Third-seeded Giron withdraws from Fairfield Challenger

Marcos Giron, right, poses with Novak Djokovic last year
in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Brener Zwikel & Assoc.

   Third-seeded Marcos Giron of Thousand Oaks in the Los Angeles area withdrew today from the $108,320 NorthBay Healthcare Men's Pro Championship at Solano Community College in Fairfield, Calif.
   Giron, 26, was diagnosed with cellulitis (a bacterial skin infection), according to USTA supervisor Keith Crossland. Further details were not available.
   Giron, the 2014 NCAA singles champion from UCLA, has soared from No. 308 at the end of last year to No. 126. He reached the third round of the prestigious BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells in March, beating then-No. 24 Alex de Minaur and then-No. 37 Jeremy Chardy.
   Giron, only 5-foot-11 (1.80 meters) and 170 pounds (77 kilograms), also made his first two appearances in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament this year. He lost in the opening round at Wimbledon as a qualifier and the U.S. Open as a wild card.
   Donald Young, a 30-year-old left-hander who has won four Challenger singles titles in Northern California, took Giron's place in the Fairfield draw as the 17th seed. Young has tumbled from a career-high No. 38 in 2012 to No. 233.
   Strong Kirchheimer, a 24-year-old former Northwestern star from Cary, N.C., moved into Young's former spot as an alternate.
   In the first match of the main draw on Monday at 11 a.m., Collin Altamirano of Sacramento is scheduled to play wild card Brandon Holt, a USC senior and the son of International Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin. Holt has not lost a set to Altamirano in two career meetings, although one went to a tiebreaker.
   Another wild card, 16-year-old Zachary Svajda of San Diego, will meet 6-foot-8 (2.03-meter) Michael Redlicki, a 25-year-old Chicago native. Svajda won the USTA boys 18 singles title in August to earn an automatic wild card in the U.S. Open and extended Paolo Lorenzi, a 37-year-old Italian, to five sets in the opening round.
   In a final-round qualifying match, Dennis Novikov, a 25-year-old San Jose product, will face Sem Verbeek, a former University of the Pacific star from the Netherlands, at 10 a.m.
   Here are the Fairfield singles and doubles draws and Monday's schedule. Live streaming is available.

Sock, formerly No. 8, set to play in Fairfield Challenger

Jack Sock reacts during an exhibition against Roger Federer last year in San Jose.
Photo by Mal Taam

   Jack Sock, a former top-10 singles player and a three-time Grand Slam men's doubles champion, is scheduled to play in his first Challenger in more than five years next week in Fairfield, Calif.
   Sock, who has plunged from a career-high No. 8 in singles in November 2017 to No. 210, is seeded 14th in the $108,320 NorthBay Healthcare Men's Pro Championship at Solano Community College.
   Steve Johnson, who won his second Aptos (Calif.) Challenger singles title in August, is seeded first at No. 98. Johnson and Sock, U.S. Davis Cup teammates, won the bronze medal in men's doubles in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
   All 16 seeds in Fairfield, 41 miles (66 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, received first-round byes. Johnson and Sock will open in singles on Tuesday or Wednesday. Defending champion Bjorn Fratangelo, a 26-year-old Pittsburgh native, withdrew with an undisclosed injury.
   Sock, 27, of Kansas City, Kan., will play in a Challenger for the first time since losing to Nick Kyrgios in the final of a $50,000 clay-court tournament in Savannah, Ga., in April 2014. Sock won the 2012 Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger and reached the singles quarterfinals and doubles final (with compatriot Nicholas Monroe) in the 2011 Sacramento (Calif.) Challenger at age 19.
   Sock went 9-22 in singles in 2018, underwent surgery for torn ligaments in a finger on his right (playing) hand last February and missed six months. He is 1-5 in singles this year.
   Collin Altamirano, 23, of Sacramento is scheduled to play wild card Brandon Holt, a USC senior and the son of International Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin, in the first round. Holt has not lost a set to Altamirano in two career meetings, although one set went to a tiebreaker.
   Altamirano, who in 2013 became the first unseeded player to win the USTA boys 18 singles championship, lost eventual runner-up Alex Bolt of Australia in the second round in the best match of last year's tournament.
   Zachary Svajda, a 16-year-old wild card from San Diego, is set to play 6-foot-8 (2.03-meter) Michael Redlicki, a 25-year-old Chicago native, in the opening round.
   Svajda won the USTA boys 18 singles title in August to earn an automatic wild card in the U.S. Open and extended Paolo Lorenzi, a 37-year-old Italian, to five sets in the first round.
   Here's the Fairfield singles main draw.

