Matthew Segura

Matthew Segura Wins Fourth Title at Mardy Fish Sea Oaks “Wild Card” Event

Randy Walker · February 25, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Matthew Segura, the great nephew of Hall of Famer Pancho Segura, is now four-for-four at Sea Oaks.

The 22-year-old from Apopka, Florida continued his winning ways at the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships “Wild Card” tournament at the Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club winning the title for the fourth time in four tries with a narrow 6-7(5), 7-5 (10-8) final-round win over Ryan Haviland of Greenville, S.C. Friday night in front of over 300 fans.

The win earns Segura a main draw “wild card” entry into the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships ITF World Tennis Tour U.S. Tennis Association Pro Circuit event April 24-30 at the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club at Timber Ridge.

Entering the final against Haviland, a 42-year-old former Stanford standout who also runs a tennis academy in Greenville, Segura had not even lost at Sea Oaks. However, Haviland ended that streak by winning the first set in a 7-5 tiebreaker. Haviland, who once had ATP rankings as high as No. 516 in singles and No. 307 in doubles before 11 surgeries sidetracked his career, quickly jumped to a 4-1 lead in the second set. Segura was able to fight back and win the second set 7-5. In the deciding 10-point match tiebreaker, Segura was able to take a 9-6 lead and held on to win 10-8.

Segura also won the event in 2018, 2019 and 2020. He did not play in the event in 2022 and the event was not held in 2021 due to the global pandemic.

Although Segura has an ATP ranking of No. 1,281, that can get him into the qualifying rounds at ITF World Tennis Tour events and some main draws, Segura entered the event at Sea Oaks as insurance and to look to guarantee that he will get a main draw start in Vero Beach.

To watch the post-match ceremony, including the presentation of the Paul Delaney Cup, click here https://youtu.be/8s4FePLNz3s

To watch Segura’s post-match comments, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z86U62UFi0&t=11s

To see the full draw from the event, go to the Universal Tennis website here: https://app.universaltennis.com/events/136050?d=2d99070e-5779-4e94-af9c-39e365c1ce65&t=3

Three-Time Champ Matthew Segura Returns To Mardy Fish Sea Oaks Wild Card Event

Randy Walker · February 20, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Matthew Segura, the great nephew of Hall of Famer Pancho Segura, leads the field of entries for the 2023 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Sea Oaks “Wild Card” Championships at the Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club Feb. 22-24.

Segura has competed and won this special event at Sea Oaks three previous times – in 2018, 2019 and 2020 – each time winning the event and earning a wild card entry into the $15,000 ITF World Tennis Tour USTA Pro Circuit event, the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships.

Segura is ranked No. 1,281 on the ATP Tour rankings this week, but still has trouble getting direct entries into the main draw of $15,000 events with that ranking. At the 2021 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships at The Boulevard, Segura upset former U.S. Davis Cupper and Olympic team member Donald Young en route to the quarterfinals of the event. In 2020, when the Mardy Fish tournament was a non-ATP or ITF sanctioned Universal Tennis (UTR) event, he reached the singles final falling to Diego Hidalgo of Ecuador.

The 2023 wild card event at Sea Oaks featured a record 29 entries. Azariah Rusher of Delray Beach, Florida and a commit to Florida State University’s tennis team, is the No. 2 seed. The No. 3 seed is former Stanford University standout Ryan Haviland, who won the modern-day Mardy Fish doubles event in 2003. At 42 years old, Haviland runs a tennis academy in Greenville, South Carolina but still dabbles in playing competitive tennis. Vero Beach high school standout Mason Cisco as well as Sea Oaks teaching pros Ching Wang and Christian Docter are also in the field.

Play starts Tuesday at 4 pm at Sea Oaks with play also starting on Wednesday at 11:30 and including the traditional Sea Oaks Wednesday feature match at 4:30. The quarterfinals will be held on Thursday at 1 pm. The semifinals will be held at 10 am on Friday and the final at 4 pm on Friday.

The winner will receive a main draw wild card into the Mardy Fish Futures and the runner-up will receive a qualifying round wild card. The main event will be held April 24-30 at the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club at Timber Ridge.

