.
   But it won't be Dennis Novikov.
   The 23-year-old resident of Milpitas in the San Francisco Bay Area lost to compatriot Tennys Sandgren 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in today's semifinals.
   The unseeded Sandgren, 25, blasted 16 aces, committed four double faults and saved eight of 12 break points against him. The seventh-seeded Novikov had four aces and one double fault. He survived eight of 14 break points.
   Novikov ousted top-seeded Ernesto Escobedo of West Covina in the Los Angeles region in the quarterfinals.
   The Sandgren-Novikov match was delayed for several hours and suspended briefly early in the third set because of rain, forcing the final to be postponed until Monday. Sandgren, 25, will play unseeded Serbian Nikola Milojevic, who beat sixth-seeded Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia 7-6 (3), 6-4.
   College -- No. 1-ranked Virginia, led by Collin Altamirano of Sacramento and playing at home, crushed No. 5 North Carolina 4-0 to reach the final of the ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championships in Charlottesville, Va.
   The two-time defending NCAA champion Cavaliers have shut out all three of their opponents in the tournament.
   Altamirano, a junior, dominated 16th-ranked Ronnie Schneider 6-0, 6-3 on Court 1 as Virginia avenged a 4-2 loss to the Tar Heels in last year's final. Altamirano also won at No. 3 doubles with J.C. Aragone.
   Although Altamirano is unranked in college, he's No. 813 in the world after reaching the quarterfinals and final in back-to-back $25,000 tournaments in Southern California last month.
   Virginia (8-0) will play No. 3-ranked Ohio State (12-0) for the title. Second-ranked Mikael Torpegaard lifted the Buckeyes to a 4-3 victory over No. 2 Wake Forest by edging top-ranked Petros Chrysochos 7-6 (6), 5-7, 7-6 (4) on Court 1.

Becker recalls ending Agassi's career 10 years ago

Clouds obscure the Golden Gate Bridge near Tiburon. Photo by Paul Bauman

   TIBURON, Calif. -- Before Benjamin Becker arrived at the U.S. Open last month, it never occurred to him that the tournament marked the 10th anniversary of his third-round victory that sent Andre Agassi into retirement.
   Becker promptly found out, however.    
   "You get reminded all over the place," the top-seeded Becker, 35, recalled after beating 19-year-old American Tommy Paul, last year's French Open boys champion, 7-6 (1), 6-2 on Tuesday in the first round of the $100,000 Wells Fargo Bank Tiburon Challenger at the Tiburon Peninsula Club. "When I walked in to get my credential on Thursday before the U.S. Open, they showed the match on TV, so everybody was talking about it. Everybody reminded me about it."
   Becker also stumbled upon an article about the anniversary on ESPN's website.
   "I was looking for NBA news," admitted Becker, the 2004 NCAA champion from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and a big fan of Dallas Mavericks star and fellow German Dirk Nowitzki, "and I saw an article about the 10-year anniversary, so I was reading about it. That's the first time, actually, I realized it was the 10-year anniversary.
   "It's not something I thought about or planned or felt like it was something special for me. It was just another U.S. Open. I wanted to do well. I didn't."
   Becker, who's not related to German legend Boris Becker, shouldn't be too hard on himself. He drew sixth seed and 2014 runner-up Kei Nishikori in the opening round at Flushing Meadows and lost in four sets. Nishikori, 26, went on to reach the semifinals before losing to eventual champion Stan Wawrinka.

Top-seeded Benjamin Becker is shown during his victory
over 19-year-old Tommy Paul in the first round of the
$100,000 Tiburon Challenger. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Becker may have forgotten about the anniversary, but journalists at the U.S. Open didn't. Not that he was inundated by interview requests.
   "I did one with a German journalist," Becker said. "Actually, after my match, an American journalist came and just asked me about the Agassi match, not even about the match I just played. I did a few, but nothing compared to what I did 10 years ago."

