Fresno Excellence 16's '09-
Hi everyone, just got back from Fresno Excellence a few days ago with a pretty long face. I went into the tournament playing pretty good, and beat Adam Duong in three sets. But went on to lose to Michael Guzman once again, 6-4, 6-2. Then went into the back draw and beat Maksym Tsvetkov 6-2, 6-0. But then came back next weekend and lost to Nicholas Hu 4 and 1. Not so fun of a tournament, but i'll come back next time and do better...hopefully. I'll keep in touch. National Opens in Lakewood this weekend, and I will be carrying my lovely Macbook around to start updating. Bye for now.
~Austin~
Copper Bowl 09'-
Hey guys, this is my first blog in a pretty long time, but I just wanted to inform you that I did very well for my last 14's tournament. I smashed through the first few rounds into the quarterfinals only to meet up with the biggest loser on the face of the planet. Belaji Jothishankar is his name, and he attends the Bolletieri Academy down in Tampa, Florida. I fought the first set and won it pretty easily and the second set didn't turn out so fine. I lost the second set 6-0 when my foot started to get pretty sore. By now, I knew this guy was a total jerk when I was walking back to the baseline to serve, talking to myself. He yells at me demanding, "What did you say?!?!", so I turn around saying back to him, "Um I was just talking to myself." Then he glares at me and says in a nasty tone, "Yeah that's what I thought you said". So then, in the third set, he started cheating like crazy so I went to get a referee, who you will find out to be not-so-smart. So the ref routinely gives us the speech about how to make the calls fair and he will only overrule any balls that are clearly in from his view and we start play again. The second game I was serving, I was about to call the score when my opponent calls it in a very high pitched tone trying to get the ref to think he was a good sport. I kind of roll my eyes at this guys' stupidity and continue the point. The thing about this jerk opponent was that he was two-faced and was acting like he was a gentleman, even though he was far from it, just to get the referee on his side. This bugged the crud out of me because both me AND the crowd knew the guy was really a jerk, yet, the ref didn't know and he was the only one who could do anything about the match. Anyways, in the end, I lost the match in the third set 7-6 after he silently whispered to my mom that he was going to hit the ball as hard as he could at my face. Nice kid huh? Well, after that I went into the consolation, toughed out the first match until the semifinals where I lost a great match to Aidan Talcott in three sets. My doubles partner, Gage Brymer, and I wrapped up the tournament perfectly with straight wins until we met the Johnson brothers in the finals (Yates and Hunter Johnson). We crushed them out of the match with a final score of 9-8 in a tiebreak ending at 10-2. Overall, I had a fantastic time at the Copper Bowl with my buddy Gage and hope to see him soon!
~Austin
Hello everyone, I just came back from Palm Springs with bad news... I lost first round to the seventh seed, Daniel Fairman 6-4, 7-6. But I was down 5-1 in the second set and came back to be up 6-5! Then I choked like I did in Courtside and just couldn't win it. I lost 7-5 in the tiebreaker and went straight into the consolation :(. But even worse, I had to pull out because of my knee injury from Nike. I came down with Steve and Brandon Sutter, so if Brandon lost, then I would be going home. He did extremely well and made it to the quarters in 14's and then lost to Mackenzie McDonald 7-6, 6-3. Our flight was that day and we just missed it as we were FLYING down the freeway. We caught the 8:10 flight home and, most importantly, I enjoyed getting woken up the following morning at 7:00! Ugh. Well, I'll just have to go back to John and practice some more. The Swanston Challenger is going on at Sutter Lawn right now in East Sac. So come on by and check it out!
-Austin
Okay then! That was probably one of my worst tournaments I've ever lost in! Well, I went and lost to Michael Guzman 7-5, 6-3 when I was UP 5-1 IN THE FIRST SET!! I let my anger get to me and I totally lost it. I guess it's just another learning experience where I need to practice keeping in the moment and finishing the match. I'm off to Wilson and will get back to you all later.
-Austin
Hey everybody, so currently I'm playing Courtside Championship 16's in Los Gatos. In my first round, I beat Brian Aria 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. He played well, but I out toughed him. My second round I beat Sumant Sabada 6-3, 6-2, but apparently we missed a game and I accidentally got a break making it only 5-2 teehee. Third round, I drew the fifth seed, Jimmy Manning. Basically, it was the battle of the giants because he was almost as tall as me and we both had fast serves. Very fun match to play, and I ended up winning 7-6(3), 6-3. So now I'm in the round of 16 and I'm playing next weekend against Michael Guzman.
After I play that, I'll be right back to tell you all how I did.
Until then,
Austin
NIKE JUNIOR TOUR, 2008
Hey everyone, so I just played the Nike Junior Tour at Stanford and it was GREAT. Normally, I wasn't supposed to even play because I didn't win Sectionals, therefore I didn't qualify to play in Stanford. But the boy's 14 player in Florida dropped out because he was ill and the director, Phil Cello, just happened to see my name standing for second place in Sectionals. So he calls me up the day before the tournament and asks if I want to fill in the boys 14 spot for Florida! My mom, grandma, and I left the very next day and met my team, warmed up, and settled in for the tournament the following day. The boys 12's winner on our team was quite a rambunctious little guy haha. I nick named him the "Engergizer Bunny". Well, I lost my first round to a kid from North Carolina, then won my next three matches and received freakin 9th place, ugh. But it was so much fun and it's too bad I live so far away from my teamates because they are such good tennis players and great people. I'll just have to go play 16's next year and hopefully see them there :).
