Tagged with:
Borna Gojo,
Brayden Schnur,
JC Aragone,
Pro Circuit Weekly Totals,
Sebastian BaderBrayden Schnur finished off the last US pro event of the year with a three-set win over Virginia senior JC Aragone in the finals of the $25K USA F40 Futures in Tallahassee, Florida. Aragone, who was playing in his first career pro final, broke Schnur at love to go ahead 5-3 in the first set but Schnur broke back from 30/40 and went on to win the final four games of the set. In the second set Aragone fought off a pair of break points on his 2-2 service game and then he broke Schnur at love to make it 4-2. Aragone would hold two more times to take the second set 6-3. Schnur started off the third set by holding in a one-deuce game and then he broke in a one-deuce game to make it 2-0. Aragone managed to break back in a one-deuce game and then he held at love to even it at 2-2. Schnur would hold at love for 3-2, break from 30/40 for 4-2, hold in a one-deuce game for 5-2, and break at love to close out the 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win.
Schnur announced in July that he was leaving North Carolina a year early to pursue a professional career and since then he has made three Futures finals and won two of them. Schnur is ranked 543 in the 12/12 ATP rankings but when these 27 points are added in next week he should be around 445 which would surpass his previous career high of 456 (Sept. 2014).
Aragone’s 12/12 ranking will be a new career high of 1088 but when these 15 points are added in next week he’ll shoot up to right around 781.
Finals
[8] Brayden Schnur (North Carolina ’16*) def. [Q] JC Aragone (Virginia Sr) 7-5, 3-6, 6-2
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Wake Forest commit
Borna Gojo was attempting to win his first pro singles title but he came up just short against Aleksandar Lazov in the finals of the $10K Turkey F49 Futures in Antalya. There were no breaks of serve in the first set and Gojo had a set point on his serve up 6-5 in the tiebreak but Lazov won the final three points to take it 8-6. Gojo went up an early break in the second set and led 3-1 but Lazov won 12 consecutive points to retake the lead at 4-3. Gojo fought off two break points to hold for 4-4 and on his next service game he fought off a match point to hold for 5-5. Lazov held from 40/30 for 6-5 and then broke Gojo on a one-deuce game to take it 7-6(6), 7-5. Gojo’s current ranking of 824 is a career high and when these 10 points are added in he’ll move up to around 726.
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Sebastian Bader (Hawaii Pacific ’11) played in his sixth doubles final of the year but his record fell to 1-5 after he and Niels Lootsma lost 6-3, 6-2 to Matej Vocel and Tomas Papik at the $10K Czech Republic F12 in Vestec.
Pro Titles The Week of 12/05-12/11:
Singles:
USA – Brayden Schnur (North Carolina ’16*)
Doubles:
USA – Robert Galloway (Wofford ’15)/Nate Lammons (SMU ’16)
Runner-Ups
Singles:
USA – JC Aragone (Virginia Sr)
Turkey – Borna Gojo (Spring ’17 Wake Forest commit)
Doubles:
USA – Aziz Dougaz (Florida State Soph)/Guy Iradukunda (Florida State Jr)
Czech Republic – Sebastian Bader (Hawaii Pacific ’11)
Dominican Republic – Hunter Callahan (Ohio State ’15)/Nicholas Hu (Harvard ’16)
Egypt – Mohamed Abdel-Aziz (Fall ’17 Rice commit)
Turkey – Borna Gojo (Spring ’17 Wake Forest commit)
*didn’t stay at school for all four years
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Bobby, can you share some highlights from Naples ITA convention? Any new trends or directions? What are coaches talking about? Any talk about what role UTR will have going forward as far as selection and seeding in ITA tournaments? Will it be used after ITA ratings? Not sure about its validity for seeding-might be OK for selection. Have seen tourneys where it was used for seeding, and seeds lost early. I see UTR as a hatchet, not a scalpel, e.g. a 13.5 is significantly better than a 12.5, but a 13. 5 vs a 13.75 either could win, and seeding one higher than another is no better than random seeding. Also UTR's precision is closely linked to the level of cross play between divisions, conferences, collegians, pros, and juniors. D1 ratings in the top conferences are probably fairly accurate due to cross play between college players and pros on the circuit in summer and fall-not sure about the other groups. I know you are a big fan of UTR.
KDBT, I'll have a post up on Saturday about the convention and some changes with rules regarding the behavior of the bench players and what they can and cannot say going forward.
UTR continues to gain momentum but I think this next year will be just like this year where there will be a few tournaments that use it for selection and seeding and others that do not.
The ITA is still looking at ways to improve the fall rankings which as you know are just the previous season's rankings with all the graduating players removed. I'd be surprised if UTR isn't a component of the fall rankings at some point in the near future because they've got to be more accurate to account for the players that had a strong summer as well as the highly-touted newcomers.
I agree with your statement about the 13.50 to 13.75 and seeding – many of those matchups are toss-ups. Also agree about what you said with UTRs of D1 players being pretty accurate but as you go down divisions they become less accurate. The biggest issue as you get down into D2, D3, NAIA, JUCO are the lack of matches that get put in the ITA's computer. UTR pulls its data from the ITA's site so if the coaches don't key the results it's like the matches never happened. The number of non-D1 guys/gals playing pro events is definitely smaller so you can't get results there either. UTR is working on pulling results from other tennis federations so as they continue to add more countries the numbers will continue to get more accurate. I know they have arrangements with Tennis Canada, Tennis Australia, and the LTA in Great Britain.