US Open - Sectional Qualifying Tournament

D

Division1to100

Rookie
The U.S Open National Playoffs are starting. From the website "This tournament is part of the US Open National Playoffs - a series of tournaments that gives any player 14 years of age or older who meets the eligibility requirements the opportunity to qualify for the 2016 US Open. Sectional Qualifying Tournaments will be held across 15 USTA Sections to include men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles." Just wanted to see if any forum members are going to be participating. I will playing in the Northern section, and we have people who have held a racket for only a week participating, to former UCLA All-Americans who are now ranked in the ATP.
 
Division1to100 said:
Just wanted to see if any forum members are going to be participating. I will playing in the Northern section, and we have people who have held a racket for only a week participating, to former UCLA All-Americans who are now ranked in the ATP.
Click to expand...
Yes the levels are really crazy-in our section from UTR 7s to 14+. I dont understand why beginners or their parents would pay the high entry fees to be blown off the court in 30-45min. Wish there was minimum UTR of 10 for entry. I feel sorry for college players who are staying in hotels and may have a couple rounds vs 1 stars or unranked players. Some of the playoffs are 128 draws; our section is a 64. If you are playing the Minnesota one, that is probably the 2nd easiest one after Hawaii. There are probably just a handful of 13+ players in the Northern playoff. I guess the highest ranked guy is probably the Louisville player Gornet or some Big 10 player or recruit. Most of the players are from MN and there are only a few elite players in that state-the Northern junior section has a quota for 3 for nationals-the 1st two are great players, but often the third is a 2 star. I think the two top jr MN guys are playing the Northern sectional-they should go deep.

Son signed up to play the Southern playoff but may pull out due to a minor injury; he is playing an important tourney now and has won 3 MD rounds so far with a lot of stretching and icing, but he probably needs to rest before starting to train for Clays. He was just playing the playoff for the experience and might be seeded due to his UTR.
Good luck to you

PS I just looked on UTR and there are only two 13+ players in the whole state of MN and only four 12.5+. All four of them are playing the Sectional.
 
Yeah I am playing in that one, but along with native people from the Northern Section we also have people from California and Florida coming who have UTR's of 15 or higher. And it will be interesting to say the least. I am surprised nobody else on the forum is playing. And thank you.
 
Middle States starts Saturday. Last year, Matija Pecotic was the prohibitive favorite from the start and turned out to be leagues better than anyone in the MS field and eventually lost in the national final to Jesse Witten (he was ranked around 280 at the time). Everyone knew Pecotic because he played at Princeton. The top seed this year is a New Zealander named Jose Statham. I don't know anything about him except that he's ranked in the 500s.

The 2 seed is Kyle Seelig, who is a former 2-time PIAA state champ who is only not a 4-time PIAA champ because he didn't play high school tennis in his soph or junior years. He plays for Ohio St now and is kind of a prodigy in PA tennis. He beat kids from my high school in the state finals both years he won (different kids, though). I guess I'm rooting for him as the local guy.

I don't recognize many of the other top seeds. 4 is Christopher Racz, who was the #1 junior in Middle States a couple years ago and is now a coach locally. He's probably seeded too high, but he has ATP points, so that's why he's there. 6 is Gary Kushnirovich, a big, cut Russian dude from NYC who won the Cryan tournament last year. He is fun to watch because his serve is ridiculous and technically flawless. 8 is Kweisi Kenyatte, who is a local blue chip junior from North Jersey. Perennial local favorite Ilya Shatashvili is 16, the lowest he's ever been seeded. The field is huge with a 128 draw sheet and 24 seeds.

The Middles States women's #1 seed is Sophie Chang and the #1 doubles seeds are Chang and Alexandra Mueller. I think Chang & Mueller in dubs have the best chance to win the national tournament of all the Middle States entries.

This tournament is always fun to watch with some very high caliber tennis.
 