   Whereas Paul had lost seven of his previous eight matches, Becker reached the final of last week's $50,000 Columbus (Ohio) Challenger. Becker lost to Danish wild card Mikael Torpegaard, an Ohio State junior playing on his home court.
   Despite being almost twice Paul's age, Becker outrallied him on a beautiful day.
   "That's not really the way I want to play, but coming from indoors, trying to get used to the conditions is very tough," said Becker, who won the first four games of the match but lost the next five against the 235th-ranked Paul. "I just arrived yesterday. I didn't want to try to overpower him and go for too many shots. I knew he hasn't won many matches -- I did my research. I just wanted to make him play and get my rhythm. I didn't want to give him free points.
   "I did pretty well at the beginning, then he kind of found his rhythm and came back in the first set. The tiebreak was obviously important. I kept up my game, and he started missing more. The game plan today was to play more consistent, but I don't want to do it over a longer term because I know I can't do it at my age."     
   With the first round of the Tiburon Challenger complete, seven of the eight singles seeds have advanced. Salvatore Caruso, a 23-year-old qualifier from Italy, upset No. 7 Ernesto Escobedo, a 20-year-old resident of West Covina in the Los Angeles area, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 on Tuesday.
   Another qualifier, 18-year-old Michael Mmoh of Bradenton, Fla., survived three match points in a victory over Tennys Sandgren of Gallatin, Tenn. Mmoh led 4-6, 7-6 (5), 2-0 when the 25-year-old Sandgren, a semifinalist in Columbus, retired with a lower back injury.

   The athletic Mmoh, who won the USTA boys 18 singles title last month to earn an automatic wild card in the U.S. Open, and Sandgren, who has a punishing whipping forehand similar to Jack Sock's, engaged in numerous breathtaking baseline rallies. Mmoh will face another 18-year-old American, No. 6 seed Stefan Kozlov, today for a quarterfinal berth.   

   No. 3 seed and defending champion Tim Smyczek of Tampa, Fla., defeated qualifier Brydan Klein of Great Britain 6-4, 2-1, retired (back).
   Klein ousted No. 2 seed and countryman Kyle Edmund in the first round last year before falling to 18-year-old Frenchman Quentin Halys in the second round. Halys went on to reach the semifinals.
   Also advancing Tuesday were Bay Area products Dennis Novikov, 22, and Mackenzie McDonald, 21.
   The fifth-seeded Novikov, who grew up in San Jose and lives in Milpitas, dismissed wild card Robbie Bellamy, a USC senior from Pacific Palisades in the Los Angeles area, 6-3, 6-2.
   McDonald, a wild card who grew up in Piedmont, beat Canada's Peter Polansky, the 2013 champion, 6-3, 6-4. McDonald, only 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters) and 145 pounds (66 kilograms), reached the semifinals in singles and doubles (with Deiton Baughman) last year.

   Agassi, wracked by back pain, lost to Becker 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-5 on the afternoon of Sept. 3, 2006, in front of almost 24,000 fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium and a national television audience. Afterward, Agassi gave an emotional farewell speech on the court. Becker lost in the next round to Andy Roddick; the fourth-round appearance remains Becker's best showing in a Grand Slam tournament.

Paul, last year's French Open boys champion, lost for the eighth
time in his last nine matches. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Now Becker, the only top-100 player in the Tiburon Challenger at No. 91, is approaching retirement. Only 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters) and 158 pounds (72 kilograms), he has amassed more than $4.3 million in prize money, attained a career high of No. 35 in singles and won one ATP World Tour title (on grass at Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, in 2014). But he'll always be known as the guy who ended the charismatic Agassi's legendary career.        
   "I'm used to it now," Becker said. "Obviously, it felt uncomfortable at first because I was a newcomer on tour. It was my first U.S. Open and second Grand Slam. But I feel like I'm still going at it 10 years later. I still played the U.S. Open main draw. ...
   "(Ending Agassi's career) was a great experience, but it's not like I look back now and be like, 'Oh my god, it was great, the best thing of my life.' I might do it after my career, but now I'm so focused on what's coming up that I don't really look back too much."