Ma, 16, leads U.S. to title; Tursunov, Sabalenka reunite

Connie Ma, playing in the $60,000 Berkeley (Calif.)
Challenger in July, led the United States to its third
consecutive Junior Fed Cup title on Sunday. Photo
by Paul Bauman  

   Connie Ma, 16, of Dublin in the San Francisco Bay Area led the United States to a 2-1 victory over the Czech Republic in the Junior Fed Cup final on Sunday in Lake Nona, Fla.
   In the deciding match on clay at the USTA National Campus, Ma and Robin Montgomery, 15, defeated 14-year-old Linda Noskova, replacing injured Darja Vidmanova, and 15-year-old Barbora Palicova 6-2, 7-5.
   Ma gave the United States a 1-0 lead with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Palicova at No. 2 singles. Noskova evened the match by defeating 15-year-old Katrina Scott 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.
   "So solid in singles," U.S. captain Jamea Jackson told ZooTennis regarding Ma's performance during the week. "(She allowed) nothing for free. And when things came down to the wire in doubles, she stepped it up to a whole other level. That's what great competitors do. I was so proud of her. This is her second year doing this, and just to see her grow up and blossom before my eyes, it's one of the rewarding parts of what we do."
   It was the third consecutive Junior Fed Cup title for the Americans and second straight for Ma. She played on last year's team, but not in the final against Ukraine.
   Tursunov returns – Two days after Aryna Sabalenka fired coach Dmitry Tursunov in late August, the 21-year-old star from Belarus rehired him, according to Tursunov.
   Sabalenka, the San Jose runner-up in August, won her fourth career WTA singles title last week in Wuhan, China, surprising top-ranked Ashleigh Barty in the semifinals.
   Also, Sabalenka won her first Grand Slam title in the U.S. Open last month, teaming with Elise Mertens of Belgium in women's doubles.
   Sabalenka is ranked No. 14 in singles and No. 5 in doubles.
   Tursunov, a 36-year-old Moscow native, trained in Northern California as a junior and professional. He reached a career-high No. 20 and played on Russia's Davis Cup championship team in 2016.

Paul tops Kokkinakis for $108K Tiburon title

Tommy Paul, right, beat Thanasi Kokkinakis 7-5, 6-7 (3), 6-4 on Sunday to win
the $108,320 First Republic Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger. Photo by Natalie Kim

   Tommy Paul overcame a determined opponent, the wind and a sore shoulder on Sunday to win his third Challenger singles title of the year.
   The top-seeded Paul, from Greenville, N.C., outlasted eighth-seeded Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia 7-5, 6-7 (3), 6-4 in the $108,320 First Republic Tiburon Challenger.
   Paul broke the 6-foot-4 (1.93-meter) Kokkinakis' serve at love in the final game of the 2-hour, 46-minute match at the Tiburon Peninsula Club. Kokkinakis double-faulted for 0-30 and missed his first serve on the next two points. It was the only break of the third set.
   For the second consecutive day, USTA supervisor Keith Crossland was called onto Center Court. Crossland assessed Kokkinakis a game penalty for taking too long of a bathroom break after the second set. Kokkinakis then uttered an audible obscenity while arguing with chair umpire Roger Pennington but was not penalized.
   On Saturday, Crossland defaulted doubles player Alex Lawson, a 25-year-old left-hander from Tempe, Ariz., for swatting a ball into the VIP seats.
   Paul, 22, earned $14,400 and rose six places to a career-high No. 81.
   Kokkinakis, 23, received $8,480 and improved 22 spots to No. 161. He was playing in only his ninth tournament, and first final, of the year because of a nagging pectoral injury.
   Kokkinakis climbed as high as No. 69 at age 18 in 2015 before injuries derailed his career. Last year, he shocked Roger Federer in the second round in Miami and won a $100,000 Challenger in Aptos, Calif., 98 miles (157 kilometers) south of Tiburon. 
   Here are the complete Tiburon singles and doubles draws.

Doubles player defaulted; Paul, Aussie reach singles final

Thanasi Kokkinakis, shown en route to the title in Aptos, Calif.,
last year, will try to win another Northern California Challenger
on Sunday. Photo by Paul Bauman

   After a scary moment in the doubles semifinals, Tommy Paul and Thanasi Kokkinakis reached the singles final in the $108,320 First Republic Tiburon (Calif.) Challenger.
   Alex Lawson, seeded second with fellow American Jackson Withrow, was defaulted for swatting a ball into the seats today during a match tiebreaker against third-seeded Robert Galloway of Greenville, S.C., and Roberto Maytin of Venezuela.
   After Lawson sailed a moonball long on his serve for a 1-3 deficit, a ballboy tossed a ball to him to serve again. Lawson swung at the ball, apparently intending to bash it high in the air.
   Instead, the ball zoomed into the VIP seats, striking a middle-aged man in the back. The man, who was not injured, was standing at a banquet table behind the seats with his back to the court.
   Lawson immediately dropped his racket, put his head in his hands in dismay and ran to the stands. USTA supervisor Keith Crossland, who was watching the match, promptly defaulted the 25-year-old former Notre Dame All-American, who's ranked No. 139 in doubles.
   The top-seeded Paul, 22, of Greenville, N.C., beat fourth-seeded Emilio Gomez of Ecuador 6-1, 7-5 on a windy day to tie their head-to-head series 1-1. Gomez, the son of 1990 French Open champion Andres Gomez, defeated Paul, the 2015 French Open boys singles champion, 6-2, 6-2 on clay in the final of the $54,160 Tallahassee (Fla.) Challenger in April.
   The eighth-seeded Kokkinakis, a 23-year-old Australian who has battled a pectoral injury all year, topped 14th-seeded Thai-Son Kwiatkowski of Charlottesville, Va., 2-6, 6-2, 6-1.
   Last year, Kokkinakis stunned Roger Federer in the second round in Miami and won a $100,000 Challenger in Aptos, Calif., 98 miles (157 kilometers) south of Tiburon.
   Kwiatkowski won the 2017 NCAA singles title as a University of Virginia senior.
   Paul, the only top-100 player in the singles draw at No. 87, and Kokkinakis, ranked No. 183, will meet for the first time on Sunday not before 2 p.m. Kokkinakis climbed as high as No. 69 at 18 in 2015 before injuries derailed his career.
   Here are the updated Tiburon singles and doubles draws and Sunday's schedule.

