Archives - Sunday, August 5, 2007

Serve and volley

Luke Bourgeois was the only lower seed to advance over his opponent today, as all other top seeds won. The Bourgeois/Gregorc was a very entertaining 2 hour match between serve and volleyers. Both players hitting it hard from the baseline and coming up quite a bit. Some excellent athleticism displayed too. Nothing better to show the true athleticism of professional tennis players than 2 serve and volleyers going at it in a close one. Gregorc won 8 of his 30 service points with aces in the third set to get to the tiebreak, but Bourgeois forced the errors three times in the final set tiebreak.

Sajous, the wild card entry as a result of winning the pre-qualifier BTC clay court tournament, failed in his attempt to become the 1st pre-qualifier wild card to advance into the main draw, losing to Marcus Sarstrand 6-2, 7-6(2).

Cecil Mamiit, a veteran in his 5th visit to Binghamton, qualified with a win over Fritz Wolmarans. This was another entertaining match and almost a shame it was at the same time as the Bourgeois match. The turning point was the 1st game of the 2nd set, Mamiit served a 16 point game. Only faced 1 break point, but Wolmarans almost broke it open on that one game, he had served 3 aces in the at-love game prior to take the 1st set. Mamiit, has 11 Pro Circuit titles and 11 runner ups and wins over Todd Martin, Michael Chang and Andre Agassi in his career.

Billy Mendler and Kris Shumway of Towanda, PA received a wild card into the doubles main draw.

Tomorrow's matches include many past top juniors and collegians including Ryan Sweeting (USA), Sam Warburg(USA), Jesse Witten (USA), Bryan Wilson (USA), Brendan Evans(USA) and former New York state standout, Nikita Kryvonos.

Final qualifying round results

Colin EBELTHITE AUS def Milan POKRAJAC CAN, 7-5,6-4

Marcus Sarstrand SWE def Oliver Claude Sajous HAI, 6-2, 7-6(2)

Cecil Mamiit PHI def Fritz Wolmarans RSA, 2-6,6-3,6-4

Luke Bourgeois AUS def Luka Gregorc SLO, 6-3,3-6,7-6(3)

Also got to see Thomas Johansson practice quite a bit. Much better to see him in person than in the Grand slams on TV! Note that Johansson hit the practice courts twice today, once more than most players usually do. Johansson said it himself, that which Laurie Bowen preaches... on the 1st round match with Jenkins and the Challenger level, "that's a tough match. There's not a difference at this level, these guys are capable of playing as good of tennis [as that next level]." He was pointing out that he doesn't have any match this week where he expects to have it easy. He's here for the match play.

Also note that Johansson had a hitting partner who was none other than Magnus Norman... another great Swede not long ago. Norman was the world #2 in 2000, making the final of the French and the Semis of the Australian. Norman says he had to stop his career mid flight because of problems with his hip and basically there was nothing to be done to get it so he could keep pounding on it on the tennis court for a living. These guys have to have some stories to tell the tennis world, and Binghamton gets a front row seat. Break out the yellow and blue.