If we are speaking about Northern, Tony Larson (tonlars on ttw) has won the qualifying tourney multiple years. He's probably in the mix this year, but I'm guessing he's in his 30's now so with his style of game (grinder) it will become harder for him to keep winning year after year. The kid who won the HS state tournament this year (5 star) is really good so he'll have a chance. Then there are usually players from the U of M and the Boyer brothers from MN who both play at Nebraska (Dusty #1 and Toby #3 or #4). Personally, I think the Northern section field is getting stronger year after year.
 
jhick said:
If we are speaking about Northern, Tony Larson (tonlars on ttw) has won the qualifying tourney multiple years. He's probably in the mix this year, but I'm guessing he's in his 30's now so with his style of game (grinder) it will become harder for him to keep winning year after year. The kid who won the HS state tournament this year (5 star) is really good so he'll have a chance. Then there are usually players from the U of M and the Boyer brothers from MN who both play at Nebraska (Dusty #1 and Toby #3 or #4). Personally, I think the Northern section field is getting stronger year after year.
Click to expand...

Tony Larson unfortunately won't be playing this year, due to a wrist injury. Our field includes Nicholas Miester, a top 200 ATP player who was a former UCLA all american. Eric Quigley another top 300 ATP pro who played for the University of Kentucky. Both have UTR's above 15. Next id say would be Evan King, former Michigan standout and a top 400 ATP pro with a UTR in the 14 range. From there the Boyer Brothers are in the mix. Dusty the older one was a 4 time state champion and a 5 star recruit and played 1 singles for Nebraska, his younger brother Toby one state in 2015 and plays around 3 or 4. He was a 5 star and his highest ranking was 35 in the nation I believe. From there Alex Gornet a Louisville standout is also playing. We also have Nick Beaty a high school senior who is a Michigan commit and had a 5 star rating of 27 in the nation. Nick won state for team and doubles in 2013 and singles in 2014. And then the recent state champion is Jackson Allen, who is a high school junior, 5 star MN Gopher commit who is ranked 32 in the nation currently. Jackson and his partner Carson Haskins upset the Number 1 seeded team of JJ Wolf and Jake Van Emburgh at Kalamazoo. From there we have several 4 stars and adults with UTR in the 12-14 range playing. Overall it should be a very exciting tournament.
 
Division1to100 said:
Our field includes Nicholas Miester, a top 200 ATP player who was a former UCLA all american. Eric Quigley another top 300 ATP pro who played for the University of Kentucky. Both have UTR's above 15. ... From there we have several 4 stars and adults with UTR in the 12-14 range playing. Overall it should be a very exciting tournament.
Click to expand...

It sounds like the top seeds of the Northern playoff will be tough to beat. The top player in the Southern playoff is UTR 14-there are other high UTR players based in the Atlanta area but they are off playing Futures or were playing them last week-Eubanks at Tulsa, bunch of UGA guys at Winston Salem, Nathan Pasha was in Buffalo, and Jarmere Jenkins at a different Future. The seeded guys playing are either line 4-6 ACC/SEC players, freshmen recruits for ACC or Ivy, a pro from Bahamas, a guy from Samford out of college 3 years who is one of the finalists for BBT Wildcard, an Emory guy, guy who played high in ACC lineup 3 years ago, 1S midmajors, pro who played one year at UGA several years ago and several rising 12th graders-probably none of the seeds currently have ATP points. The 1 and 4 seeds who were BBT WC finalists actually have had 3 set matches against lower ranked competitors; I think #3 Trey Yates of Kentucky has the best chance of winning it. Seeds 5-7 have already lost. Half the first round matches were blowouts-even non seeds vs non seeds. 2nd round also had a lot of matches with 4 or less games won. The third round seed vs seed matches were close- 6/8 matches were competitive. Only one seed lost in the 2nd round-former ACC player out of school 3-4 years. There are only seeds left in the quarterfinals 12.5+ to 14 UTR so the tournament would have been shorter with either a minimum UTR or with a qualifying round for UTR players 10.5 or lower. Some of the guys around 11.5 took a set or at least forced a set tiebreak with seeds. There was one 10.6 college guy who went 3 sets with a 13.3 UTR guy; guy was obviously underranked and hopefully this tourney will pull up his UTR. The guys who lost in R16 for singles today but won in for dubs have to wait until Friday for next dubs round. There ended up being only 14 dubs pairs after withdrawals. Whoever wins the Southern playoff will probably have a hard time at the next level in Connecticut.

Good luck to those of you playing playoffs elsewhere-Northern, Texas, Norcal. Hope it is cooler there. It's been in the 90s in Atlanta.
 