The full draws and schedule can be round here:

https://app.universaltennis.com/events/136050?d=2d99070e-5779-4e94-af9c-39e365c1ce65&t=3

Matthew Segura, the great nephew of Hall of Fame tennis legend Pancho Segura, played Perry Gregg, at Sea Oaks Beach and Tennis Club in Vero Beach. They were among a group of 32 aspiring players from around the world in the singles field of this tournament that will award a main draw singles “wild card” (tournament entry) into the 2019 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships, the $25,000 ITF World Tennis Tour event.

Sea Oaks To Host Mardy Fish “Wild Card” Event February 22-24

Randy Walker · January 15, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club will continue to be the traditional host of the “Wild Card” tournament for the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships when the beautiful coastal tennis community hosts the 2023 event for a fifth time Wednesday, February 22 through Friday, February 24

The winner of the three-day tournament will receive a main draw “wild card” (or free entry) into the 2023 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships, set to be played April 24-30 at the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club at Timber Ridge. The runner-up will receive a “wild card” into the qualifying rounds of the tournament.

The event features up-and-coming competitive junior players, players just starting their professional tennis career and aspiring amateur players. The tournament is staged on the Universal Tennis platform (UTR). Players can sign up here: https://app.universaltennis.com/events/136050?_ref=randyw456&shared=true

The tournament has been staged at Sea Oaks since 2018, but was not held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Matthew Segura of Apopka, Florida, the great nephew of International Tennis Hall of Fame member Pancho Segura, won the tournament for the first three years that it was staged at Sea Oaks in 2018, 2019 and 2020. In 2022, Jibril Nettles from Detroit beat Cal Markowitz in the final to win the event.

Beginning in 2022, the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation commissioned a small cup for the tournament, named in honor of former Sea Oaks member and Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation board member Paul Delaney. “The Paul Delaney Cup” has the inscriptions of all of the winners of the Mardy Fish Sea Oaks wild card tournament and will remain in the tennis pro shop at Sea Oaks.

To watch a review video of the 2022 event, including the presentation of the Paul Delaney Cup by Linda Delaney, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPrjyMuKvl8

Atmosphere at Sea Oaks during the Mardy Fish “Wild Card” tournament

Perez-Blanco and Hamza Ready For Tuesday Night Mardy Fish Clash, Mendoza Nearly Pulls Big Upset In ITF Tour Debut

Randy Walker · April 26, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Most of the players in this week’s annual Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships at The Boulevard Village and Tennis Club are still chasing their dream to be among the sport’s elite.

There’s Sekou Bangoura of Bradenton, Florida, 30, who has notched wins over the likes of No. 17-ranked Reilly Opelka, No. 16-ranked Denis Shapovalov and No. 35-ranked Tommy Paul in their formative years. Or Ryan Shane of Falls Church, Va., who won the 2015 NCAA singles title for the University of Virginia. Or 28-year-old Ricardo Rodriguez, the all-time winning Davis Cup player from Venezuela and a finalist in Vero Beach in 2018 and 2021.

Then there are a couple of local teaching tennis pros like Chase Perez-Blanco and Slim Hamza, who gave up their dreams of playing on the ATP Tour after solid college careers at University of Florida and University of Utah (and University of Las Vegas), respectively. But they are quite content teaching juniors and adults in Vero Beach.

However, the two will get their chance against a field of ATP-ranked professional players when they compete in the main draw of the doubles competition of this $15,000 ITF World Tennis Tour event that is part of the U.S. Tennis Association Pro Circuit. Perez-Blanco, a teaching pro at Vero Beach’s Quail Valley Club, and Hamza, who works at The Moorings Club, will play their first-round match in the featured evening match on Tuesday not before 6 pm. The two earned their position in the doubles tournament by finishing first and second, respectively, via Vero Beach’s annual “King of the Hill” competition, featuring local tennis talent.

