Hey Tennis Friends!
This week the 2010 USTA International Spring Championships are being held at the Home Depot Center in Carson. I stopped by late in the week to check out the juniors, and the future of tennis . . .
As usual, there was so much more going on than I was able to cover. There were boy’s and girl’s 16s matches going on, as well as the 18s. It was good to see some of the juniors that you may have heard their names buzzing around, such as Madison Keys and Krista Hardebeck.
Watching the #1 seed Raymond Sarmiento take on the #16 seed Emmett Egger was an exciting match.
Watching that girl’s doubles match was captivating, especially once I found out who the players actually were, and that Lacey Smyth and Sabrina Santamaria had bageled the #1 seeded team of Lauren Herring and Grace Min in the first set! What a treat! And what a great comeback!
Later in the afternoon, American Raymond Sarmiento teamed up with Darian King, from Barbados (the #1 Boy’s 18’s Doubles seeds), to play against Americans Rickey Baylon and Dennis Mkrtchian.
There were times during the boy’s match when even though the line call from the chair umpire was in their favor, at separate times, each team had overruled the chair, giving their opponents the point, in the sprit of fairness. That kind of sportsmanship was fantastic to witness at this high level of play for anyone, and especially the, wrongly perceived, “less mature”, juniors!
It took three tough sets for the #1 seeds to win that match: 4-6, 7-5, (10-7).
It’s fun to come to these events to see the “buzzed about” players, and go away being fans of some of the new faces in the future of tennis.
I’ll see you next time, with more tennis, . . . outside the lines!
– Marcus Tennis
