'She's got an incredible game': Brengle tips Montgomery to shine
Madison Brengle returned to the world’s Top 50 for the first time in over six years after winning back-to-back W60 titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour.
The 32-year-old American, who fell to eventual finalist Ons Jabeur in the first round at the US Open last month, has won all 10 of her matches since then.
A week after beating Yue Yuan in the final at W60 Berkley, Brengle overcame 18-year-old Robin Montgomery 4-6 6-4 6-2 in the W60 Templeton final to win her eighth W60 title and 17th ITF singles title overall.
“I’m really happy to get two titles,” Brengle said. “I’m a little tired but I think it’s well-deserved. I’m going to take a couple of days off, and then I’ll play the qualies of San Diego.”
Brengle had plenty of praise for former junior world No. 2 Montgomery, whose stock is very much on the rise.
“She’s got just an incredible game,” said Brengle. “She can come forward, she has a great serve, I feel like she’s just going to keep getting better and better.”
In a impressive junior career, Montgomery won the prestigious Orange Bowl junior championships in 2019 and claimed both the girls’ singles and doubles titles at the 2021 US Open. She was also a part of the American team that won the 2019 Junior Billie Jean King Cup (then known as Junior Fed Cup).
Though she slipped to a 1-3 win-loss record in ITF World Tennis Tour finals overall this weekend, Montgomery could celebrate another big milestone in her fledgling career after leaping 62 places to break into the world’s Top 300 for the first time on Monday.
That should be some consolation for the teenager, who delivered a low-key assessment of her performance despite coming through qualifying to reach her first W60 final.
“I thought I played OK,” said Montgomery. “There were times when I had a hard time choosing whether to come into the net or stay back. But overall, I thought it was a good match.”
Elsewhere, Julia Grabher continued her career-best season by ending Aliona Bolsova’s nine-match winning streak with a 6-3 7-6(3) victory in the final at W60 San Sebastian.
The 26-year-old Austrian’s triumph was her third at ITF W60 level, and her fourth singles title of the year following ITF wins at W25 Porto and W60 San Bartolome, and a WTA 125K victory in Bari.
Last week's W60 San Sebastian event was also notable as the stage on which teenage sensation Brenda Fruhvirtova finally lost a tennis match on the ITF World Tennis Tour.
The 15-year-old Czech saw her 27-match winning streak (which had taken in five consecutive titles) come to an end at the hands of Dutchwoman Eva Vedder.
Fruhvirtova sits joint-seventh, alongside Karolina Sprem, on the list for the longest winning streak in IITF women's singles competition.
Discover all last week’s winners on the ITF World Tennis Tour here