   Asked how often he has been reminded of the Agassi match in the past 10 years, Becker said: "A lot, obviously. I don't blame people for asking me about it because it obviously was (on) a very big stage.
   "There are always two questions when I come to the tennis courts: 'Are you related to Boris Becker?' and 'How did it feel to retire Agassi?' I'm used to it. I'm fine with it. I would do the same if somebody else did it."
   Agassi was Benjamin Becker's second-biggest idol behind Boris Becker. In fact, watching Boris win Grand Slam titles on television inspired Benjamin to take up tennis.
   "Nobody in my family plays tennis," Becker noted. "I started playing soccer like every German boy. Then I started playing tennis and got into it. I went to, like, scouting for little kids and then the regional federation took me under its wing. That's how it started."
   Boris has become a mentor to Benjamin. But the first time they met, during Benjamin's Davis Cup debut in 2007, he was overcome by nerves.
   "I didn't breathe for a minute, I think," Benjamin Becker cracked. "I was already nervous playing Davis Cup. He didn't come to watch my match just to kind of protect me, which I think was very respectful. He came to the doubles match, which I didn't play.
   "But everybody, when he enters the room, it's like the king enters. Me growing up, I woke up at night to watch him (play overseas on television)."
   Now Benjamin Becker has two young sons. He said he will decide in December if he'll play next year.
   "As of now, I think I have one more year in me. Then I'll call it quits," Becker suggested.
   Becker plans to obtain his bachelor's degree in finance from Baylor. He has one semester left.
   "Then I have no idea," Becker conceded. "I'm not sure if I'll stay in tennis. It's an option, but I would like to try other things. We'll see what door will open for me. Hopefully I'll find something that I'm as passionate about as tennis."
   Here are the Tiburon singles and doubles draws and today's schedule.

Gibbs gains final round of Australian Open qualifying

Nicole Gibbs, who starred at Stanford, follows through
on a serve during her victory over Lourdes Dominguez
Lino of Spain in the first round of the U.S. Open last
September. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Second-seeded Nicole Gibbs, who starred at Stanford, held off teenager Jana Fett of Croatia 6-2, 7-6 (4) on Thursday (PST) to reach the final round of qualifying for the Australian Open in Melbourne.  
   Maria Sanchez, a 26-year-old Modesto native, lost to Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal 6-2, 6-3.
   On the men's side, Tennys Sandgren of Wesley Chapel, Fla., fell to 13th-seeded Tatsuma Ito of Japan 6-4, 6-2.
   Sandgren, a former University of Tennessee All-American, helped the Sacramento-based California Dream of World TeamTennis reach the Western Conference final last July.
   Fett, 19, was the girls runner-up to Elizaveta Kulichkova of Russia in the 2014 Australian Open.
   Gibbs, a 22-year-old resident of Marina del Rey in the Los Angeles area, is scheduled to face Ivana Jorovic, 18, of Serbia for the first time today for a berth in the main draw.
   Jorovic, the No. 1 junior in the world in 2014 and French Open girls runner-up to Daria Kasatkina of Russia that year, beat 22nd-seeded Kai-Chen Chang of Taiwan 6-4, 6-2.
   Gibbs is ranked No. 105, and Jorovic is No. 187.
   Gibbs, the 2012 and 2013 NCAA singles champion, gained direct entry into last year's Australian Open and advanced to the second round in her main-draw debut in Melbourne.
   Larcher de Brito, who will turn 23 on Jan. 29, in playing in her first tournament since retiring in the second round of qualifying at Wimbledon in late June with a wrist injury. She underwent surgery in July.
   Larcher de Brito reached the third round at Wimbledon as a qualifier in 2013 (beating Maria Sharapova) and 2014. She helped the Sacramento Capitals win the WTT title in 2007 at 14.
   Sanchez was seeking her first singles main-draw appearance in the Australian Open and second in a Grand Slam tournament. The USC graduate lost to Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia in the first round of the 2013 U.S. Open as a wild card.

Novikov advances in Australian Open qualifying

Dennis Novikov serves in the $100,000 Tiburon
(Calif.) Challenger last September. Photo by
Paul Bauman

