• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tennis Verobeach

Mardy Fish Children's Foundation
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
  • USTA Vero Beach Futures
    • Event Info
    • Past Champions
    • Past Results
    • Yearly Recaps
    • Player History
  • Archive

Sekou Bangoura

Third Time A Charm For Bangoura, Rodriguez at 2022 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships

boyona · May 2, 2022 · Leave a Comment

The third time was a charm for both Sekou Bangoura and Ricardo Rodriguez Sunday in the singles and doubles final at the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships at The Boulevard.

Both veteran professional tennis players were competing in their third career finals in this elite USTA Pro Circuit ITF World Tennis Tour event but were without a victory here. All that changed for both players as Bangoura defeated rising young American Ethan Quinn 6-4, 6-3 to win the singles title and Rodriguez paired with another young American Nisesh Basavareddy to win the doubles title over the University of Kentucky pair of Liam Draxl and Millen Hurrion 6-4,6-3.

Bangoura previously lost in both the singles and doubles final in Vero Beach in 2019, falling to Dmitry Popko of Kazakhstan in singles and with Boris Arias, to Italians Lorenzo Frigerio and Adelchi Virgili in the doubles final. Rodriguez lost in two previous singles final in 2018 to Juan Benitez of Colombia and in 2021 to Jerry Shang of China.

Bangoura is a former standout from the University of Florida who calls Bradenton home and is ranked No. 572 in the ATP rankings, having been ranked as high as No. 213 in 2016. At age 30, he is the oldest player in the field and defeated four teenagers and a 20-year-old to win the title. He also escaped from a 0-3 third-set deficit to 16-year-old Cooper Williams in the second round.

Quinn, a wild card entry into the tournament by the U.S. Tennis Association, will move within the top 900 in the ATP rankings that will allow him now direct entry into $15,000. He is a freshman at the University of Georgia but currently red-shirting.

Rodriguez and Basavareddy did not even know each other before the start of the tournament but after Rodriguez signed into doubles without a partner, co-tournament director Randy Walker introduced him to Basavareddy, who also did not have a partner. Then, when Rodriguez and Basavareddy were the first team who did not qualify to get into the doubles draw, the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation awarded their remaining wild card entry into the tournament. They are the first wild cards to win a doubles title in Vero Beach.

Read more of the singles final from respected tennis writer Harvey Fialkov in TCPalm here: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/sports/2022/05/01/mardy-fish-foundation-tennis-tournament/9587228002/

To watch the post-match awards ceremony for the singles final, click here: https://youtu.be/zyOrH64bQrY

To watch the post-match awards ceremony for the doubles final, click here https://youtu.be/iR4ya55sJbc

Ethan Quinn and Sekou Bangoura
Ethan Quinn and Sekou Bangoura

Features, Vero Beach Champions Boulevard, Mardy Fish, Ricardo Rodriguez, Sekou Bangoura, Tennis

Sekou Bangoura Sweeps Last Six Games To Set Up Friday Night Match-Up With Montsi at Mardy Fish Tennis at The Boulevard

Randy Walker · April 29, 2022 · Leave a Comment

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

Sekou Bangoura and Cooper Williams before their second match at the Mardy Fish Futures
Sekou Bangoura and Cooper Williams before their second match at the Mardy Fish Futures

Features Cooper Williams, Mardy Fish, Sekou Bangoura, Vero Beach

Popko, Italian Duo Frigerio and Virgili Crowned Vero Beach Champions For 2019

manfr3dw · May 6, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Despite some afternoon rain showers delaying play for five of the seven days of play, the 2019 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships concluded on time early Sunday evening after Italians Lorenzo Frigerio and Adelchi Virgili won the doubles title, defeating top-seeds Boris Arias of the Bolivian Davis Cup team and Sekou Bangoura of Bradenton, Fla., 6-4, 6-3 in the final.

Earlier Sunday, Dmitry Popko of Kazakhstan was crowned the singles champion of this 25-year annual Vero Beach tennis tradition, a $25,000 event on the ITF World Tennis Tour, defeating Bangoura 6-1, 7-6 (1) in the singles final. Popko, the No. 8 seed and a member of Kazakhstan’s Davis Cup team, was dominant this week in Vero Beach, putting on a dazzling display of shot-making for the scores of enthusiastic spectators and volunteers and won his seventh ITF event this year, a $3,600 payday, and more significantly, three ATP ranking points.

“This one means a lot because it’s a $25,000 event and also gave me three ATP points and put me in the Top 10 of the ITF rankings,’’ said Popko, 22, ranked 12th before the tournament and just 608th in the ATP, down from a career-high of 178 in 2017. “Now I can play Challenger level tournaments and hopefully I’m going to earn as many ATP points as I can and then see where it’s going to bring me.’’