Looked at the updated draw for Northern and looks like Quigley is only playing Mens Doubles and Dusty Boyer is playing in doubles (Mens and Mixed) only.
 
Jose Statham won the Middle States mens singles. Andrei Daescu won the mens & mixed dubs, and Sophie Chang won the womens singles, but Chang and Alexandra Mueller were upset in the womens dubs final. Middle States should be well represented at the national playoffs.
 
In Texas the semis has unseeded Tomas Stillman (former USTA player UTR 14) facing #3 seed Eric Rutledge (played at Wake last year but I heard he's transferring to Rice, UTR 13) and Trey Hilderbrand (#7 seed, I think he's only 16 or 17, UTR 13) vs. 5 seed Henry Gordon (Texas A&M, UTR 13). Rutledge by the way has lost 4 games in four matches, including a 60 61 win over the #8 seed.
 
Last edited:
Southern SFs: UTR 13.7 5 star Harvard recruit #1 seed Galen Lee faces off with Trey Yates,rising jr from Univ of Kentucky (UTR 13.46) and Zac Dunkle Samford '13 (UTR 14.03) competes against 19 year old Philip Major (UTR 13.0) from Bahamas who got through several qualis on European circuit this spring but lost in 1st round MD singles. He does have one MD ATP dubs win. All but Major are from the Atlanta area. GA Tech had 3 guys playing in singles but none made it to SF; Michael Kay lost a 3 setter in the QFs to Dunkle. However, Michael Kay and his brother Casey who play dubs for GT are in the dubs SF and have a good chance to win it. Most of the 16 seeds for singles were Atlanta area natives, but 3 guys came up to play from Bahamas which was obviously a good decision for Major. Have the winners of other sectionals been mostly American collegians or have they been guys on the circuit? Most international collegians are probably playing Futures in their home country or region this summer.
 
jcgatennismom said:
Southern SFs: UTR 13.7 5 star Harvard recruit #1 seed Galen Lee faces off with Trey Yates,rising jr from Univ of Kentucky (UTR 13.46) and Zac Dunkle Samford '13 (UTR 14.03) competes against 19 year old Philip Major (UTR 13.0) from Bahamas who got through several qualis on European circuit this spring but lost in 1st round MD singles. He does have one MD ATP dubs win. All but Major are from the Atlanta area. GA Tech had 3 guys playing in singles but none made it to SF; Michael Kay lost a 3 setter in the QFs to Dunkle. However, Michael Kay and his brother Casey who play dubs for GT are in the dubs SF and have a good chance to win it. Most of the 16 seeds for singles were Atlanta area natives, but 3 guys came up to play from Bahamas which was obviously a good decision for Major. Have the winners of other sectionals been mostly American collegians or have they been guys on the circuit? Most international collegians are probably playing Futures in their home country or region this summer.
Click to expand...
In Middle States, Jose Statham is a 29YO tour player from New Zealand. I'm not sure how he came to Middle States. Last year's men's winner was Matija Pecotic, who was kind of both. He was a recent grad and former #1 for Princeton who started playing on tour after college.
 
@navigator I had to withdraw due to injury, so I only played doubles. And we lost early on. I still went all three days to watch the best of the best compete. And I am surprised because I see a lot of good 5.0 and some college players on here. Many people play league and stuff. I would guess since any people are active in tournaments, they would jump at the chance to sign up for the U.S open sectional playoffs since its an opportunity to play people of a caliber you normally would never compete against.
 
Division1to100 said:
@navigator I had to withdraw due to injury, so I only played doubles. And we lost early on. I still went all three days to watch the best of the best compete. And I am surprised because I see a lot of good 5.0 and some college players on here. Many people play league and stuff. I would guess since any people are active in tournaments, they would jump at the chance to sign up for the U.S open sectional playoffs since its an opportunity to play people of a caliber you normally would never compete against.
Click to expand...
The first year or two of the USO qualifying tournament, there were a bunch of 3.5-4.5 league players that signed up to say they entered the event, but that has gone down steadily over the years (getting a $150 double bagel for the novelty of it only has a limited shelf life...). As the field in the tournament (in Middle States anyway) has shrink, it's also gotten stronger as the tournament is now attracting a range of players with ATP points, D1 college players, and 5-star & blue chip juniors actually looking for a chance to get to the USO qualies.
 
