Career-highs for Etcheverry and Mendes in Naples
Tomas Etcheverry and Seone Mendez, respectively the men’s and women’s singles titles winners at the combined $25,000 event in Naples, Florida, were already celebrating reaching career-high rankings: Mendez at WTA 338 and Etcheverry at ATP 382. These title wins may lead to new career-highs when the points are added next week.
Etcheverry was also one of four players who managed to win both the singles and doubles events in week 47, with Taylor Ng doing the double at W15 Cancun, Carole Monnet at W15 Monastir, and Duje Ajdukovic at M15 Antalya.
Ng was celebrating a maiden professional singles title win in Cancun with her victory coming a day after partnering Julia Konishi Camargo Silva to a first doubles title. Brazil’s Mateus Alves won his first singles title, also in Cancun, where he dropped just one set all week (in the final) before recovering to win 2-6 6-1 6-4 against American Nick Chappell.
Halfway around the world, Mick Veldheer and Darya Astakhova, competing in Heraklion, Greece, also became first time champions at the same tournament. Veldheer, currently with ATP singles and doubles career high rankings of 563 and 867 respectively, was contesting only the second singles final of his pro career having also reached the final in Oslo back in March and it took two tiebreakers against the top seed Bogdan Bobrov, won 3 and 4, to bring him a first title.
Astakhova also endured a tough time in her final showdown with Arina Vasilescu as she came from behind to post a 4-6 6-4 6-3 win and end a run of four career final losses, three of which were in Heraklion, including a week earlier.
Two other first time winner’s trophies came for Chihiro Muramatsu in India and Arnaud Bovy in Tunisia. With his win, Bovy joined Alves as one of seven teenage champions at the weekend.
Teenage singles champions
Player Name | Age | Title won |
Alexey Zakharov | 19 | M15 Sharm El Sheikh |
Arnaud Bovy | 19 | M15 Monastir |
Duje Ajdukovic | 18 | M15 Antalya |
Mateus Alves | 18 | M15 Cancun |
Hailey Baptiste | 18 | W25 Tucson |
Carole Monnet | 17 | W15 Monastir |
Darya Astakhova | 17 | W15 Heraklion |
Finally, fresh from their win at the W15 Solarino tournament last week, the Morderger sisters added another title in Solarino on Saturday, this time in the W25 category and will be looking to make it a hattrick of titles on the Italian island of Sicily when they take to the courts this week.