Tight Group A at UTR

Michael Augsberger

Jul 7, 20235 min read

The Road to THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP 2023

July 1 - USTA 12U and 16U Boys' and Girls Waterfall

July 2 - UTR 14U and 16U - College Central Placement Open

Another monstrous weekend in terms of player participation churned out a record number of champions for the Tennis Central Junior Circuit. No fewer than eleven individual events took place at The Landon School and The Beach Tennis & Pool thanks to emergency construction at the usual Holton Arms site.

The beautiful venues hosted beautiful tennis and competitive drama. At Sunday's coed UTR we found the tightest group and the highest stakes. It started with Jaemin Lee taking Albert Li to a tiebreak in the second set before Li won 7-4. Sofia Gerhardt then cruised past Li to set up what might have been a march to the championship.

But after winning the first set close, Gerhardt stumbled at Lee's charging comeback to force a tiebreak to decide the championship. Lee won 10-8, but since Gerhardt had a stronger set record in the group, Gerhardt took the trophy.

At the end of the day, little changed in the Top 10. The 10U rankings played the role of statue. Archer Pollak and Shritha Adapala changed spots in the top five of the 12U, where the big earners were the 130-place movers who won titles this weekend. The foremost of these is Zahra Doriwala, who looks to back up her ascent in the 15U tournament this weekend.

Ava Wellman took Doriwala to 4-2 in their round robin match, but Wellman dropped her set to TCJC veteran Adura Akiwumi to finish third behind her, with all behind Doriwala's 16-4 game performance on the weekend. Doriwala's fellow champion, Annabelle Mu, played closer matches on her way to a 12-5 record.

While the girls' titleholders at 16U barely dropped a game or two in their groups of three, the boys' single elimination events had deeper numbers and therefore more drama. In the 12U, Patrick King faced stiff opposition in the semis against Donoghue O'Brien and then had enough left to make slightly quicker work of Ayan Nambiar in the final.

16U was the deepest field of all. Vincenzo Theobald had to navigate a tiebreak in the quarters against Griffin Chen just to reach the semis, where Graydon Berlik gave him a 6-4 scare. Ryan Ferrer had the same kind of tough semifinal against eventual bronze medalist Maxwell Liu. Ferrer won the title 7-5 over Theobald in the best final of the weekend.

The biggest mover and shaker of the weekend was Antonio Iarossi, winning the overall championship at Sunday's UTR as the victor of the top group. He returns to form following a points dropoff that saw him plunge at the 16U rankings. So his exploits this weekend bring up back up to 42nd, as his last event was over a year ago. He had to steel himself in the first set against fellow favorite Henry Lewis but pulled it out for a 5-3 win and never looked back.

Jon Ozenci's lead in the 12U rankings over brother Deniz increased to more than 150 points, but he trails Solomon Ravitz in the 16U by just eleven.

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.

Champions

7/1 USTA Boys 12U: Patrick King

7/1 USTA Boys 16U: Ryan Ferrer

7/1 USTA Girls 12U: Annabelle Mu, Zahra Doriwala

7/1 USTA Girls 16U: Isabelle Brann, Lena Butler, Veda Sankara

7/2 UTR (in order of group strength): Antonio Iarossi, Neel Jain, Jai Errabolu, Sofia Gerhardt

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.

2023 Tour Schedule

March

Mar 18: USTA L7 Boys and Girls 12U

Mar 19: USTA L7 Boys and Girls 14U

April

Apr 8: UTR 14U - Sweet Spotter Open

Apr 16: USTA L7 Boys and Girls 12U

Apr 16: USTA L7 Boys and Girls 14U

Apr 23: UTR 14U and 16U - Potomac Spring Tennis Festival Open

Apr 29: 15U UTR - Teen World Open Classic

Apr 30: 12U UTR - Anguilla Service Trips Open

Apr 30: 10U Green Dot UTR - Anguilla Service Trips Open