The Road to THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP 2024
Aug 3: USTA Boys & Girls 14U and 18U, McLean
Top-seeded Patrick King held off a major scare from Justin Liu in the final of the boys 14 U tournament to win the championship 7–5. It marked the largest tournament of the day and the biggest crown in the most dramatic final, capping the 22 player USTA event I held at Hamlet Tennis Center.
Liu had to sidestep Patrick Eozenou, one of Tennis Central's incubator players, in a tightly contested semifinal that went for the same score line. Those two matches were the closest of the day in the biggest straw, although Andrew Liu also had to squeeze out of victory, 6-4, in the consolation round over Akshaj Vemula.
King makes the top 50 in his initial entry into the Tour rankings.
Plus, Karthik Uppalapati battled to emerge from the first round in similar fashion before bowing out to the eventual champion in their more decisive semifinal.
The weekend's other three tournaments took their cue from the Paris Games and divided the competitions into groups, with the girls, 18 U event, providing the most fireworks, like Céline Dion in the opening ceremony. Heading into the final round of play, Lindsay Shen and Siena Morigi both needed large margins of victory in order to try to mount a charge on the leader in the clubhouse.
Tarini Panidepu had already finished at 3-1. In her last match, she defeated Morigi 7–5. But both Morigi and Shen did exactly as required. Winning their 11 AM last matches 6–0 and 6–1, they tied Panidepu for the championship at 3-1 overall, with three players across the top of the group standings. All three were also tied in the number of games they had sacrificed to opponents. Morigi won the most group games by a sliver and so claimed the best game difference; Shen had the best performance against the tied opponents in a more fair comparison.
Things were more straightforward in the boys 18U and the girls 14U. Still, Inder Sharma went toe to toe with returning champion Vir Pratap Mattu in a Championship deciding bout. Sharma claimed the match and the Boys 18U group by winning 6-4.
The younger girls were divided into two groups of play to determine champions. Angela Wang earned the laurels in style to win Group 2 going away. Her exploits made her the highest-rewarded athlete of all at Hamlet, reaching No. 26 on the Tour rankings on the heels of a tournament victory last week as well with many more participants.
But despite the theatrics in the older girls' dramatic ending, Group 1 boasted the most parity from top to bottom of the entire weekend. Mikayla Chu drew not one but two fine performances from herself to outlast both Ava Wellman and Ella Sohn. Her 7-5 win over Wellman clinched her the title.
Both William van Horne and Serena Provinse joined the 14U Top 10, but little changed on the other leaderboard in play this weekend. However, Vir Mattu and Lindsay Shen debut just inside the Top 25 after excellent weekends and, in Mattu's case, a long record of achievement on the lower level Tours.
The Tour keeps up its momentum through the August swing, each weekend until Labor Day, returning to Bethesda for the USTA Flighted 12U and 16U. In New Jersey the next tournament takes place August 17-18 in a USTA Level 6, kicking off two Level 6 majors in a row in Princeton.
2024 Points Change
A change to the points applied to higher-level tournaments from lower levels should reflect ages and skills better from now on. It used to be that all points were halved when applied to a higher age group's rankings. Now, the points are halved each step up the ladder, not just once.
So a player can no longer earn 80 points at 10U and count them as 40 at 16U. They would be halved at 12U (40 points), again at 14U (20 points), then again at 16U (10 points). It provides the incentive without disrupting the older players' earnings too much.
However, a younger player earning points in an older tournament, much as Arnav Nadikatla did in this Tour Championship edition, is still a sure way to rise faster in those rankings.
Remember the newly added feature to the rankings: the Plus / Minus, which will tell you how far up or down the player has moved within the last week.
The full tables now look like this.
Each weekend this spring and summer, Tennis Central is bringing you USTA and UTR tournaments at Holton-Arms School. Earn points for advancing through each round, just like on the pro tours, and qualify for the TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP at season's end.
Bigger events offer more points, with the TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP offering the most, as well as prizes.
Check here for updates each week to the Tennis Central Tour Rankings, a 52-week points system based on the pro tours, as well as recaps of all the action and photos. We'll post the 2024 schedule soon!
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