Area Youth Tennis Players Participate in Edwardsville Net-Generation Junior Tournament

EDWARDS

EDWARDSVILLE – Many local youth tennis players performed very well on Saturday in the Edwardsville Net-Generation Junior tournament, which was played at the Edwardsville Tennis Center.

Approximately 40 players from around the St. Louis area played in the various age groups, which was a United States Tennis Association Net-Generation sanctioned event, designed to introduce younger players to a competitive tournament.

“We had a great day today,” said tournament director and Edwardsville High tennis coach Dave Lipe. “We had about 40 participants, which is a good turnout for a tournament of this type, and a lot of great players from around Edwardsville, Alton and St. Louis. And it was also a Net-Generation tournament for kids who are just getting started in competitive tennis.”

Lipe felt the quality of the play was very good, and in some cases, players who were much younger did well in categories far above their age brackets.

“The quality of play was impressive,” Lipe said. “All the 10-year-old girls were very impressive, and we had an eight-year-old, Dia Kannan, who competed in the girls 12-and-under. Emma Herman was great in the senior girls, and two 12-year-old boys did well in the 14-and-under draw. The main thing was just giving kids a chance to play in a tournament.”

The entire format was a round-robin affair, and in the boys’ 12- and 14-year-old singles, in the first round of play, Taylor Frick of Glen Carbon won over Jamison Fortschneider of Godfrey 4-1, Parker Mayhew of Alton defeated Edwardsville’s Cullen Underwood 4-1, and Schaefer Bates of Edwardsville defeated Xavier Carter of Alton 3-2. In the second round, Mayhew won over Luke Boyd of Alton 5-0, Bates defeated Frick 4-1, and Carter defeated Underwood 4-1. The third round results were Fortschneider over Bates 5-0, Carter defeating Boyd 4-1 and it was Underwood over Beck 3-2.

In the fourth round of the draw, Mayhew defeated Carter 4-1, Underwood won over Fortschneider 4-1, and it was Frick over Boyd 3-2. The fifth round results were Underwood over Bates 5-0, Mayhew defeating Frick 4-1 and it was Fortschneider over Boyd 5-0.

The sixth round saw Frick over Carter 4-1, Boyd winning over Bates 4-1 and Mayhew defeating Fortschneider 5-0. In the seventh and final round, Underwood defeated Boyd 5-0, Fortschneider won over Carter 3-2 and Mayhew won over Bates 3-2.

In the girls’ 10-and-under singles round-robin, Kinley Glover of Benton defeated Riley Paris 6-0, then Paris came back to win over Emmaleigh Brown of Edwardsville 6-4, and Glover won over Brown 6-4. In the girls’ 12-and-under singles, in the first round, Lauren Huelsing of O’Fallon won over Natalie Beck of Edwardsville 4-1, while Madeline Beck, also of Edwardsville, won over Kannan, of Glen Carbon, 4-0. In the second round, it was Huelsing over Madeline Beck 4-1, and Kannan winning over Natalie Beck 4-1. In the third and final round, Kannan won over Huelsing 4-1, and Natalie Beck defeated Madeline Beck 4-3.

There were three divisions of the girls 16-18 singles, and in the blue division, in the first round, Maddy Jones of Glen Carbon defeated Regan Duchaine of Edwardsville 6-1, while Herman won over Leann Woodring of Jerseyville 7-0. In the second round, Duchaine won over Woodring 6-1, and Herman defeated Jones 7-0, and in the final round, Herman defeated Duchaine 5-2, and Woodring won over Jones 4-3.

In the red division’s first round, Isabel Saccone of St. Louis won over Alexis Williams 4-1, while Lindsey Ratliff of Wood River defeated Lily Ingram of Jerseyville 3-2. In the second round, Ratliff won over Emma Hahn of Jerseyville 5-0, and Ingram won over Saccone 4-1. In the third round, Ingram defeated Williams 5-0, and Saccone defeated Hahn, also 5-0, while in the fourth round, Saccone defeated Ratliff 3-2, and it was Hahn over Williams 3-2. In the fifth and final round, Hahn won over Ingram 5-0, and Ratliff defeated Williams 5-0.

In the white division, in the first round, Sabrina Ingram of Jerseyville defeated Arianna Williams of Edwardsville 7-0, while Izzy Sitki of Edwardsville won over Emily Cecil of Glen Carbon 7-0. In the second round, Cecil won over Ingram 5-2, and Sitki won over Winters 6-1, while in the final round Sitki defeated Ingram 5-2, and Cecil won over Winters 5-2.

The three division winners then played each other for the overall title, with Herman winning the title over Sitki.

Finally, in the boys 12- and 14-year-old doubles, in the first round, it was Carter and Mayhew over Bates and Underwood 6-4, the second round saw Carter and Mayhew defeating Boyd and Fortschneider 7-6 (7-3 in the tiebreak), and in the final round, Bates and Underwood won over Boyd and Fortschneider 6-0.Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.

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