   No. 32 seed Dennis Novikov of Milpitas in the San Francisco Bay Area defeated Marc Polmans of Australia 6-4 7-6 (4) today in the first round of qualifying for the Australian Open in Melbourne.
   Novikov, a 22-year-old former UCLA star, faces a tough assignment in the second round against James Ward, 28, of Great Britain.
   Ward, who beat Peter Polansky of Canada 7-6 (6), 6-4, reached the third round at Wimbledon last summer and helped Great Britain win its first Davis Cup championship in 79 years in 2015.
   Ward has been a United States killer in the Davis Cup, stunning Sam Querrey and John Isner in the first round in the past two years.
   The 156th-ranked Ward is 1-0 lifetime against No. 153 Novikov, winning 7-6 (6), 6-4 in the second round in Manchester on grass last June.
   Novikov is trying to reach the singles main draw in the Australian Open for the first time and in a Grand Slam tournament for the second time.
   Novikov received an automatic wild card in the 2012 U.S. Open as the USTA boys 18 champion and shocked then-No. 86 Jerzy Janowicz of Poland in the first round before losing to Julien Benneteau of France in the second round. Janowicz, 6-foot-8 (2.03 meters), advanced to the Wimbledon semifinals the following year.
   In a late match, Tennys Sandgren, 24, of Wesley Chapel, Fla., dismissed Yasutaka Uchiyama of Japan 6-1, 6-3 in the opening round of Australian Open qualifying. Sandgren will meet another Japanese player, 13th-seeded Tatsuma Ito, in the second round.
   Sandgren, a former University of Tennessee All-American, helped the Sacramento-based California Dream of World TeamTennis reach the Western Conference final in July in the team's inaugural season.

Kudla isn't kidding around in Sacramento Challenger

Top-seeded Denis Kudla eyes a forehand during his
6-4, 6-2 win over 18-year-old qualifier Tommy Paul
in the second round of the $100,000 Sacramento
Challenger. Photo by Paul Bauman

   SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- At 23, Denis Kudla already feels like an old man.
   The top seed defeated an 18-year-old for the second consecutive match today, dismantling qualifier and fellow American Tommy Paul 6-4, 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals of the $100,000 Sacramento Challenger for the second straight year.
   "I feel like I've been around a while," said Kudla, who beat Quentin Halys of France 7-5, 6-4 in the first round. "I went pro when I was 16. I've been out here a long time. I was in their shoes five years ago, so I know these guys can play. They believe they can beat us older guys. I'm glad to see that Tommy Paul, an American, is doing well."
   Kudla reached the final of last week's $100,000 Tiburon Challenger as the top seed, losing to his close friend and training partner Tim Smyczek after holding four match points. The net cord played a role on two of the match points.
   Four of Kudla's five matches in Tiburon went to three sets, including a first-rounder in which he came within two points of losing to unheralded American Connor Smith. The exception was a 6-4, 6-3 victory over seventh-seeded Blaz Rola of Slovenia. Rola, a 6-foot-4 (1.93-meter) left-hander, won the 2013 NCAA singles title as a junior at Ohio State before turning pro.
   Kudla, ranked a career-high 67th, needed only 58 minutes to dismiss Paul.
   "Today was definitely one of the better matches I've played probably since Rola last week," said Kudla, who trains in Tampa, Fla. "Everything went well, I played my game, and I couldn't ask for a better match.
   "The court is a little quicker (than in Tiburon), which I like. It was one of those days when I felt the ball well, I did everything right, I had a good warmup, and my body felt good. When those things happen, you usually have a good match."

Paul, one of only three Americans to win the
French Open boys singles title, unleashes a
forehand against Kudla. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Paul was impressed with Kudla's intensity.
   "He competes very hard every point," said Paul, who trains in Boca Raton, Fla. "He plays high-energy every single point, so it's tough to play against."
   In June, Paul joined John McEnroe (1977) and Bjorn Fratangelo (2011) as the only Americans to win the French Open boys singles title.
   Paul also qualified for the men's singles draw in the recent U.S. Open before losing to 25th-seeded Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-4, 6-0, 7-5 in the first round. Seppi stunned Roger Federer in the third round of the Australian Open in January.
   The 6-foot-2 (1.88-meter) Paul crushed his serve and forehand against Kudla but made repeated errors with his two-handed backhand.
   "I didn't hit my backhand too well yesterday, either," Paul said of his 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory over U.S. wild card Alex Kuznetsov, a two-time Sacramento semifinalist. "I think he saw that I wasn't hitting it well and kind of targeted it."
   Kudla denied that.
   "Not necessarily," he said. "He likes to move, and he's such a good ball striker. Guys like that are constantly on the run. I like to keep them in one spot and play the points the way I want to play them and not the way they want to play them."
   Paul lost his serve in the opening game of each set.
   "That didn't help," he conceded.
   Kudla led 5-2 in the first set and 5-1 in the second. Paul's only glimmer of hope came when he broke back for 3-5 in the first set, held for 4-5 and led 0-30 as Kudla served for the set. But Kudla reeled off the next four points.

