by Bobby Knight | Sep 6, 2017 | Blog
For the first time since Todd Martin (Northwestern) at the 2000 US Open, we have a player with college ties in the semifinals at a grand slam. Former Illinois Fighting Illini Kevin Anderson (’05-’07) busted through the ceiling late Tuesday night with a tough four-set win over American Sam Querrey. Due to the Venus Williams/Petra Kvitova match running late, Anderson and Querrey didn’t take the court until almost 10:30 p.m. ET and by the time the match ended at 1:51 a.m. there was only around 2000 fans left in the almost 24000 seat Arthur Ashe Stadium. Anderson dictated play all night long with the 6 foot 8 inch South African crushing the...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 4, 2017 | Blog
Kevin Anderson, who spent three years at Illinois from 2005 to 2007, equaled his career-best result at a grand slam and moved into the quarterfinals at the 2017 US Open with a four-set win over Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi. Anderson broke Lorenzi once in each of the first two sets and after 1 hour and 14 minutes of play he led 6-4, 6-3. Lorenzi earned his first break of the match in the third set and despite Anderson breaking back Lorenzi would take the set in a tiebreak 7-4. In the fourth set, Lorenzi broke Anderson to go up 3-2 but Anderson broke back and held for 4-3. After a Lorenzi hold, Anderson would hold and then break to close it out 6-4, 6-3, 6-7,...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 2, 2017 | Blog
Kevin Anderson was one of Friday’s big winners at the US Open with the former Illini rolling into the fourth round with a sound straight set win over Croatia’s Borna Coric. The opening set was the closest of the three with Anderson only winning three more points than Coric but the South African cashed in his one break opportunity to close out the set 6-4.After not facing any break points in the first set, Anderson would face five in his 2-2 service game in the second set. Anderson managed to come all the way back from 0/40 down to get the hold and then three games later he’d break Coric from 30/40 to go up 5-3. Anderson held at love to take...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 1, 2017 | Blog
Three former college tennis players moved into the third round at the 2017 US Open with none more impressive than Jennifer Brady. The former UCLA Bruin hammered the No. 23 seed Barbora Strycova 6-1, 6-1 in just 56 minutes. Brady won 56 of 82 points (.683) and won 70% of the points on Strycova’s second serve. Brady has played in all four majors this year with her best performance thus far coming in Australia when she made the round of 16. Brady’s third round opponent will be WTA #57 Monica Niculescu with the match scheduled for Saturday. Take a look at ?? @jennifurbrady95’s match point as she dominates Strycova, 6-1 6-1. See you in...
by Bobby Knight | Aug 30, 2017 | Blog
The World University Games wrapped up on Monday in Taiwan with several U.S. college players bringing home medals. Jason Jung, who was born in Torrance (Calif) and played at Michigan from 2007 to 2011, won the gold medal in singles after not dropping a set during the whole competition. Jung was representing Chinese Taipei and even though he graduated from Michigan in 2011 he was eligible since is enrolled at a university in Taiwan.Mississippi State rising junior Nuno Borges won the bronze medal in men’s singles after making it to the semifinals before falling to Jung 6-3, 6-3. Borges defeated current U.S. collegians Jackie Tang (Columbia) and Yuya Ito...
by Bobby Knight | Aug 29, 2017 | Blog
Monday was opening day at the 2017 US Open and while the established players like John Isner, Steve Johnson, and Kevin Anderson picked up wins there were several other former collegians that couldn’t quite get over the hump. One former collegian that did get over the jump was Cameron Norrie as the 3-time All-American from TCU picked up his first main draw grand slam win after his opponent, Dmitry Tursunov, retired before the start of the third set.Norrie and Tursunov played a break-free first set though each player had multiple opportunities to pull ahead. Tursunov had two break points on Norrie’s opening service game and then another two when...
by Bobby Knight | Aug 28, 2017 | Blog
The World University Games in Taiwan are nearing its conclusion with the doubles gold medal match taking place late Sunday/early Monday while singles wraps up tomorrow. Great Britain’s Jack Findel-Hawkins (North Florida ’17) and Luke Johnson (Clemson ’16) will play in the doubles gold medal match against Russia’s Richard Muzaev and Aslan Karatsev with the match scheduled for no sooner than 2:30 a.m. eastern. Mississippi State junior Nuno Borges will meet the top seed Jason Jung (Michigan ’11) in the singles semifinal with first serve scheduled for roughly 11:30 p.m eastern on Sunday night.UCLA’s Logan Staggs and Jada Hart...
by Bobby Knight | Aug 26, 2017 | Blog
There were seven players with college ties in action on Friday in the final round of the qualifying draw at the US Open and by the time the dust had settled six of them had secured a spot in the main draw. JC Aragone, Evan King, and Danielle Lao will each be making their grand slam debuts next week while Cameron Norrie advanced to his second grand slam main draw, JP Smith his fourth grand slam main draw, and Nicole Gibbs her 13th grand slam main draw.For the first time since 1987 there will be four men in the main draw that played college tennis in the same year because Aragone and Norrie join Thai Kwiatkowski and Chris Eubanks who were both granted main...
by Bobby Knight | Aug 25, 2017 | Blog
JC Aragone was awarded a last minute wild card into this year’s US Open qualifying draw and now he’s just one match away from the main draw after a come from behind win over Italy’s Riccardo Bellotti. Aragone dropped the opening set 6-3 and went down a break at 3-2 in the second but he broke back in the next game to even it at 3-all. After an exchange of holds, Aragone went up 40/0 on his 4-4 service game but Bellotti took the next four points to take the advantage. Aragone worked it back to deuce but Bellotti would have the advantage three more times until Aragone finally managed to win two straight and then after getting the advantage he...
by Bobby Knight | Aug 24, 2017 | Blog
The opening round of qualifying at the US Open wrapped up on Wednesday with the guys with college ties going 12-14 while the girls went 5-5. UCLA and USC were the only schools to put more than one player through to the men’s second round while on the women’s side Stanford was the only school to do the same. Those that played college tennis last season went 2-4 with Cameron Norrie and JC Aragone picking up wins while JJ Wolf, William Blumberg, Francesca Di Lorenzo, and Ashley Lahey came up short. Second round matches will be played on Thursday with live scoring available here. US Open Men’s Qualies – First RoundGleb Sakharov...
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