Saturday, June 6, 2015

Semifinal Saturday: Winston Salem Futures

My third and final installment of the 2015 Winston-Salem futures series.




To be honest, I didn't plan on attending the semifinals but these came in the mail earlier than expected.


Pictured key chains of Rhyne Williams and Tennys Sandgren during their time at the University of Tennessee. "Sift" is one of their favorite hashtags. Originally, I planned to give them to the former teammates at the Charlottesville Challenger in November.  When I first followed Rhyne and Tennys, I was fascinated by their friendships and was/still am envied of it.  Hadn't seen anything quite like it.  They even had their own language.  (They lost in the doubles final yesterday, but it was nice to see them playing with each other like old times).

Moving on, Semifinal Saturday was the hottest day of the week (high in the 80s). Crowd was the smallest all week (majority of the players already left for their next tournament). First thing I noticed while pulling into the parking lot, 18 year old Ernesto Escobedo having a practice session with his coach (uncle I believe). It was great to see the young American putting in work and trying to improve his game (sorry, I didn't take picture).

Tournament Official Finding Shade Next To The Bushes

First Semifinal: (1) Matija Pecotic (CRO) d. Mico Santiago (USA) 6-3 6-1


Mico Santiago
Mico Santiago Serving
Matija Pecotic
Pecotic's Lefty Serve...Interesting Design On The Back Of His Shirt

Second Semifinal: (3) Tennys Sandgren (USA) d. Raymond Sarmiento (USA) 6-4 6-4

Coin Toss
Tennys Sandgren
Tennys Typically Changes Shirt Every Set As Long As I Can Remember
USC's Raymond Sarmiento
Coach Brian Baker Supporting Tennys
First Time Seeing These
Finding Shade Next To The Light Pole...It Was HOT!
So the first ever Wake Forest futures final will be contested between Matija Pecotic and Tennys Sandgren #GoTennys

In case you missed the first two posts of this series:
My First Futures Experience at $15K Winston-Salem
Thursday In Pictures: Winston-Salem Futures



2 comments:

  1. Hello, I'm Noel Alberto, the lead editor with the @VAVEL_USA tennis section. http://www.vavel.com/en-us/

    We're looking for more tennis writers, and with your knowledge on the sport, we would love to have you. We're a professional growing site which gets hundreds and thousands of views on our articles and will be paying our writers shortly. If you like more information about us, please e-mail me at noel_alberto61594@yahoo.com

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    1. Sorry for the late reply. Don't think I have the time for it and I'm not really a great writer, but thanks for the offer :)

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