Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Delray’s Gauff outlasts Zheng in final
PLANTATION — In what was most likely her final match in junior tennis, 14-year-old Cori Gauff of Delray Beach outlasted Qinwen Zheng 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 to capture the girls 18’s at the Orange Bowl International Tennis Championship.
“I’m pretty sure that this is possibly my last junior tournament,” said Gauff, who will play only professional events going forward. “I’m happy I was able to finish on a high note.”
Gauff captured the opening set 6-1, which included a rain delay in excess of two hours, before Zheng changed the momentum of the match by winning the final three games of the second set and the first two games of the final set, which led to a visibly frustrated Gauff, the top seed in the girls draw.
“The second set got away from me. I was definitely frustrated,” said Gauff, who had previously not lost a set in the event. “I was like ok, I need to turn this around.”
Serving 2-4 in the third set and facing a break point, Gauff rallied to win three consecutive points to take the game, then proceeded to break Zheng’s serve to even the final set at 4-all.
“I just kept believing, I was just trying to win every point,” said Gauff, the third ranked junior girl in the world.
“All these people are here and they’re still rooting for you down 4-2, then you should start rooting for yourself.”
In the crucial 4-all game, which featured five deuce points, Gauff used five service winners to hold serve and take a 5-4 lead.
Gauff then broke Zheng’s serve for the fifth time in the match to capture the title in her last event playing as a junior.
“I want to be a good professional player,” said Gauff, who turns 15 in March. “Next year, my goal is to be top-100 in WTA [Women’s Tennis Association].”
Meanwhile, in the boys 18’s final, 13th seed Otto Virtanen of Finland defeated Zane Khan in straight sets 7-5, 6-4 to win the championship.
“This is the biggest singles win for me in my life,” said Virtanen, “it feels really good.”
Trailing 4-5 in the opening set, Virtanen won the final three games to clinch the set, including a crucial break of Khan’s serve at 5-all.
“My game wasn’t the best today but I served the big points well,” said Virtanen, who broke Khan’s serve five times in the title match to offset losing his own serve four times. “Usually I play pretty big and go agressive from the beginning but I kept losing my serves too many time.”
Virtanen trailed 3-4 in the second set before rallying again, capped off by his 10th ace of the day on match point.
In the 18’s doubles, Adrienn Nagy and Sohyun Park won the girls championship after Sergey Fomin and Gauthier Onclin captured the boys title.
The girls 16’s were swept by players from the United States as Madison Sieg triumphed in singles, while Carson Tanguilig and Elise Wagle won the doubles title.
Pablo Llamas Ruiz of Spain captured titles in both the boys 16’s singles and doubles, where he partnered with fellow Spaniard Angel Guerrero Melga.