Serena, Sharapova to meet in first round of U.S. Open

Serena Williams, shown last year, is scheduled to play Maria Sharapova in the
U.S. Open for the first time. Photo by Mal Taam

   Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova have met in four Grand Slam singles finals, with Williams winning three.

   Not only will the former world No. 1s and U.S. Open champions square off in the first round in Flushing Meadows, they will face each other there for the first time.

   The draw for the year's last Grand Slam tournament, Monday through Sept. 8, was held today.

   The eighth-seeded Williams, a 37-year-old part-time resident of Silicon Valley, and Sharapova, 32, are among six women to have achieved a career Grand Slam in the Open era (since 1968), joining Margaret Court, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf. 

   However, Williams has dropped to eighth in the world and Sharapova to 87th. Williams had her first child in September 2017, Sharapova returned from a 15-month doping ban in April 2017, and both have been hampered by physical problems. Williams retired from the Toronto final two weeks ago with an upper-back injury.

Former world No. 1s Maria Sharapova, shown in 2017, and Serena Williams
 have struggled in recent years. Photo by Mal Taam 

   Williams, who won the last of her six U.S. Open singles titles five years ago, is 19-2 against Sharapova, the 2006 champion at Flushing Meadows. Not counting Williams' injury withdrawal in the fourth round of last year's French Open, she owns an 18-match winning streak in the head-to-head series.
   Fresno product Sloane Stephens, the 11th seed and 2017 U.S. Open champion, will play a qualifier in the first round. The winner will meet either 34-year-old Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2004 U.S. Open champion and runner-up last week in Cincinnati, or wild card Kristie Ahn, a 27-year-old Stanford graduate.
   Katie Volynets, a 17-year-old wild card from Walnut Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area, will make her Grand Slam women's debut against 15th-seeded Bianca Andreescu, a 19-year-old who became the first Canadian woman to win the Rogers Cup in Toronto in 50 years.
   In the men's draw, San Francisco native Sam Querrey, a U.S. Open quarterfinalist in 2017, will play Argentina's Juan Ignacio Londero, who reached the fourth round of the French Open in June. The survivor likely will face top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who won his third U.S. Open singles title last year, in the second round. Querrey ousted Djokovic in the third round at Wimbledon in 2016.
   Bradley Klahn, a 28-year-old Stanford graduate who won his first Challenger title in Aptos, Calif., in 2013, will play Thiago Monteiro, 25, of Brazil in a clash of left-handers. The winner probably will face seventh-seeded Kei Nishikori, the U.S. Open runner-up five years ago, in the second round. 
   Steve Johnson, who won his second Aptos title two weeks ago, will meet 28th-seeded Nick Kyrgios of Australia. Kyrgios incurred eight fines totaling $113,000 after his second-round loss to Karen Khachanov in Cincinnati last week. Kyrgios was cited for violations including unsportsmanlike conduct, verbal abuse and audible obscenity.
   U.S. Open qualifying – Nicole Gibbs, who played with Ahn on Stanford's 2013 NCAA championship team, advanced to the last round of U.S. Open qualifying by walkover against former Pacific-12 Conference rival Robin Anderson, who starred at UCLA, in a matchup of 26-year-olds.
   Gibbs will seek her eighth consecutive berth in the main draw against 33-year-old Peng Shuai, formerly ranked as high as No. 14 in singles and No. 1 in doubles, from China. They will meet for the first time.
   Fifth-seeded Kirsten Flipkens, a 33-year-old Belgian who reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2013, trounced Jovana Jaksic, a 25-year-old Serb living in Sacramento, 6-2, 6-0 in 58 minutes.

Brooksby, 18, earns milestone win in Open qualifying

Jenson Brooksby, practicing in Sacramento last
year, defeated Yuichi Sugita, ranked No. 134, on
Wednesday in the second round of U.S. Open
qualifying. Photo by Paul Bauman