“We’re obviously excited to play,’’ said the 26-year-old Perez-Blanco. “There’s not a lot of pressure on us to win the tournament or the match. We’re just excited to go out and play competitive tennis, which we don’t do very often anymore. It’ll be fun for the tennis community of Vero Beach. That’s why we love to do it, to see everyone out there cheering. It brings two different clubs together, The Moorings and Quail, all rooting for one team. We just hope we put on a good show.”

Perez-Blanco, a Miami native who had an outstanding high school and college career, with his highlight in Gainesville being part of the 2016 SEC championship Gators squad. He’s ranked sixth all-time in Gators history for most combined singles and doubles victories.

Perez-Blanco, who’s just 5-8 but has a, “scary forehand,’’ according to Hamza, has won the “King of the Hill” tournament the last three years it was held. He only played the Fish event in 2019 when he and his brother-in-law Andrew Butz lost a third-set tiebreaker (10-8) to the ATP-ranked doubles team of Andrew Watson and Paul Oosterbaan. Perez-Blanco skipped the 2020 event because he had just got married to Christiana Butz and decided to, “party instead of training.”

“I played some Futures, but I knew once I graduated that would be the end of competitive tennis, and it would be time to move on to start a new chapter,’’ he said.

Hamza, 29, who played Davis Cup for Tunisia, was once ranked as high as No. 69 in the ITF World Junior rankings. However, serious knee and back injuries punctuated an outstanding college career (No. 34^th in singles, two-time PAC Player of the Week), and all but dashed his professional aspirations.

“That was the dream, but my body let me down,’’ said the 6-foot Hamza, who earned three ATP singles ranking points after winning three matches in three Futures events in Tunisia in 2010 and ’14. “It was very hard coming from a small country that doesn’t give much financial aid. …I left competition behind and am a tennis pro at The Moorings. My priority on Tuesday is to entertain the people.”

To prove Hamza’s point, the highest-ranked Tunisian in men’s tennis is Aziz Dougas at No. 418. However, Ons Jabeur is ranked 10^th in the WTA and is the first Arab to win a title (the pre-Wimbledon event in Birmingham, England last year) and first to reach the quarterfinals of any Grand Slam tournament. Also, in the pre-Open Era, Hall of Famer Nicola Pietrangeli, who played for Italy but was born in Tunisia, won 44 titles, including two French Opens (1959 and ’60).

“We have nothing to lose, just go out there, swing freely and if it goes our way we’ll take it,’’ Hamza smiled. “Then Roland Garros. Don’t get me dreaming!”

Segura Stars In Qualifying Win, Mendoza In Qualifying Loss

Many of the first round qualifying matches in singles Monday were one-sided, but one of the more exciting matches featured Vero Beach’s Sebastian Mendoza, who briefly threatened to pull off a major upset. Playing in his first ever match on the professional ITF World Tennis Tour, Mendoza, who was the No. 1 player on Vero Beach High School’s team in 2021, lost 6-1, 7-5 to No. 1214-ranked Joao Loureiro of Brazil, nearly extending the match to a match-deciding 10-point match tiebreaker, which is the format for qualifying round matches at this level of professional tennis. Mendoza, who is taking a year off before deciding on where to play college tennis, actually served for the second set at 5-4 against his much more accomplished opponent, before losing. However, the loss proved a valuable experience for Mendoza and his confidence, proving that he can compete against professional competition as he explained in this post-match video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeP9a-A9W_E

James Van Deinse, the co-owner of the Vero Beach Tennis Club and the boys’ coach at Vero Beach High School, was defeated by Hernando Escurra, a member of Paraguay’s Davis Cup team, 6-1, 6-1.

Matthew Segura, the three-time champion of the Mardy Fish “Wild Card” event at Sea Oaks, successfully won his first round qualifying match beating 15-year-old Meecah Bigun 6-3, 6-4

Blaise Bicknell, a member of Jamaica’s Davis Cup team, capped his 6-0, 6-0 win over Michael Defelice with an under-hand ace.

