Matthew Segura

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.

Matthew Segura celebrates his first ATP ranking point at the 2021 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships

Matthew Segura Advances Past Donald Young at Mardy Fish Futures

Randy Walker · October 22, 2021 · Leave a Comment

Vero Beach is Matthew Segura’s kinda town.

The great nephew of tennis Hall of Famer Pancho Segura advanced into the quarterfinals of the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships Thursday night at The Boulevard, defeating former U.S. Olympian and Davis Cupper Donald Young after leading 6-3, 4-0, with Young abandoning the match with a left hamstring injury.

The win puts Segura into the quarterfinals of an ITF World Tennis Tour event for the first time in his career. His first-round win over 16-year-old Cooper Williams earned Segura his first career ATP ranking point. Segura’s run this week marks another chapter in his run of success through the years in Vero Beach. He is a three-time winner of the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation annual “Wild Card” tournament at Sea Oaks, where the tournament awards a main draw wild card into this event. Segura lost in the first round of this event in 2018 and 2019 after winning the “wild card” event but last year when the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships was held as a Universal Tennis event (not awarding ATP ranking points) Segura was the singles runner-up. Since Segura won the 2020 wild card event but was unable to cash in on his “free entry” at the 2020 tournament (since any player can enter at Universal Tennis event and there is not cut-off), Mardy Fish Championships tournament directors Tom Fish and Randy Walker saved the wild card for Segura to be used for the 2021 event, where he would need help to get in the tournament since he had no ATP ranking.

“Each year was a learning experience for me,” said Segura in his post-match interview that you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fK9iGbD4QA&t=22s

His win over the top-seeded Young, the 32-year-old who reached the fourth of the U.S. Open twice, but now ranked No. 425, is his best win in his career to date.

“I just went out there and trusted my ability and my game,” said Segura after the win, that was highlighted by many wicked double-and-single-fisted winners from the baseline that had Young a bit shell-shocked.

Segura will next face former University of Illinois standout Ezekial Clark, the No. 7 seed from Tulsa Oklahoma, who defeated 17-year-old Michael Zheng of Montville, N.J. Thursday.

The match of the day on Thursday came when Ben Shelton, seeded No. 4 in Vero Beach this week, registered a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Blaise Bicknell of Jamaica. There seemed to be no love lost between the former teammates at the University of Florida. Despite winning an NCAA national team championship together under the guidance of Shelton‘s coach/father Bryan Shelton, Bicknell, who went 32-0 in singles last year for Florida, transferred to Tennessee. Both players loudly celebrated winning shots as if it were playing against a hated rival in a heated college tennis match.. The slugfest turned early in the third said when Bicknell called for the trainer to treat a thigh injury with a heavy wrap after losing his serve in the first game of the set. Shelton kept his composure against an injured for and closed out the match.

“It was definitely a good match,” said Shelton in his post-match press conference here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oonrh9t4osQ

“We played on the same court a lot together. It was a tough battle. I knew coming in it was going to be a battle. I’m glad I was able to make it through to the next round.”

Next up for the left-handed Shelton in the quarterfinals at Noon Friday will be fellow 19 year old, the sixth-seeded Liam Drexl of Canada, who eked out a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Loris Pourroy of France and Florida State University. The No. 477th-ranked Drexl attends the University of Kentucky, where he was last year’s top seed in the NCAA singles championship. Draxl and Shelton are also in the semifinals of doubles as a team.

Friday’s feature 6 pm night match will feature a rematch of the 2018 Mardy Fish final where Juan Benitez of Colombia defeated Ricardo Rodriguez of Venezuela. Benitez, who was given a wild card into the qualifying rounds of this tournament by Fish and Walker, defeated No. 5 seed Juan Galarza of Argentina 7-5, 6-4 while Rodriguez defeated Ben Kittay of Potomac, Md., 6-4, 6-4. Benitez and Rodriguez also played in the quarterfinals of last year’s Mardy Fish Universal Tennis event with Benitez registering a stirring comeback over Rodriquez 7-6 (5), 0-6, 7-6 (5) in three hours and 15 minutes that was actually 45 minutes longer than when they played in an epic final of this event in 2018, also won by Benitez 7-5, 2-6, 6-4. In that match Benitez trailed Rodriguez 5-1 in the final set and appeared resigned to defeat after losing 11 of the next 12 games after winning a first-set tiebreaker. Rodriguez, the all-time leading Davis Cup player for Venezuela, however, was not able to close out Benitez, despite serving for the match at 5-2 and 5-4 in the final set and holding a 4-1 lead in the final-set tiebreaker. Benitez also saved a match point at 3-5 in the final set, losing the point before with a whiffed overhead.