Qualifier Nick Meister connects on a forehand
during his three-set victory over Darian King.
Photo by Paul Bauman

   Kudla will go back to being the young guy when he faces 28-year-old Daniel Brands of Germany in an intriguing quarterfinal on Friday. Brands, who has plunged from a career-high No. 51 in 2013 to No. 177, defeated wild card Sekou Bangoura of Tampa, Fla., 7-6 (4), 6-2.
   Both Kudla and Brands have reached the fourth round at Wimbledon. Kudla was the only U.S. man to advance that far this year, and Brands did so in 2010.
   In addition to age, the big difference between the players is, well, size. Brands is 6-foot-5 (1.96 meters) and Kudla 5-foot-11 (1.80).
   In the other quarterfinal decided today, wild card Matt Reid of Australia will meet qualifier Nick Meister of the United States.
   Reid surprised the fifth-seeded Rola 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.
   "I've got to thank (tournament director Brian Martinez) for giving me a wild card," said the 357th-ranked Reid, who won the 2013 Sacramento doubles title with countryman John-Patrick Smith. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to play. When someone gives you a wild card, it shows they believe in you."
   Meister, a former UCLA All-American ranked No. 328, outlasted Darian King of Barbados 7-5, 5-7, 6-3. King knocked out second-seeded Kyle Edmund of Great Britain in the first round.
   Meister reached the final of the $50,000 Maui Challenger in January as a qualifier, losing to Jared Donaldson of Irvine, Calif.
   Donaldson, the seventh seed in Sacramento who will turn 19 on Friday, is scheduled to play Tennys Sandgren of Wesley Chapel, Fla., on Thursday in the second round.
   Sandgren, 24, won the 2012 Sacramento doubles crown with former University of Tennessee teammate Rhyne Williams and played for the Sacramento-based California Dream of World TeamTennis in July. 

$100,000 SACRAMENTO CHALLENGER

At Natomas Racquet Club

Second-round singles

   Matt Reid, Australia, def. Blaz Rola (5), Slovenia, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. 

   Daniel Brands, Germany, def. Sekou Bangoura, United States, 7-6 (4), 6-2.

   Nicolas Meister, United States, def. Darian King, Barbados, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3. 

   Denis Kudla (1), United States, def. Tommy Paul, United States, 6-4, 6-2.

First-round doubles

   Johan Brunstrom, Sweden, and Frederik Nielsen (1), Denmark, def. Evan King, United States, and Dimitar Kutrovsky, Bulgaria, 6-4, 2-6 [10-8].

   Ariel Behar, Uruguay, and Ruben Gonzales, Philippines, def. Brydan Klein, Great Britain, and Jose Statham, New Zealand, 6-3, 3-6 [10-5].

   Carsten Ball and Matt Reid (4), Australia, def. Darrin Cohen, Walnut Creek, and Kiryl Harbatsiuk, Sacramento/Belarus, 6-3, 7-5.

   Daniel Brands and Dustin Brown, Germany, def. Philip Bester and Peter Polansky, Canada, 4-6, 6-4 [10-4].

Doubles quarterfinals

   Blaz Kavcic and Grega Zemlja, Slovenia, def. Sekou Bangoura, United States, and Marek Michalicka, Czech Republic, 6-3, 7-6 (0).

Thursday's schedule

Court 1

(Starting at 10 a.m.)

   Tim Smyczek (4), United States, vs. Mackenzie McDonald, Piedmont.

 (Not before 11:30 a.m.)

   Dustin Brown (3), Germany, vs. Taylor Fritz, United States.

   Johan Brunstrom, Sweden, and Frederik Nielsen (1), Denmark, vs. Ariel Behar, Uruguay, and Ruben Gonzales, Philippines.

   Jared Donaldson (7), United States, vs. Tennys Sandgren, United States.

Court 7

(Starting at 10 a.m.)

   Blaz Kavcic (8), Slovenia, vs. Marcos Giron, United States.

(Not before 2 p.m.)

   Carsten Ball and Matt Reid (4), Australia, vs. Daniel Brands and Dustin Brown, Germany.

   Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka, United States, vs. Marcos Giron and Tommy Paul, United States.