The match schedule for Tuesday can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/OP.pdf

The updated qualifying draw can be found here:

https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/QS.pdf

The main draw for doubles can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/MDD.pdf

The main draw for singles can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/MDS.pdf

The DRAW CEREMONY for singles can be found here: https://youtu.be/23Yrp9bOxpc

MONDAY AGATE SCORES – FIRST ROUND QUALIFYING

Blaise BICKNELL (JAM) [2] def. Michael DEFELICE (USA) 6-0 6-0

Alvaro GUILLENMEZA (ECU) [1] def. Jakub OSTAJEWSKI (USA) 6-1 6-2

Jakub WOJCIK (USA) [4] def. Tom DYNKA (CAN) 3-6 6-1 [10-4]

Drew VAN ORDERLAIN(USA) [16] def. Andy ZHU (CAN) 6-1 6-4

Noah SCHACHTER (USA) [6] def. Caleb STROTHER (USA) 6-1 6-0

Kaylan BIGUN(USA) def. Fabian HANSCH MAURITZSON (SWE) [12] 6-1 6-1

Stefan SIMEUNOVIC (CAN) [13] def. Rodrigo RAMOS CODES (ESP) 6-1 6-0

Hernando Jose ESCURRA ISNARDI (PAR) [15] def. James VAN DEINSE (USA) 6-1 6-1

Joao Victor Couto LOUREIRO (BRA) [5] def. Sebastian Mendoza (USA) 6-2 7-5

Joshua SHEEHY (USA) [7] def. Codrin MILLER (USA) 6-3 6-2

Jesse FLORES (CRC) [3] def. Rihirt SAUNDANKAR (USA) 6-0 6-0

Abraham ASABA (GHA) [14] def. Yuki IKEDA (JPN) 6-4 6-1

Kevin MAJOR (BAH) [10] def. Jake KRUG (USA) 6-3 6-3

Hillel ROUSSEAU (HAI) [11] def. Varun JAYARAM (USA) 6-3 6-1

MatthewSEGURA (USA) [8] def. Meecah BIGUN (USA) 6-3 6-4

Nikolay SYSOEV (RUS) [9] def. Luca- Julian HOTZE (USA) 7-6(6) 7-6(2)

Matthew Segura To Play 2022 Mardy Fish Tennis Monday Feature Night Match

Randy Walker · April 25, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Matthew Segura, the great nephew of Hall of Famer Pancho Segura, will play the feature night match on the opening day Monday of the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships ITF World Tennis Tour U.S. Tennis Association Pro Circuit event at The Boulevard.

Segura will face off against 15-year-old Meecah Bigun of Phoenix, Arizona not before 6 pm on the Stadium Court at The Boulevard.

Segura has built a strong following in Vero Beach after winning the Mardy Fish “Wild Card” event at the Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club for three years in a row from 2018, 2019 and 2020. Segura, known for his ambidextrous playing style, also reached the final of the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships in 2020 when it was held as a Universal Tennis (UTR) event. In 2021, Segura earned his first ATP ranking points in Vero Beach when he reached the quarterfinals, beating former U.S. Davis Cup and Olympic team member Donald Young en route.

Two Vero Beach local players, Juan Sebastian Mendoza and James van Deinse, were able to slide into the draw at the last minute via wild cards from the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation. Mendoza was the No. 1 player from Vero Beach High School’s boy’s tennis team in 2021 and is taking a year off before playing college tennis. Van Deinse is the owner and tennis pro at the Vero Beach Tennis Club and is the current tennis coach at Vero Beach High School. Mendoza will play second on the Grandstand Court on Monday (at approximately 1:30 pm) against Juan Victor Couto Lourierio of Brazil, ranked No. 1293 in the ATP rankings. Van Deinse will play the second match on Stadium (at approximately 1 pm) against Isnardi Escurra, a Davis Cup team member for Paraguay.

The third Stadium match for Monday will feature Jake Krug of Duke University, the grandson of famed ESPN College Basketball announcer Dick Vitale, playing Kevin Major, a Davis Cup player from The Bahamas.

The full schedule for Monday can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/OP.pdf

The qualifying singles draw can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/QS.pdf

Tuesday’s play will feature the final round of singles qualifying and the first round of doubles play. Main draw singles play will begin on Wednesday. The draws for main draw singles and doubles will be made Monday.