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EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville Open tennis tournament presented by TheBANK of Edwardsville managed to play through a Saturday afternoon shower that forced some matches to be moved indoors and came to a successful conclusion Sunday afternoon at the Edwardsville High School tennis center.
The day’s big winners were Carson Haskins of Ballwin, Mo., who defeated Kristopher Ortega of Homer Glen, Ill., in the men’s singles final 6-2, 6-2, and Tamara Klimek, playing out of St. Louis but originally from Novi Sad, Serbia, who defeated Edwardsville’s Chloe Trimpe 6-0, 6-0 in the women’s singles final.
Haskins, a recent Parkway South graduate who will be heading to Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., in the fall, won a wild-card spot in August’s Edwardsville Futures tournament main draw, while Ortega, who plays at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, won a wild-card spot in the qualifying tournament for the Futures’ main draw prior to the Futures tournament.
A portion of Saturday’s play was affected by heavy midday rains Saturday that forced some of the day’s matches to be moved indoors to the Edwardsville YMCA. “It was very, very gracious of the Edwardsville YMCA and Angie Pence, their tennis director, to allow us to play a few matches there,” said tournament director Dave Lipe. “We were able to transition back to outside and it was a really tough, tough day weatherwise; the rain was fairly unpredictable and then later in the evening, it was highly likely and it did not rain at all.
“As a tournament director, it was a great challenge to plan, re-plan, plan, then re-plan the draw three times; players were very, very patient and I appreciate their patience. We had to move pretty big chunks of the tournament to today to accommodate everybody, but that’s just part of it.”
The men’s final was a high-quality match, Lipe felt. “Kris Ortega is a quality (NCAA) Division I player and Carson Haskins continues to write his historic legacy here as a per-eminent player in the St. Louis metropolitan area and I’m excited for him to get another chance to play professional tennis; for the second time, he’s earned the wild card into the main draw; as I told him, I said ‘I’m really happy for you; I’m very proud you get to play pro tennis again.’”
Haskins previously earned his way into the main draw in the 2016 tournament, dropping his first-round match that year to Tennys Sandgren – who reached the quarterfinals of the Kia Australian Open in January.
Prior to the men’s final, Haskins defeated K.J. Stewart of Bloomington, Ind., 6-2, 6-1 and Ortega defeated Joe Van Meter of Indianapolis 6-4, 6-2 in the semifinal matches leading into the men’s final. In the men’s doubles competition, Haskins and Ortega teamed up to defeat Edwardsville’s Kirk Schlueter/Paul Stuart in the semifinals 6-0, 6-1, and Seth Lipe and Erik Weiler of Edwardsville won their semifinal match over Stewart/Van Meter 6-2, 6-4 before Haskins/Ortega went on to win the doubles crown 6-2, 6-1 over Lipe/Weiler.
In the 4.0 competition of the tournament, Edwardsville’s Jimmy Hendricks defeated Vandalia’s Bill Blythe 6-3, 6-2 to win the men’s singles title while Champaign’s Princess Imoukhuede won the championship over Edwardsville’s Emma Herman 6-0, 6-3. In men’s doubles play of the division Sunday, Harrison Feco of Edwardsville and Nadim Rana of Glen Carbon defeated Nicholas Hobin of Edwardsville and Tanner Pieri of Worden 6-1, 6-1; Ben Blake and Ethan Booker, both of Edwardsville, defeated Feco/Rana 6-1, 6-1; and Blake/Booker defeated Hobin/Pieri 6-4, 6-3.
In the women’s doubles competition, Callaghan Adams of Edwardsville and Morgan Colbert of Glen Carbon defeated Madyson Schreiber of Lebanon and Kristen Wilson of Edwardsville 6-0, 6-1 in a semifinal match while Trimpe and Morgan Marshall of Glen Carbon eliminated Abby Cimarolli of Glen Carbon and Annie McGinnis of Edwardsville 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 12-10 in the other semifinal; Adams/Colbert then claimed the championship with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Trimpe/Marshall.
In the mixed doubles tournament, Cindy and Mark Tabscott of St. Louis defeated Hayley Earnhart of Edwardsville and Trent Purnell of Marion 6-1, 6-2 and Margaret Junker of Kirkwood and Max Shapiro of St. Louis defeated Sara Kruetztrager of Roxana and Adam Ruckman of Godfrey 6-1, 6-1 in the semifinal matches; in the final, Junker/Shapiro defeated the Tabscotts 6-1, 6-1 for the title.
“I want to thank TheBANK of Edwardsville for presenting this tournament,” Lipe said. “A big thanks to their marketing team and the whole bank for their support of this. It’s great for our local community – there’s a lot of people that come to town from out of town and it has an economic impact - the hotels and the restaurants and it’s terrific for our local tennis players; it’s a terrific tournament and I’m proud to have it.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
