Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Cancer survivor Duval loses in Stockton Challenger

   Third-seeded Danielle Collins of St. Petersburg, Fla., beat qualifier Victoria Duval of Bradenton, Fla., 6-1, 7-6 (5) today in the first round of the $60,000 University of the Pacific Stockton (Calif.) Challenger at the Eve Zimmerman Tennis Center.
   Collins won the 2014 and 2016 NCAA singles titles while attending Virginia to become the seventh woman with multiple NCAA singles crowns.
   Duval, now 21, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014 and missed one year while undergoing chemotherapy.
   Collins, 23, is scheduled to play Xu Shilin, 19, of China on Thursday not before 10:30 a.m.
   In a battle of teenagers, Tessah Andrianjafitrimo of  France took out fifth-seeded Lizette Cabrera of Australia 1-6, 7-5, 6-2. After the first round, six of the eight seeds remain. No. 8 Jennifer Elie of New York lost to former top-50 player Anna Tatishvili, a 27-year-old U.S. citizen from the nation of Georgia, on Tuesday.
   Second-seeded Jamie Loeb, a product of the John McEnroe Tennis Academy in New York, outclassed An-Sophie Mestach of Belgium 6-3, 6-2.
   Shortly after Loeb won the 2015 NCAA singles championship as a North Carolina sophomore, she took the doubles title in the inaugural Stockton Challenger with previous Tar Heels star Sanaz Marand. Mestach reached the singles final, falling to Nao Hibino of Japan.
   Amanda Anisimova, a 15-year-old phenom from Hallandale Beach, Fla., demolished qualifier Ingrid Neel, 19, from Rochester, Minn., 6-0, 6-1 in 47 minutes.
   Both Anisimova, who will turn 16 on Aug. 31, and Neel made news in May. Anisimova became the youngest player to compete in the main draw of the French Open since Alize Cornet of France in 2005, losing to Kurumi Nara of Japan 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 in the opening round. Neel, then a freshman at Florida, won the clinching match in the Gators' 4-1 victory over Stanford in the NCAA final in Athens, Ga.
   Anisimova's victory was not the only 47-minute match of the day. Ajla Tomljanovic of Croatia overwhelmed Michaela Gordon, a 17-year-old qualifier from Saratoga in the San Francisco Bay Area, 6-1, 6-0. Gordon will enroll at Stanford in September.
   Tomljanovic, 5-foot-11 (1.80 meters), attained a career-high ranking of No. 47 in February 2015 and reached the quarterfinals of the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford that July. But she had shoulder surgery in February 2016 and missed 13 months.
   Francesca Di Lorenzo, 19, of New Albany, Ohio, defeated qualifier Allie Will, a former University of Florida star who teaches tennis in Fairfield (near San Francisco), 7-5, 6-3. Di Lorenzo won the NCAA doubles title in May as an Ohio State sophomore with Miho Kowase.
   Here are the Stockton singles and doubles draws and Thursday's schedule. Live streaming of the tournament is available.

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