Popko cancelled his plans to play in next week’s Pensacola ITF stop because he has been accepted into a more prestigious ATP Challenger tournament in Shymkent, located in his adopted Kazakhstan. He sped to the airport to fly half way around the world immediately following the singles final Sunday.
This year Popko has won three ITF tournaments in Turkey and four in Florida, including Naples, Sunrise, Orange Park and Vero Beach. He has won his last three ITF tournaments while winning 15 consecutive matches and 31 of his last 33.

“I’m hungrier now and enjoying the wins,’’ Popko said.

Just as hungry was his opponent, as Bangoura got to No. 213 in 2016, but has since dropped to 400. His ITF ranking of 30th will surely improve after his second final of the year, along with a title in Naples. He was forced to play twice on Sunday because his semifinal against Diego Hidalgo of Ecuador was stopped on Saturday with Bangoura trailing 7-5, 5-3.

Early Sunday morning, Bangoura staved off a match point before capping off his comeback victory, 5-7, 7-6 (5), 6-1. A few hours later, he was getting hammered by Popko’s titanic forehands and pinpoint two-hand backhand, quickly dropping the first set 6-1.

Bangoura, 27, an accomplished chess player, used his analytical skills on a different squared surface, and began attacking the net, pressuring Popko to come up with the passing shot. Suddenly, the match flip-flopped and Bangoura jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the second set.

“He started to come in more and kind of broke my rhythm,’’ said Popko, who was only truly tested this week in his second-round, three-set victory over young Colombian, Nicolas Mejia. “He adjusted it by himself and made me uncomfortable. I was down 2-5 and had to fight back. I picked up my level and that’s how I went up 6-5.’’

However, Bangoura, again living on the edge, saved two match points and broke Popko’s serve to force a tiebreaker. It was there Bangoura ran out of fuel as Popko, perhaps buoyed by his 45-6 match record this year, reeled off six consecutive points in the tiebreaker before finishing off his fleet-footed opponent with a wicked crosscourt forehand passing shot. Checkmate.

“The tiebreaker was a game of nerves and I think I played better because it had a 1-0 [set lead],’’ Popko said.

Perhaps the most illustrious player to have won this event was Great Britain’s Kyle Edmund, who was ranked No. 513 in 2013 when he took the title. Last year Edmund reached the semifinals of the Australian Open and was ranked a career-high No. 14. Why not Popko?

The USTA reports that ITF events such as the Mardy Fish ITF championships can bring in approximately $500,000 to the local economy and several thousand more for the foundation’s charities, which are geared to getting children involved in healthy activities.

“This tournament didn’t feel like an ITF, it felt like a much bigger tournament because of the great atmosphere,’’ Popko said. “More than 50 people came up to me after to congratulate me.’’

The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships is 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 the current U.S. Davis Cup captain. Fans can continue to follow news and developments on the tournament on Facebook and on Twitter at @VeroFutures. Future sponsorship and ticket information can be obtained by emailing Tom Fish at Tfish10s@aol.com or Randy Walker at RWalker@NewChapterMedia.com Approximately 3,000 fans annually attend the event, which is seen as one of the best-attended entry-level professional events in the world.

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 and most recently world No. 50 player and teen sensation Denis Shapovalov, who played in Vero Beach in 2016. Former Vero Beach competitors have combined to win 19 titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles at Grand Slam tournaments. Seven former Vero Beach players have gone on to play Davis Cup for the United States – Roddick, Fish, Taylor Dent, Jared Palmer, Donald Young, Ryan Harrison and Frances Tiafoe.

Founded in 2007, the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation (www.MardyFishChildrensFoundation.org and @MardyFishFound on Twitter) currently supports over 2,200 children in 15 elementary schools, six middle schools and two after school centers in Indian River County, Florida by funding after-school exercise, nutritional and enrichment programs in a safe environment to prepare them for healthy, productive and successful lives. The Foundation introduced the “Six Healthy Habits” in 2012 which are Get Sleep; Drink Water; Exercise Daily, Eat Healthy; Brush and Floss; Make Friends.

