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Hey Tennis Friends!

The US Open National Qualifying Playoffs took place this week at The Claremont Club in Claremont, California. This is the Southern California section of the summer-long contest.
I stopped by on finals day to file this report:

CORRECTION:
Alyssa Smith was not a finalist, but a semifinalist in last year’s tournament.

Fortunately, tournament director Annette Buck scheduled all the final matches for center court. This allowed me to get great coverage of this event.

On a side note, Tennis Friend (and Australian Open junior doubles champ) Gabby Andrews was the number two seed for this event, held at her home club. Unfortunately, she had to withdraw because of a wrist injury.

Here are the scores for the finals, whose winners will be moving on to the national level of this competition:

Men’s Singles
Dante Cipulli d. Jeffrey Tarango 4-6, 6-4, 6-4
For the past four years, Cipulli was an assistant tennis coach at University of Missouri-Kansas City. He now is a tennis pro and junior tennis coach at Murrietta Tennis Club.

Women’s Singles
(#1 seed) Mayo Hibi d. Alyssa Smith 6-3, 6-1
This past year, Hibi has been traveling on the ITF Circuit and currently holds a career high WTA Tour ranking of #646.

Mixed Doubles
West Nott / Alison Ramos
d. Page Bartelt / Scott Doerner 4-6, 6-4, [10-8]

More information on the U.S. Open National Playoffs:
The winner of each Sectional Qualifying Tournament in each division (men’s singles, women’s singles, mixed doubles) will advance to the US Open National Playoffs Championships in their respective division taking place in New Haven, CT at Yale University during the New Haven Open at Yale, a WTA event, part of the Emirates Airline US Open Series (August 17-20 for singles, August 22-25 for mixed doubles). The winner of each Singles Championship (1 male, 1 female) will receive a wild card entry to compete in the 2012 US Open Qualifying Tournament (August 21-24) and the winner of the Mixed Doubles Championship (1 team) will receive a wild card entry to compete in the 2012 US Open Mixed Doubles Championship (commencing August 29) at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

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I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!

– Marcus Tennis

Tags: 2012, Alison Ramos, Alyssa Smith, Annette M. Buck, Dante Cipulli, Jeffrey Tarango, Mayo Hibi, Page Bartelt, Scott Doerner, Southern California, Tennis, The Claremont Club, US Open, USTA Southern California, USTA.com, USTA.org, West Nott

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2012 at 10:31 AM and is filed under US Open, US Open Series, USTA Sectionals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.