Vero Beach Locals Perez-Blanco, Hamza Fall In Close First-Round Doubles Match
Nico Godsick, the son of American tennis legend Mary Joe Fernandez and Roger Federer’s agent Tony Godsick, will see if he can knock off his second No. 1 seed in two days at the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships Wednesday night at 6 pm against top-seed Liam Draxl of Canada.
Godsick and doubles partner Ethan Quinn upset the No. 1 seeds Alejandro Franco of Colombia and Antonia March of Ecuador 7-6 (2), 2-6, 10-6 on Tuesday in the highly-entertaining first round match in doubles. He will go for the double sweep of the No. 1 seeds in the tournament against Draxl, the top player from the University of Kentucky who just on Sunday played in the Southeastern Conference team championship match in Athens, Georgia. Fernandez, the two-time Olympic gold medalist in doubles and a singles finalist at the French and Australian Opens, was in attendance at The Boulevard on Tuesday, along with her husband, also known as the co-creator of the Laver Cup team competition. Godsick was also the one-time agent for Mardy Fish during his pro career.
John McNally will start off the tennis “family affair” theme on Stadium Court at noon against a “lucky loser” who will replace Blu Baker, who withdrew with an arm injury after his doubles match Tuesday. McNally is the brother of Caty McNally, a doubles player on the WTA Tour who plays with Coco Gauff.
The full schedule of all 16 first round matches can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/OP.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
The singles draw can be found here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/MDS.pdf
The most anticipated match of the 2022 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships came on Tuesday night when approximately 500 fans came to support local teaching pros Chase Perez Blanco of the Quail Valley Club and Slim Hamza of The Moorings Club. The two received the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation automatic wild card for the winner and runner-up of the annual “King of the Hill” competition, benefitting Youth Guidance, won by Perez-Blanco. The dup faced Joshua Sheehy of Arlington, Texas and Jakub Wojcik of Delray Beach, Florida and had two set points at 6-4 in the first-set tiebreaker, but lost 7-6 (8-6) 6-4.
The post-match on-court interview with Sheehy and Wojcik can be found here https://youtu.be/f3VHGDcxbX8
The post-match on-court interviews with Hamza and Perez-Blanco can be found here: https://youtu.be/xkkR0Mv8r-k
Harvey Fialkov’s story from the early final-round qualifying matches from Tuesday can be found here:
