Monday, January 3, 2005-Day Three

Rain once again came down on tournament play in Arizona as it did last week at the National Winter Championships. The soggy weather forecast for today and the rest of the week forced the stop of play today and the total cancellation of doubles. Ironically, before the sky opened the chill was gone and it was actually a warm and sunny few hours of play.

The 18s was my goal for the day and I started over at the Westward Look Resort where the girls were playing. I happened to catch two great matches which turned out to be the only main draw ones completed today in that group.

The fourth-seeded Maggie Yahner had quite a challenge from No. 12 Amanda Craddock. The higher seed prevailed in the end, but the points were long and exciting as these girls grunted their way through the baseline rallies. The other match I saw was between No. 6 Lena Litvak and Melissa Ryan. This one was full of some great tennis and lots of controversy. Constant questions over call and score drew quite the crowd. In the end Lena kept her cool and outplayed Melissa, 6-3,6-3.

As I drove over to the University of Arizona to watch the Boys 18s, the rain began to fall and play for the day was suspended. They had, however, completed most of the main draw matches there first thing in the morning. Once again William Gray caused an upset. Yesterday it was No. 17 Daniel Krause and today it was No. 16 Branden Joost that he took out, 7-5,6-4. My first stop today will be to check and see if William can keep it going when he plays the fourth-seeded Kallim Stewart.

The Boys 16s only got through two main draw matches today, advancing No. 9 Ryan Berman and No. 8 Tom Young. The girls in that age bracket faired a little better with two upsets out of four matches. Alexa Guarachi eliminated Kinsey Casey, the seventh-seed, and Lauren McHale created her second upset by taking out the third seed, Joanna Mather. (She previously defeated No. 24 Emilee A. Malvehy.)

Most of the players in the boys and girls 14s moved on to the quarterfinals. The only surprise was Vanessa Petrini's 6-4,6-1 win over ninth-seeded Jordan Deckendorf. All of the boys 12 matches finished up, including Matthew Westmoreland's 6-4,6-3 defeat of No. 10 Thai Kwiatkowski. Unfortunately, there was only one Girls 12 match finished and the top seed moved on.

The weather for today is looking rather bleak, though it is expected some matches will get played. It will be interesting to see how the players fair today with a strong wind added to all the delays. I'm going to try to make it to as many matches a possible so stay tuned to College And Junior Tennis for full Copper Bowl coverage.

Melissa Ryan

Jessica Buterbaugh

Lauren Lui

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