Archives - Thursday, August 9, 2007

Ohhh... Champions advance

Vemic def Simmonds 6-7(9), 6-3,7-6(3)

Evans/Wilson def Guez/Rosol 6-3,6-1

Oudsema def Mamiit 6-3,3-6,6-3

Kuznetsov def Kim 6-4,2-6,6-3

Okun def Sarstrand 6-0,6-2

(4)Brendan Evans(USA)/Brian Wilson(USA) def David Guez(FRA)/Lukas Rosol(CZE) 6-3,6-1

Scott Oudsema(USA)/Ryan Sweeting(USA) def Luke Bourgeois(AUS)/Dusan Vemic(SRB) 6-2,6-4

Former Champions Oudsema and Okun advanced in yet another humid day at Rec park.

Defending champion Scott Oudsema came out firing on all cylinders against Cecil Mamiit. Mamiit was only frustrated with the amount of winners that Oudsema was producing, nothing to do but hope that it couldn't last. Oudsema broke right off the bat and got out to a quick 4-1 lead, only losing 1 point on his serve in those 2 service games, and then only 3 more for the set. Mamiit finally had an opportunity in the 6th game of the 2nd set, where Mamiit broke and forced the 3rd deciding set. Oudsema broke in the 8th game of the 3rd and closed it out at love. Again, Oudsema looked sharp, no questioning that forehand and serve, particularly in the 1st set... 6 aces in that set.

Noam Okun, champion in 2004, made quick work of Marcus Sarstrand in 48 minutes. The 1st set lasted only 18 minutes as Sarstrand struggled to find anything working and only won 9 points in that set. Wow...

Dusan Vemic had the tightest and longest match at 2 hours, 26 minutes of the week so far with Phillip Simmonds. It came down to the 3rd set tiebreak where Vemic displayed more of what was working for him late in the match, put the ball where Simmonds wasn't. He got to 1 all with a drop shot that Simmonds barely got a racquet on and the roll started from there. The next few points were Simmonds chasing down balls and not being able to get some depth and pace on the backhand, so Vemic controlled and got out to a 6-1 lead on a combo of Vemic volley winners and Simmonds backhand errors. Vemic closed it out with an unreturnable serve. Nice to see finesse win a tiebreak.

Good variety with the Pastabilities and jazz this evening too. We've heard that Lupos will be introducing something new on their menu at Rec park... we will get the scoop on this absolute fundamental part of the tournament.

Johansson up against Sweeting tomorrow for the feature. Friday night with a grand slammer and then the concert with Splash. Still seems ridiculous. Weather doesn't look absolutely ideal... but stay tuned to this site, we'll update often if necessary.

Schedule update at 4:50p Friday. Play started at 3pm.

Bloomfield-Im def Wilson/Evans

Warburg def Bogomolov

Okun leads Oudsema 5-2

Kuznetsov-Vemic warming up, Johansson-Sweeting to follow.

Tennischallenger.com is updated as decisions are made.