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Mardy Fish Children's Foundation

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Vero Beach’s Grace Levelston Debuts On WTA Computer Rankings

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Vero Beach has a new home-grown world-ranked tennis player.

Gracie Levelston, the 16-year-old fixture in the Vero Beach tennis community, officially debuted on the WTA Tour world ranking computer on Monday, May 23 with a ranking of No. 1,426.

Levelston clinched her world ranking recently by virtue of reaching the second round of the USTA Pro Circuit ITF World Tennis Tour event in Sarasota, Florida where she advanced through qualifying into the main draw.

Levelston lost only five games in her two qualifying round matches to advance into the main draw, where she beat fellow American Tatum Evans 6-1, 6-4 in the first round, to clinch her first ranking points. In the second round, she lost to 18-year-old former Orange Bowl champion Ashlyn Krueger of Texas 6-3, 6-1. Krueger was playing her first match since she lost in a tight three-setter to former top 20 player Qiang Wang of China in the first round of the Miami Open on the WTA Tour.

Levelston recently competed this season for Vero Beach High School and has verbally committed to play for the University of Central Florida in the Fall of 2023. She was introduced to tennis as a young girl when she was given a flyer at school advertising after-school tennis introductory tennis programs offered by the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, the non-profit foundation started by Vero Beach’s most successful home-bred tennis player Mardy Fish, who reached the top 10 in the ATP rankings. The most successful woman player to come out of Vero Beach was Angela Lettiere, who won the NCAA singles title for the University of Georgia in 1994 and reached career high WTA rankings of No. 220 in singles and No. 40 in doubles.

Watch the video of Levelston at age 12 warming up Venezuelan Davis Cupper Ricardo Rodriguez before the 2018 singles final at the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships USTA Pro Circuit ITF World Tennis Tour event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyZKVoNexv4

Wild Card Georgia Bulldog Teenager Ethan Quinn To Face Former Florida Gator Sekou Begoura In Sunday Mardy Fish Singles Final At The Boulevard

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Eighteen-year-old Ethan Quinn of Fresno, Calif., and a redshirt freshman at the University of Georgia, will face 30-year-old former Florida Gator standout Sekou Bangoura of Bradenton, Fla., in Sunday’s not-before-2 pm singles final of the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships USTA Pro Circuit ITF World Tennis Tour.

Quinn, a wild-card entry into the event with an ATP ranking of No. 1085, defeated No. 2 seed and world No. 581 John McNally 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-3 in Saturday’s semifinals. Bangoura, a singles and doubles runner-up at this event in 2019, defeated top-seed Liam Draxl of Canada 6-2, 6-4 in the early semifinal.

Quinn served for the match at 5-4 in the second set but double-faulted when holding match point, only to have his serve broken. At 5-5 in the second-set tiebreaker, Quinn threw in another double fault, while McNally, the former Ohio State standout and older brother of WTA doubles star Caty McNally, took advantage of the nerves to force a third-set on the next point. Quinn, however, recalibrated for the third set and closed out the match with a rocket serve and his sling shot forehand.

Watch Quinn’s match point here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vtZi77uc4mU

Watch Quinn’s post-match interview with Randy Walker here: https://youtu.be/IvW3Fl1a4jg where he also discusses his camaraderie this week with doubles partner Nico Godsick and Godsick’s mom, Mary Joe Fernandez, the former two-time Olympic gold medalist as well as U.S. Fed Cup captain and U.S. Olympic tennis coach.

Play will start Sunday at 1 pm with the doubles final, featuring the wild card team of 29-year-old Ricardo Rodriguez of Venezuela and 16-year-old Nishesh Basavareddy of Carmel, Indiana facing the University of Kentucky duo of Draxl and Millen Hurrion of Great Britain.

The post-match on-court interview with Rodriguez and Basavareddy can be found here where Rodriguez talks about reaching his third career final in Vero Beach and his around-the-post shot in the semifinal, while Basavareddy talks about his mentorship from fellow Carmel, Indiana tennis player Rajeev Ram here: https://youtu.be/OuxnOxkWWrk

Read Harvey Fialkov’s story on Rodriguez and Basavareddy here: https://sports.yahoo.com/rodriguez-feels-home-veros-mardy-210019384.html

Nico Godsick, Ethan Quinn and Mary Joe Fernandez on Center Court at The Boulevard

Top Three Seeds and Unseeded American Teenager Reach Semifinals of Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships

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Eighteen-year American Ethan Quinn joined the top three tournament seeds in the semifinals of the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships a after rain-delayed and blustery Friday day of quarterfinal matches.