Division1to100 said:
@navigator I had to withdraw due to injury, so I only played doubles. And we lost early on. I still went all three days to watch the best of the best compete. And I am surprised because I see a lot of good 5.0 and some college players on here. Many people play league and stuff. I would guess since any people are active in tournaments, they would jump at the chance to sign up for the U.S open sectional playoffs since its an opportunity to play people of a caliber you normally would never compete against.
Click to expand...

I don't think there are many 5.0 or above players that regularly post here. A handful, yes, but not many (and a tiny percentage of regular posters). Personally, I don't think 5.0 is strong enough to bother with a USO qualifying tournament. Given the level of the competition and the cost, if I wasn't at least a 5.5 I wouldn't bother. I think you can (and should) learn a lot from playing people somewhat better than you (say 0.25 - 0.50 NTRP points above your own level) but getting shellacked by someone more than 0.50 points above you is not particularly helpful to your game. Just my personal opinion, of course.
 
@navigator I guess that is true. Personally I am in that Division I level but I would still get killed by a lot of very good college players playing in the section. In fact our final was between two ATP pro's one who was ranked in the top 200 and the other who was ranked in the top 350. I still find it a good experience and you never know, someone could have an off day and you can always maybe pull of an upset.
 
Division1to100 said:
@navigator I had to withdraw due to injury, so I only played doubles. And we lost early on. I still went all three days to watch the best of the best compete. And I am surprised because I see a lot of good 5.0 and some college players on here. Many people play league and stuff. I would guess since any people are active in tournaments, they would jump at the chance to sign up for the U.S open sectional playoffs since its an opportunity to play people of a caliber you normally would never compete against.
Click to expand...

You're at a level that few of us here will ever achieve. As to the opportunity factor, I can play Open at any number of local tournaments and get double-bageled so I don't need to spend the time and energy doing it at a more prestigious [and expensive] event.

Sorry to hear about your injury.
 
@S&V-not_dead_yet Maybe I am new and haven't been along round enough, but I have run into a lot 13+ UTR posters and a lot of 4 and 5 star juniors here as well. I do just hang out on the college forums though. And thank you, it was a really fun tournament, I am going to be doing the ITA summer circuit as well, so that should be fun.
 
Division1to100 said:
@S&V-not_dead_yet Maybe I am new and haven't been along round enough, but I have run into a lot 13+ UTR posters and a lot of 4 and 5 star juniors here as well. I do just hang out on the college forums though. And thank you, it was a really fun tournament, I am going to be doing the ITA summer circuit as well, so that should be fun.
Click to expand...

That just proves it :): I didn't even know what "UTR" or "4 star junior" meant until your thread. I'm only familiar with NTRP and, as a middling 4.5, the best players I ever run into are the occasional Div I who is only there because he tagged along with a family member to hit a few [I have yet to venture out and play an Open tournament; fear of embarassing myself, dontcha know].

Methinks these other players you ran into were in the college section. :rolleyes:
 
Division1to100 said:
@S&V-not_dead_yet Okay that make sense. I am pretty new to this league scene, I have just started playing this year and the computer gave me a 5.5 for self rating if that means anything. But yeah that must be it.
Click to expand...

It explains a lot: I don't even know any 5.5s [unless I count you]. I do know that 4.5 tops out around the 97th percentile and 5.0 at maybe the 99th percentile. 5.5 is "only" [and I use that word with a wink and a nod] one level below professional [people who make $ winning tournaments as opposed to teaching]. Rarefied company indeed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

TonLars
US Open USTA sectional qualifying tournament 2010
2
Replies
69
Views
8K
burosky
burosky
Sup2Dresq
US Open to hold OPEN wildcard for first time !
Replies
31
Views
4K
sureshs
S
I
Questions about qualifying for futures tournaments‏‏
Replies
3
Views
2K
ilikepigs
I
beernutz
USTA Southern Sectional Results
Replies
0
Views
1K
beernutz
beernutz
A
Babolat Boulder Open & Intermountain Senior Section Championships
Replies
2
Views
1K
coloskier
C
Back
Top