Sekou Bangoura Sweeps Last Six Games To Set Up Friday Night Match-Up With Montsi at Mardy Fish Tennis at The Boulevard
Sekou Bangoura, a 30-year-old pro tennis veteran, rallied from 0-3 down in the third set to sweep the final six games of the match from 16-year-old Cooper Williams to advance into Friday night’s 6 pm feature quarterfinal match at the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships at The Boulevard.
Bangoura’s 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-3 win over Williams advances him into the quarterfinals to face Kholo Montsi, the diminutive but powerful South African who defeated American Mwenwa Mbithi, who was forced to retire with a groin injury after losing the first set 6-2.
Bangoura’s brief post-match interview with Randy Walker on the cold and blustery night can be found here: https://youtu.be/FdVY9L9aPgA
John McNally, the older brother of WTA star Caty McNally, beat Texas A&M’s No. 1 player Noah Schachter 6-1, 6-3 in the noon opener on Stadium Thursday and will face former University of Georgia standout Emil Reinberg again at noon on Friday in the quarterfinals. Reinberg defeated 2015 NCAA singles champion Ryan Shane 6-3, 6-2 and also took the time to answer questions after the match with young students in Miss B’s Learning Bees, one of the programs that receives funding from the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation. Ethan Quinn, who is red-shirting this season this year at the University of Georgia, advanced into the quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Luxembourg Davis Cupper Alex Knaff 6-3, 6-2. Quinn’s first day of college on the Athens, Georgia campus was the night the Bulldogs won the national football championship.
The University of Kentucky is also represented with two players in the quarterfinals as No. 1 seed Liam Draxl advanced with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over former Texas A&M standout A.J. Catanzariti and Millen Hurrion defeated Nathan Ponwith 7-5, 6-3. Draxl and Hurrion are also in the semifinals of the doubles competition.
Crowd favorites Quinn and Nick Godsick, the son of Mary Joe Fernandez and Tony Godsick, were defeated in the doubles quarterfinals to Nishesh Basavareddy of Carmel, Ind., and Venezuela’s Ricardo Rodriguez 6-3, 6-2. The win came on a special day for Rodriguez, his 29th birthday!
Read Harvey Fialkov’s TCPalm story on John McNally and Cooper Williams here: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/sports/2022/04/28/tennis-john-mcnally-making-most-decision-turn-pro/9575610002/
The Friday schedule of play can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/OP.pdf
The updated singles draw can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/MDS.pdf
The updated doubles draw can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/MDD.pdf
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