Nunez and Doumbia Win Doubles Titles; Kwiatkowski Advances to Singles Final in Puerto Rico

Tagged with: Guillermo Nunez, Sadio Doumbia, ThaiSon Kwiatkowski

Friday was a great day for Guillermo Nunez (TCU Jr) and Sadio Doumbia (Georgia ’12) as they each won pro doubles titles on opposite ends of the globe. Doumbia won his third career doubles title after he and Fabien Reboul defeated Soon Woo Kwon and Jea Moon Lee in the doubles final of the $10K Thailand F5 Futures in Hua Hin. Doumbia and Reboul earned the only break of the first set when they broke from 30/40 to go ahead 3-1 and they’d eventually take the set 6-3. The second set followed a similar pattern with Doumbia and Reboul breaking from 30/40 to go up 2-1 and they’d make that break advantage hold up to win it 6-3, 6-4.

Nunez won his third career doubles title, and first since April 2014, after he and Nicolas Jarry defeated Carlos Cuevas and Juan Pablo Paz in the finals of the $10K Chile F8 Futures in Santiago. Nunez and Jarry broke at love to go ahead 2-1 in the first and then they broke again from 30/40 to close out the opening set 6-3. In the second set Nunez and Jarry broke to go up 3-1 however Cuevas and Paz broke back on the next game to put it back on serve. The match stayed on serve until Nunez and Jarry broke from 15/40 to close out a 6-3, 7-5 win.  

 

Virginia senior Thai-Son Kwiatkowski played a pair of matches on Friday at the $10K Mayaguez, Puerto Rico F1 Futures. Kwiatkowski met a familiar foe in the singles semifinals when he squared off against Brayden Schnur who recently left North Carolina after his junior year. Kwiatkowski got off to a quick start by breaking and holding to go ahead 2-0 but Schnur would take the next three games to pull ahead 3-2. It would stay on serve until Schnur broke from 30/40 to close out the opening set 6-4. In the second set Kwiatkowski once again opened up a 2-0 lead however this time he wouldn’t relinquish the lead and would add another break to take the set 6-2. The third set was all Kwiatkowski as he won 25 of 36 points to pull off a 6-0 sweep to book his spot in the finals with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 win.

Kwiatkowski, who will be playing in his first-ever singles final, will face 22 year-old American Alexios Halebian after Halebian defeated recent Florida State graduate Benjamin Lock 6-2, 7-6(2). 

Kwiatkowski was back on court a few hours later attempting to win his third doubles title of the year but that match wouldn’t go as smoothly. Kwiatkowski and Quinton Vega fell behind 4-0 in both the first and second sets and Ilija Vucic (St. John’s ’12*) and Nebojsa Peric would ultimately close it out 6-1, 6-3 in just under an hour (57 minutes). It was Vucic’s second doubles title of the year and 14th of his career. 

 

 

David Volfson (Cornell Soph), Gary Kushnirovich (St. John’s ’13), and Karunuday “KU” Singh (Georgia ’13) were each bounced in the doubles semifinals of the $10K Hong Kong F4 Futures. Volfson and Rhett Purcell lost 6-3, 6-3 to Cheng-Peng Hsieh and Pak Long Yeung while Kushnirovic and Singh fell 3-6, 6-4, 12-10 to Jack Wong and Karan Rastogi. Kushnirovic and Singh had a pair of match points after leading 9-7 in the third set supertiebreak but they weren’t able to close it out.