Sixteen-year-old, six-foot-three sensation Ivan Yatsuk of Bradenton, Florida will face 19-year-old Joel Link of Germany Thursday at 6 pm in the final of the “wild card” tournament for the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships at The Boulevard tennis club in Vero Beach.
The winner of the Yatsuk – Link match will be awarded a “wild card” or free entry into the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, the $15,000 U.S. Tennis Association Pro Circuit “Future” event to be held April 21-30 at Grand Harbor Golf & Beach Club.
Admission is free to fans wanting to watch the singles final Thursday. The Boulevard bar and grill will be open and offering two for one cocktails.
Yatsuk, who was born in Belarus and who has lived in the United States since the age of three, has blitzed through his three matches this week with his bullet serve and groundstrokes that has had fans comparing him to a young Milos Raonic or John Isner. Yatsuk beat No. 2081-ranked Carlos Utermann of Mexico 6-2, 6-2 in Wednesday’s quarterfinals and top U.S. junior William Howells 6-1, 6-4 in the semifinals.
Link has been the No. 2 junior player in Germany behind junior rival Alexander Zverev, now ranked No. 20 in the world. The part-time resident of Sarasota defeated American Rigu George 6-1, 6-2 in Thursday’s quarterfinals and No. 1563-ranked Mauricio Resendiz Dominguez of Mexico 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals. Link has been a recent practice partner for Roger Federer and Bernard Tomic.
The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships is the USTA’s $15,000 Futures-level tournament played in Vero Beach since 1995 and regarded as one of the best entry-level professional tennis tournaments in the world. Proceeds from the event benefit the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, the non-profit tennis foundation benefiting children, named for Vero Beach native son Mardy Fish, the former top 10 tennis star and a U.S. Davis Cup standout.
Advance tickets – and sponsorships – for the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships are available at www.VeroBeachTennisTickets.com. Season tickets for all 10 days of the competition are available for $100. Daily by-one-get-one free tickets for the qualifying rounds April 21-24 are for sale for $10, with daily tickets for the main draw sessions April 25-30 for sale for $20. A special $10 “Happy Hour” ticket is available for $10 after 5 pm for night sessions on Tuesday, April 25 – Friday, April 28 that includes a featured 7 pm night match. Admission for children 18 and under is free. Approximately 3,000 fans annually attend the event, which is seen as one of the best-attended events in the world on the “Futures” level of professional tennis tournaments. The 2016 event featured 13 players who played Davis Cup for their country and was won by Jonas Luetjen of Germany, who defeated Latvian Davis Cupper Martins Podzus in the final.
Some of the past competitors at the USTA Vero Beach Futures have gone on to succeed at the highest levels of professional tennis, winning major singles and doubles titles, Olympic medals and Davis Cup championships and earning No. 1 world rankings. Andy Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open champion who attained the world No. 1 ranking and helped the United States win the Davis Cup in 2007, competed in Vero Beach in 1999. Thomas Johansson of Sweden, who reached the second round of the Vero Beach Futures in 1995, won the Australian Open seven years later in 2002. Nicolas Massu, the 1998 singles runner-up in Vero Beach, won the singles and doubles gold medals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, beating Fish in the gold medal singles match. Kyle Edmund, the 2013 champion in Vero Beach, helped Great Britain to the Davis Cup title in 2015. Other notable former competitors in Vero Beach include former world No. 2 Magnus Norman, former world No. 4 Tim Henman, 2016 Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic among others. Former Vero Beach competitors have combined to win 19 titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles at Grand Slam tournaments. Six former Vero Beach players have gone on to play Davis Cup for the United States – Roddick, Fish, Taylor Dent, Jared Palmer, Donald Young and Ryan Harrison.
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