Tournament sponsors for 2019 include Presenting Sponsor PNC Bank, Grand Slam Sponsors Boston Barricade, George E. Warren Corporation and the Jake Owen Foundation, Cabana/Box Seat Sponsors John’s Island Real Estate, John Klein, Gene Simonsen, TeamChristopher.com, Dan Holman, Hadleigh Investments, Pene Chambers / Lynn Southerly, Lace and Bob Milligan / Mickey and Rob Stein, William Barhorst, CPA, Michael and Kathleen Pierce, The Pitcher Family, Shirley Becker, Scoreboard Sponsor Fit for Life / Syde Hurdus Foundation Backhand Sponsors Vero Beach Magazine, Rossway Swan, Nalzaro Music, Coastal Van Lines, Diamond Resorts International, Forehand Sponsors Karen and Steve Rubin, Mike and Meg Hickey / Premier Estate Properties, Shaklee / Suzie Sunkel, Indian River Animal Hospital – Charles B. Johnson, DVM, Marjorie Johnson, DVM, MS, DAVP, Serve Sponsors Cravings, Bistro Fourchette, Willem and Marion DeVogel, Foglia Custom Homes Topspin Sponsors Alex MacWilliam Real Estate, Eternal Water, Kit Fields Realtor, Patrick Williams / Tom Collins Insurance, Riverside Café, MinuteMan Press, Center Court Tennis Outfitters, Drop Shot Sponsors Treasure Coast Financial Planning, Inc., Peter and Judith Saidel, Deb Benjamin, Paul & Linda Delaney, Stewart Dunn, Susan Flannery (Aluma Tower), Tom Flannery (Malesardi, Quackenbush, Swift and Company LLC, Jim & Suzi Keegan, Don Moyle, Dee Patberg, Fran Smyrk (Treasure Coast Sotheby’s), Gary & Beth Williams, ABCO Garage Door Company, Inc., Barker Air Conditioning & Heating, Busy Bee Lawn & Garden Center, Coastal Comforts at the Village Shops, Colton, Williams & Reamy, CPAs, Complete Electric, Inc., Complete Restaurant Equipment, LLC, Glacier Clear Pool Service, Jack’s Complete Tree Service, Inc., Jimmy’s Tree Services, Ken’s Pool Service, ML Engineering, Inc., Nozzle Nolen, Inc., O’Haire, Quinn, Casalino, Chartered, Rich Look Lawn Care, Rick’s Custom Care, Statewide Condominium Insurance, Steve Supplee Construction LLC, Summit Construction of Vero Beach, LLC, Sunshine Furniture, White Glove Moving & Storage and Wilco Construction, Inc.

Vero Beach Champions Dmitry Popko, Mardy Fish, Sekou Bangoura, Vero Beach

Primary Sidebar

Connect with us

TwitterFacebook

TennisVeroBeach Follow

TennisVeroBeach
tennisverobeach TennisVeroBeach @tennisverobeach ·
1 Feb

Power outage in South Vero Beach on the island?!?

Reply on Twitter 1620934708728328194 Retweet on Twitter 1620934708728328194 Like on Twitter 1620934708728328194 Twitter 1620934708728328194
tennisverobeach TennisVeroBeach @tennisverobeach ·
30 Jan

Cooper Williams Winning Aussie Open Boys' Doubles Title Gives 2023 Mardy Fish Competitors Three Junior Boys' Doubles Majors https://tennisverobeach.com/index.php/2023/01/29/cooper-williams-winning-aussie-open-boys-doubles-title-gives-2023-mardy-fish-competitors-three-junior-boys-doubles-majors/ via @tennisverobeach

Reply on Twitter 1620090489453309955 Retweet on Twitter 1620090489453309955 Like on Twitter 1620090489453309955 Twitter 1620090489453309955
tennisverobeach TennisVeroBeach @tennisverobeach ·
30 Jan

Overhead view of the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club, site of the 2023 @VeroFutures

Reply on Twitter 1620090272645545984 Retweet on Twitter 1620090272645545984 Like on Twitter 1620090272645545984 Twitter 1620090272645545984
tennisverobeach TennisVeroBeach @tennisverobeach ·
28 Jan

Mardy Fish Wins At Lake Nona....In Pro Celebrity Golf! (Again!) https://tennisverobeach.com/index.php/2023/01/28/mardy-fish-wins-at-lake-nona-in-pro-celebrity-golf-again/ via @tennisverobeach

Reply on Twitter 1619480677153636352 Retweet on Twitter 1619480677153636352 Like on Twitter 1619480677153636352 1 Twitter 1619480677153636352
tennisverobeach TennisVeroBeach @tennisverobeach ·
28 Jan

76-Year-Old Competes At Vero Beach International Women's Pro Event At Grand Harbor https://tennisverobeach.com/index.php/2023/01/28/76-year-old-competes-at-vero-beach-international-womens-pro-event-at-grand-harbor/ via @tennisverobeach

Reply on Twitter 1619480026206081024 Retweet on Twitter 1619480026206081024 Like on Twitter 1619480026206081024 Twitter 1619480026206081024
Load More

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in