Watch Ricardo Rodriguez talk about his affection for Vero Beach here: https://youtu.be/PB7eu9NdNRg

The world’s leading junior player Juncheng Shang of China defeated William Bushamuka 6-4, 6-3 in an hour and 39 minutes to advance to the quarterfinals where he will face No. 8 seed Duarte Vale, who beat qualifier Diogo Marques 6-3, 6-3 in an all-Portuguese battle. Watch Walker interview Shang here:https://youtu.be/KYew7eOFtTI

Matthew Segura Once Again Wins Mardy Fish "Wild Card" Event At Sea Oaks

manfr3dw · March 2, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Matthew Segura of Apopka, Florida, the great nephew of Tennis Hall of Fame tennis legend Pancho Segura, defeated fellow 18-year-old American Perry Gregg of Chicago 7-6 (0), 6-4 in the final of the “Wild Card” tournament for the 2019 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships Friday at the Sea Oaks tennis club.
It marked the second straight year that Segura won this specially-created tournament where the winner is awarded a main draw wild card entry into the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships, Vero Beach’s $25,000 ITF World Tennis Tour professional tennis tournament that has been held since 1995. Segura will be among 32 players from around the world who will compete in the main draw of the event April 29 – May 5 at The Boulevard tennis club. Last year, Segura defeated Jack Vance of Henderson, Nevada 6-3, 6-4 in the championship match at Sea Oaks to earn a wild card into the 2018 event, where he lost in the first round to Nico Mejia of Colombia. One of the top junior players in the nation, Segura plays ambidextrously, hitting right-handed and left-handed and also using two-handed forehands and backhands just as his great uncle Pancho did during his Hall of Fame career.
En route to the title at Sea Oaks, Segura beat 39-year-old Brian Battistone in the round of 16 in what is believed to be the first ever pro tennis match played between two ambidextrous players. In the semifinals, he beat Jack Vance by the exact 6-3, 6-4 scoreline from their 2018 Sea Oaks final. In his two tournament appearances at Sea Oaks, Segura has won all nine matches in straight sets.
The full completed draw and schedule can be seen on TennisLink here:
https://tennislink.usta.com/Tournaments/TournamentHome/Tournament.aspx?T=235635#&&s=7Draws3 Thirty-two players from 11 states and three different countries were represented in the event. The event featured daily crowds of several hundred fans.
The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation will also host a qualifying wild card tournament – or a pre-qualifying event – and a main draw doubles wild card event at The Boulevard Tennis Club April 24-27. To enter and for more information, go here on the UTR website: https://www.myutr.com/events/3744 Entries for these events are open to anyone, but players must have an ITF Ipin number in order to play in the official qualifying or main draw events, if they win these two tournaments.
Proceeds from these events 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 newly-named U.S. Davis Cup captain.
Tournament tickets and sponsorships for the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships are now on sale and can be purchased at www.MardyFishChildrensFoundation.org Daily tickets cost $20 with daily “night” tickets purchased after 5 pm cost $10. Season tickets for all sessions cost $100. Admission for children 18 and under is free. Fans can follow news and developments on the tournament on Facebook and on Twitter at @VeroFutures. Detailed sponsorship information can be obtained by emailing Tom Fish at Ttfish10s@aol.com or Randy Walker at RWalker@NewChapterMedia.com
Founded in 2007, the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation (www.MardyFishFoundation.com and @MardyFishFound on Twitter) currently supports over 2,100 children in 15 elementary schools and six middle schools in Indian River County, Florida by providing 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.