   After beating the highest-ranked player of his career on Wednesday, 18-year-old Jenson Brooksby needs one more victory to make his second consecutive main-draw appearance in the U.S. Open.
   Brooksby, a wild card from the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, eliminated Yuichi Sugita, a 30-year-old Japanese seeded 27th and ranked 134th, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) in the second round of qualifying in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   Brooksby, ranked No. 393, recorded his second win over a top-200 player. He beat No. 163 Marc Polmans of Australia in the second round of a $108,320 Challenger on clay in Sarasota, Fla., in April.
   Brooksby won the USTA Boys 18 National Championships last year in Kalamazoo, Mich., to earn an automatic wild card in the U.S. Open. He lost to John Millman of Australia 6-4, 6-2, 6-0 in sweltering heat and humidity in the first round but advanced to the semifinals of the boys event in the last junior tournament of his career. Millman went on to stun five-time champion Roger Federer to reach his first Grand Slam quarterfinal.
   "It would mean even more than last year," Brooksby said on usopen.org of qualifying for the U.S. Open. "Qualifying your way into the main draw here is definitely tougher than getting in through Kalamazoo."
   Brooksby is scheduled to play unseeded Pedro Martinez of Spain on Friday. Martinez, ranked No. 152, beat American Tommy Paul, seeded 10th and ranked a career-high 112th, 6-4, 6-4 in a matchup of 22-year-olds.
   Martinez qualified for the French Open this year and lost in the first round to Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland. Laaksonen, who has a Finnish mother and Swiss father, reached the doubles final in the $100,000 Fairfield (Calif.) Challenger last October with Harri Heliovaara of Finland.
    Brooksby has won three ITF singles titles, all this year in $25,000 tournaments. Two came in consecutive weeks this summer in Champaign, Ill., and Decatur, Ill., with the loss of only one set.
   Brooksby plans to enroll at Baylor in Waco, Texas, in January. He will play for coach Brian Boland, who guided Virginia to four NCAA team titles in five years (2013-17) before becoming the USTA's head of men's player development.

Gibbs defeats Aussie in return to Grand Slam play

Ex-Stanford star Nicole Gibbs, playing in Berkeley
last year, won today in the first round of qualifying
at the U.S. Open after undergoing cancer surgery
in May. Photo by Paul Bauman

   No. 24 seed Nicole Gibbs (Stanford, 2011-13) returned to Grand Slam competition today with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 victory over Kaylah McPhee of Australia in the first round of qualifying at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   It was Gibbs' first appearance in a major tournament since she fell in the last round of qualifying at the Australian Open in January. She underwent surgery for a rare cancer in the roof of her mouth on May 17 at UCLA.
   Gibbs has played in the main draw of the U.S. Open for the past seven years, reaching the third round in 2014.
   Gibbs is playing in her fourth tournament since the surgery. After advancing to the final of a $60,000 ITF tournament in Honolulu, Gibbs lost in the opening round of qualifying in Toronto on the WTA tour and to a qualifier in the first round of a $100,000 tournament in Vancouver.
   "I've had a tough last couple of competitive weeks, so I think that today was a tough one to get through for me in terms of my confidence," Gibbs, a resident of Venice in the Los Angeles area, said on usopen.org. "Being on the other side of it feels really good, and I think I'll have a lot to build on now."
   Gibbs, 5-foot-6 (1.68 meters), is scheduled to meet former Pacific-12 Conference rival Robin Anderson, a 5-foot-3 (1.61-meter) native of Long Branch, N.J., who starred at UCLA, in a matchup of 26-year-olds on Thursday.
   Anderson, ranked No. 165, is 2-1 against Gibbs, ranked No. 135 after climbing to a career-high No. 68 in 2016, in professional tournaments. This will be their third meeting of the year after they split matches in $100,000 U.S. clay-court tournaments in consecutive weeks last spring.
   Also today, Jovana Jaksic, a 25-year-old Serb living in Sacramento, beat Julia Grabher of Austria 6-2, 6-4.
   Jaksic has tumbled from a career-high No. 102 in 2014 to No. 244 because of injuries. She is set to play fifth-seeded Kirsten Flipkens, 33, of Belgium for the first time on Thursday. Flipkens, a Wimbledon semifinalist in 2013, eliminated Irina Bara of Romania 6-3, 6-4.
   Anisimova withdraws – Amanda Anisimova, a 17-year-old American ranked No. 24, withdrew from the U.S. Open after the death of her father and coach, Konstantin Anisimov.
   In June, Anisimova shocked defending champion Simona Halep to become the youngest American to reach the French Open semifinals since 14-year-old Jennifer Capriati in 1990.
   At 15 in 2017, Anisimova claimed her first professional title in a $60,000 tournament in Sacramento and won the U.S. Open girls singles crown.