-Austin
Hey there, just got back from sectionals this year in Santa Cruz. Well, I did CONSIDERABLY better than last year because I was the number one seed AND I made it to the finals with an injured back only to lose 7-5, 6-7, 3-6 to James Tenbroeck. It was a great match overall, but I couldn't quite tough it out enough to win with my back injured. In the tournament, I beat my first round opponent 6-1, 6-0, then beat my second round opponent 6-4, 0-6, 7-5, third round was 6-3, 6-4, fourth round against Mackenzie McDonald 6-4, 6-0, and then the finals. Great tournament overall.
Talk to you all later,
Austin
Claremont Nationals, 2008:
Hey everyone! Wow, it's been a tough few months! Sorry I haven't been updating the site for a while, I've been so busy with tennis and school. This last tournament down in Southern California didn't go as well as I thought it would go. I won my first match 7-6, 6-3 pretty easily once I got my feet going. Then, my second match against the fourth seed didn't go as well as the previous one. I started out the match very smoothly and I won the first set 6-0, then was up 5-4 in the second set, and I shut down. I had two match points where I just couldn't get the ball to go where I wanted it to go! I was missing easy shots, wasn't moving my feet at all, and I had a mopey attitude. I ended up losing the second set, followed by the third 6-7, 6-7. It was disappointing for me because I knew I could do it and I didn't. But I walked off the court with the thought of "Since I can't win the main draw, I'm just going to go and win the consolation." BUT, I went out the next day and lost my match 6-3, 5-7, 3-6. It was extremely frustrating because I've always beat this kid, and I wasn't mentally prepared for the match at all. I was sore from the previous match and I thought it was going to be a cinch because I know I could beat him. All in all, it was a very disappointing tournament in singles AND doubles. I drove down to the tournament with my doubles partner, Brandon. We played our first match against two kids we probably could've easily beat, but ended up losing 8-4. After the loss, we got rid of the bubbling frustration in us by having fun at the pizza party and arcade. It was my birthday that day, so we had a blast at the arcade center. I played one of those "Wheel of Fortune" games where you have to stop the spinning light on the green one to get jackpot. Well, I just happened to get extremely lucky and actually hit the jackpot light!! It took about fifteen minutes for all of the tickets to print out while Brandon was gaping at how I won it. I must've won because it was my special day, and I went and spent the tickets on two FBI hats (one for Brandon and one for me), a huge pixie stick, and this Wonka candy toothpaste. We then went back to the hotel and crashed out. We had to wake up really early for our eight hour drive back to Northern California so we attempted to get SOME sleep, but ended up going to bed at like 9:45. Then, lucky us, a semi-truck outside the hotel had its engine roaring at FIVE IN THE MORNING. We managed to sleep through it until seven, when Brandon woke up and kind of yelled, therefore waking me up. After that, it was the long journey home passing through the middle of no-where and cow manure. Overall, it wasn't the best tournament for me or for Brandon, maybe next year will be better and perhaps a little more serious. Keep visiting the site because Easter Bowl and Johnson Ranch Excellence is coming up and I'll keep updating after the tournaments!
Hey guys, I just won my first championship in the 14s!! OH YEAH!! :) Actually, I only won because the tournament was delayed last weekend so we had to flip a coin to determine who won the tournament....Apparently, I was the lucky one! And I made a deal with my mom that, if I could keep a good behavior during the whole tournament, I could get my ear pierced. So now my ear has a shiny diamond stud in it and I have one more trophy than I did before, which makes....1....2....3............4..........5........40! But everyone who got to the semi finals got the same amount of points as everybody else. So I'm off to the Wilson tournament in Palm Springs to win some rounds, so I'll update you after I'm done! Seeya
-Austin
June 18-24
Hey guys! I just had a great tournament in Aptos. I did very well in my first three rounds in the main draw, winning my first match 6-2, 6-2, my second match 6-1, 6-1. But then losing a VERY good match against the 9th seed, 4-6, 1-6. The score didn't really show how I played in the match though. Then, in the back draw, I won three matches. First- 6-1, 6-4, Second- 6-3, 6-4, Third- 6-4, 6-1. Unfortunately, I lost to Justin Chan in the Quarterfinals referring to a back injury. But all in all, I had a great tournament and bumped up from #59 in NorCal, to #30 in NorCal (I also got some national points, but not a lot). I will update you on how I do in the Reno Open next week!
West Coast Championships, 2007
Hey guys! Sorry for the late update, I've been really busy and my computer had a trojan virus. I had to completely restore my hard-drive. But I'm happy now that it is fixed! Anyways, I did 'okay' in West Coast. I won my first round, lost my second, won one in the consolation, and then lost. But the tournament wasn't at all organized. I would've been playing a kid from La Jolla first round at 5:00, but everybody got switched around in the draw. I ended up playing a pretty good kid first round at 2:30!! It was not cool at all. Then I had to play the sixth seed and lost 6-4, 6-0 :(. But, there's always next year in the fourteens! Well I'll update you on the Carmel Valley championship coming up when I get done!
Later!
-Austin