Top seed Liam Draxl of Canada defeated his doubles partner and University of Kentucky college teammate Millen Hurrion 6-2, 6-2 and will face former Saddlebrook Academy training partner Sekou Bangoura in Saturday’s semifinals. Bangoura, the No. 3 seed, defeated his third teenager in a row in his 6-2, 6-0 win over 19-year-old Kholo Montsi of South Africa Friday night.

John McNally, the No. 2 seed, advanced by beating Emil Reinberg of Atlanta, Georgia 6-3, 6-3.

Quinn, who is red-shirting his freshman year at the University of Georgia, defeated qualifier Jakub Wojcik of Delray Beach, Florida 7-5, 6-3.

Quinn has reached the semifinals of this second ITF World Tennis Tour USTA Pro Circuit event of the year after reaching the semifinals in the $25,000 event in Bakersfield, California earlier this year. He also reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open junior doubles event last summer alongside Nico Godsick, with whom he reached the quarterfinals of doubles with this week. Quinn is being tutored on-site this week by Godsick’s mother, two-time Olympic gold medalist Mary Joe Fernandez, who has also been the U.S. Fed Cup captain and Olympic women’s tennis coach.

Watch Quinn’s post-match on-court interview with Randy Walker here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tOzAUxqJNs

Less than a week ago, Draxl and Hurrion shared the heartbreak of losing the SEC championship match to the University of Florida, but this week in Vero Beach, Draxl, 20, showed no mercy to his 22-year-old buddy in a 6-2, 6-2 victory to advance to the semifinals. It marks the second straight year Draxl has reached the semifinals in Vero Beach. Draxl, ranked No. 360 by the ATP, was beaten by Ben Shelton in the SEC final last week in Athens, Georgia after beating Shelton in this tournament last year before losing a semifinal match to eventual champion Jerry Shang.

McNally, 23, a first-team All-Big 10 for four years running at Ohio State, made short work of Reinberg, a former University of Georgia standout, winning 6-3, 6-3. McNally, who won his lone pro ITF ($25,000) title on his OSU campus last year, fired eight aces while winning 85 percent of his first serves. He converted 5-of-10 break points. Ranked No. 581 by the ATP, McNally in the older brother of WTA doubles star Caty McNally.

Play begins at Noon on Saturday with doubles as you can see on the schedule here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/OP.pdf

Ethan Quinn and Jakub Wojcik
Ethan Quinn and Jakub Wojcik

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

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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

Cooper Williams, Andy Murray’s Florida Practice Partner, Earns First ATP Ranking Point In Vero Beach

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Cooper Williams, the 17-year-old New Yorker and a recent practice partner of Andy Murray in Orlando, will  face No. 3 seed Sekou Bangoura in Thursday’s 6 pm night match in the second round of the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships at The Boulevard.

Williams had a memorable Wednesday evening in Vero Beach, defeating Alejandro Franco of Ecuador 7-6 (1), 6-0 to earn his career ATP ranking point. To boot, there to watch the hallmark event was Vero Beach resident and tennis Hall of Famer Ivan Lendl, who now coaches Murray and oversaw the practice sessions with Williams in Orlando.

For Bangoura, his match with Williams will mark his second straight match against an teenage American after beating reigning Easter Bowl champion Alex Mickelsen 4-6 6-3 6-0 in Wednesday’s first round. Bangoura is a former standout at the University of Florida who competed in the main draw of doubles at the U.S. Open in 2010. Bangoura was a singles and doubles finalist at The Boulevard back in 2019.

While Williams was earning his first ATP point on the Grandstand court at The Boulevard with Lendl watching on, two other tennis legends, two-time Olympic gold medalist Mary Joe Fernandez and Roger Federer’s agent Tony Godsick were watching their 17-year-old son Nico play against top-seed Liam Draxl of Canada. Despite being up an early service break, Godsick was unable stage the upset, falling 6-4, 6-3.

Godsick, however, is still alive in doubles with partner Ethan Quinn and will play their doubles quarterfinal not before 3 pm Thursday. Quinn, who is undergoing a redshirt freshman year at the University of Georgia, plays Alex Knaff, a Davis Cup player from Luxembourg, in the second match on Grandstand Thursday. Ryan Shane, the 2015 NCAA singles champion for the University of Virginia, plays former University of Georgia player Emil Reinberg third on stadium Thursday.

Read Harvey Fialkov’s TCPalm story “Vero Beach pros make strong impression at Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships” here https://www.tcpalm.com/story/sports/2022/04/27/vero-beach-tennis-pros-make-strong-impression-mardy-fish-tourney/9559448002/

View Thursday’s schedule here: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/OP.pdf

View the updated singles draw here https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pro-circuit/20220425_vero_beach_m15/MDS.pdf

View the updated doubles draw here

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