For top seed Paul, narrow win in Tiburon tastes good

Tommy Paul, playing in Tiburon last year, took a swig
of beer after edging Gonzalo Escobar in Friday's quar-
terfinals. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Tommy Paul didn't wait long to celebrate his narrow victory over Gonzalo Escobar.
   After shaking hands with Escobar, Paul walked to the side of the court opposite the chair umpire and took a swig of beer from an unattended pitcher sitting on the first row of the stands.
   The top-seeded Paul, from Greenville, N.C., edged the unseeded Escobar, from Ecuador, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (2) on Friday in the quarterfinals of the $108,320 First Republic Tiburon Challenger at the Tiburon Peninsula Club.
   Paul, the only top-100 player in the field at No. 87, is scheduled to meet another Ecuadorian, fourth-seeded Emilio Gomez, today at about 4:30 p.m. Gomez, ranked No. 158, beat unseeded Sekou Bangoura of Bradenton, Fla., 6-3, 1-6, 6-2.
   Gomez, the son of 1990 French Open champion Andres Gomez, defeated Paul, the 2015 French Open boys singles champion, 6-2, 6-2 on clay in the final of the $54,160 Tallahassee (Fla.) Challenger in April in their only previous meeting.
   In today's first semifinal at 2:30 p.m., eighth-seeded Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia will play 14th-seeded Thai-Son Kwiatkowski of Charlottesville, Va., for the first time.
   Kokkinakis, ranked No. 183, dispatched 16th-seeded Maxime Cressy, a 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Paris native who plays for the United States, 6-4, 6-2.
   Kokkinakis reached a career-high No. 69 at age 18 in 2015 before injuries derailed his career. He shocked Roger Federer in the second round in Miami and won the $100,000 Aptos (Calif.) Challenger last year.
   Cressy and Keegan Smith of UCLA won the NCAA doubles title in May.
   Kwiatkowski, the 2017 NCAA singles champion from the University of Virginia, nipped wild card Brandon Nakashima, a Virginia sophomore from San Diego, 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 (6).
   Here are the updated Tiburon singles and doubles draws and today's schedule.

Kwiatkowski tops third-seeded Giron in $108K Tiburon

   In a matchup of former NCAA singles champions, 14th-seeded Thai-Son Kwiatkowski of Charlottesville, Va., outlasted third-seeded Marcos Giron of Thousand Oaks in the Los Angeles area 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 today to reach the quarterfinals of the $108,320 First Republic Tiburon Challenger at the Tiburon Peninsula Club.
   Kwiatkowski (University of Virginia) and Giron (UCLA) won the NCAA singles crown in 2017 and 2014, respectively.
   Kwiatkowski improved to 2-0 against Giron, also winning 6-4 in the third set in the first round of qualifying in Fairfield, Calif., last October.
   Also losing today were fifth-seeded Mikael Torpegaard of Denmark, seventh seed and 2016 Tiburon champion Darian King of Barbados and 10th-seeded Christopher Eubanks of Atlanta.
   Gonzalo Escobar of Ecuador toppled Torpegaard, a former Ohio State All-American, 6-4, 7-6 (9). Torpegaard reached the 2018 NCAA singles quarterfinals and doubles final with Martin Joyce.
   Sekou Bangoura of Bradenton, Fla., eliminated King 1-6, 6-4, 6-0 after knocking off 12th seed and 2013 Tiburon champion Peter Polansky of Canada on Wednesday. Polansky, 31, won last week's $54,160 Columbus (Ohio) Challenger on an indoor hard court.
   Wild card Brandon Nakashima, a Virginia sophomore from San Diego, surprised the 6-foot-7 (2.01-meter) Eubanks 7-6 (5), 7-5 one day after ousting sixth seed and defending champion Michael Mmoh.
   Only three of the top 13 seeds reached Friday's quarterfinals. Advancing were top-seeded Tommy Paul of Greenville, N.C., fourth-seeded Emilio Gomez of Ecuador and eighth-seeded Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia.
   Gomez's father, Andres Gomez, won the 1990 French Open. Kokkinakis stunned Roger Federer last year in Miami.
   Here are the updated Tiburon singles and doubles draws and Friday's schedule.