Brooksby, 18, advances in U.S. Open qualifying

   Jenson Brooksby, an 18-year-old wild card from Carmichael in the Sacramento area, defeated Kaichi Uchida, 24, of Japan 6-3, 6-2 Monday in the first round of qualifying for the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   Brooksby, ranked No. 393, did not face a break point in the 66-minute match against Uchida, ranked No. 256.
   Brooksby, who won last year's USTA Boys 18 National Championships to earn an automatic wild card in the main draw of the U.S. Open, is scheduled to meet another Japanese player, 27th-seeded Yuichi Sugita, on Wednesday. The 30-year-old Sugita, ranked No. 134, beat Marc Polmans of Australia 6-3, 6-4.
   Stefano Napolitano, a 24-year-old Italian, eliminated Sam Riffice, a 20-year-old wild card who grew up in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville, 6-2, 6-4.

Mackie pulls out of Open; Sabalenka avenges S.J. loss

Mackenzie McDonald, who grew up in Piedmont in
the San Francisco Bay Area, had right hamstring
 surgery in June. 2018 photo by Paul Bauman

   Mackenzie McDonald, a 24-year-old product of Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area, has withdrawn from the U.S. Open after undergoing right hamstring surgery in June.
   McDonald, now based in Orlando, Fla., has been sidelined since losing to Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan in five sets in the first round of the French Open in late May.
   The 5-foot-10 (1.78-meter), 160-pound (73-kilogram) McDonald has dropped from a career-high No. 57 on April 29 to No. 97. He is 0-2 in the singles main draw of the U.S. Open.
   Among those receiving wild cards in the women's main draw of the U.S. Open, Aug. 26-Sept. 8 in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., are Kristie Ahn, a 27-year-old Stanford graduate from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and Katie Volynets, 17, of Walnut Creek in the Bay Area.
   Ahn won the U.S. Open Wild Card Challenge, and Volynets received an automatic berth for winning the USTA Girls 18 National Championships in San Diego on Sunday.
   Ahn will make her second appearance in the main draw of the U.S. Open. At 16, she qualified for the 2008 U.S. Open before losing to sixth-seeded Dinara Safina in the first round. Safina was ranked seventh at the time and ascended to No. 1 the following year.
   Wild-card recipients in men's qualifying include Sacramento-area products Jenson Brooksby, 18, and Sam Riffice, 20.
   WTA Tour – Ninth-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus beat Zheng Saisai of China 6-4, 6-3 today in the second round of the Western & Southern Open in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason, Ohio.
   The powerful Sabalenka, who's coached by former longtime Northern Californian Dmitry Tursunov, avenged a 6-3, 7-6 (3) loss to the crafty Zheng in the final of the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose on Aug. 4.
   ATP Challenger Tour – Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands topped second-seeded Steve Johnson, who won last week's $81,240 Nordic Naturals Challenger in Aptos, Calif., 6-4, 6-4 in the second round of the $108,320 Odlum Brown VanOpen in Vancouver, British Columbia.
   Johnson, a 29-year-old resident of Redondo Beach in the Los Angeles area, received a first-round bye.

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.

Volynets wins USTA girls 18s, earns U.S. Open berth

Katie Volynets became the third Northern Californian
to win a USTA 18 national singles title in six years.
Photo courtesy of JFS Communications

   Katie Volynets is headed to the U.S. Open.
   The 17-year-old resident of Walnut Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area, seeded second, beat third-seeded Emma Navarro of Charleston, S.C., 6-2, 6-4 today to win the USTA Billie Jean King Girls 18 National Championships in San Diego.
   Volynets, a Walnut Creek native whose parents are Ukrainian, received an automatic wild card in the women's main draw of the U.S. Open, Aug. 26-Sept. 8 in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
   She became the third Northern Californian to win a USTA 18 national singles title in six years, joining Collin Altamirano (2013) and Jenson Brooksby (2018). All train under Joseph Gilbert at the Arden Hills Club & Spa in Sacramento.
   Volynets bolted to a 4-0 lead against Navarro.
   "The key was starting really well and maintaining the level of play like I wanted to," Volynets said in a news release. "I was really energetic and focused on court and pumped myself up constantly.
   "After I won match point, I had a surge of energy and joy. It means so much to me, and I'm excited to go play (the U.S. Open). I've been working on this for a long time."
   Meanwhile, Sacramento-area product Aidan Mayo lost a heartbreaker in the final of the USTA Boys 16 National Championships in Kalamazoo, Mich.
   Top-seeded Alexander Bernard of Bonita Springs, Fla., outlasted the fourth-seeded Mayo, who now lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5. Mayo had a match point at 5-3 in the third set.
   Hugo Hashimoto of San Jose won the boys 16 doubles title with Benjamin Kittay of Potomac, Md. Seeded seventh, they beat 11th-seeded Lucas Brown of Plano, Texas, and Aiden Kim of Chantilly, Va., 6-4, 6-3.