News & Features

by Colette Lewis, 13 December 2024

Special from Zoo Tennis

BRADENTON, Fla. – The top seeds at last week's ITF J300 at the IMG Academy navigated their draws throughout the cool and sunny week on Florida's gulf coast, but only one managed to clear the final hurdle, with Serbia's Teodora Kostovic defeating No. 4 seed Tereza Krejcova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-1, while Spain's Andres Santamarta Roig rolled past No. 1 seed Maxim Mrva of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-1.

Kostovic suffered a disappointing loss to fellow IMG student Wakana Sonobe of Japan in the 2023 final, so returned in 2024 with revenge on her mind and an eye toward collecting the WTA 500 qualifying wild card awarded to the champion. A stress fracture complicated her preparation for the tournament, but the 17-year-old achieved her goal, earning her fifth J300 title of the year.

The top four seeds reached the girls semifinals, but it was No. 4 seed Krejcova who advanced to the final with a 6-4, 7-5 win over 14-year-old compatriot Jana Kovackova, the No. 2 seed. Jana's older sister Alena, the No. 3 seed, suffered her third straight loss to Kostovic 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, setting up a first meeting between Krejcova and Kostovic.

The disappointment of last year's final motivated Kostovic, and she took advantage of the injury hiatus to work on modulating her often volatile on-court demeanor. The fruit of that work was obvious in the final, when she started poorly, was broken to open the match, broke back for 3-all, then lost serve again, with her shots not finding their targets.

Kostovic indicated no frustration when Krejcova took a 4-3 lead with that second break, and immediately broke back, as she began to find her rhythm. In the ninth game, after saving five break points, Kostovic took a 5-4 lead, then crushed a forehand winner to break Krejcova for the third straight time to claim the set.

That forehand started a string of 12 straight points, with Kostovic taking a 3-0 lead in the second set. Krejcova stopped that momentum with her first hold since the fourth game, but Kostovic displayed all her variety, with her offense and her defense equally impressive.

"In the second set I played unbelievable tennis," Kostovic said. "It was amazing."

Krejcova agreed that her options were limited with Kostovic playing at that level.

"I played not good, not bad," said the six-foot 16-year-old, who admitted that nerves were a factor in her second J300 final. "It's a very hard match because Teodora is a very good player and I didn't play perfect. She plays very aggressive tennis, so it is very hard. But it was a very good week, and my performance, I'm proud of myself."

Kostovic earned a wild card into the qualifying of the WTA 500 tournament in Abu Dhabi in February, and she is excited about the prospect of competing at that level after playing the Australian Open Junior Championships.

"I didn't think about that (wild card) in the match, but I'm very happy for that," said Kostovic, who is the second Serbian girl to win the Bradenton ITF title, after Ana Ivanovic in 2002. "I will try to prepare and who knows, maybe I'll win tournament there."

While the girls draw held to form throughout the week, the boys started with upsets and ended with one.

Unseeded Dominick Mosejczuk took out No. 3 seed Hoyoung Roh of Korea in the second round and No. 8 seed Henry Bernet of Switzerland in the quarterfinals before falling to top seed Mrva 6-3, 6-1 in the semifinals. Santamarta, the No. 16 seed, didn't play a seed until he faced No. 5 Jagger Leach in the semifinals, dropping his only set all week in his 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win.

Mrva should have had the advantage after spending much less time on court in Saturday's semifinals, but the final was completed in 55 minutes, with Santamarta in control from the first game.

Mrva had been playing well throughout the week, but the level of his serves, forehands and backhands that he was so pleased with in his semifinal win deserted him in the final, while Santamarta brought out his best to earn his second J300 title.

Down two breaks in a matter of minutes, Mrva showed some life in the fourth game, getting one of the breaks back. But Santamarta immediately broke again by forcing Mrva into scrambling defense against his devastating inside out forehand.

The first set lasted 25 minutes, and the five-minute bathroom break Mrva took didn't cool off Santamarta. Mvra did get his lone hold of the match in the second game of the second set, but Santamarta countered every strategy that Mrva employed, including serve-and-volley. That tactic proved futile, with Santamarta passing Mrva regularly or putting the ball at his feet with no chance at a winning volley.

"He's a player that likes to make drop shots, volleying, I think it's just his kind of playing," said the 17-year-old, who is coached by Sergio Gallego at the GTennis Academy in Valencia. "I played quite comfortable for the entire match. I was focused, with energy, tried to be consistent; I played really good, and I'm really happy."

Santamarta had dismissed any significance in his previous loss to Mrva in the second round of Wimbledon this summer, and his performance in the final proved his confidence was warranted.

"At Wimbledon, on grass, everything was much faster," said Santamarta, who lost that match 6-4, 6-2. "The points were just serve volley, serve drop shot, serve forehand. Here on clay, we have the opportunity to play longer rallies and I think that's positive for me."

Mrva told Santamarta during the trophy presentation that "I had no chance against you today. But being in the final, it means a lot, and I really enjoyed the tournament."

Santamarta will be offered a wild card into the qualifying of the ATP 250 in Hong Kong the last week of this month, but he is not sure if he'll be accepting it.

"They told me one of the first days, and I thought they were joking about it," said Santamarta, who is planning to play the Australian Open Junior Championships in January. "So I just forgot about it. I don't even know when's the tournament."

Santamarta is the tournament's first ITF champion from Spain.

The boys doubles draw lost all its seeds after the second round, but champions Matteo Morazzi of Spain and Nathan Trouve of France were clearly in sync throughout, needing only one match tiebreaker in their five wins.

In the final, the Rafa Nadal Academy students defeated unseeded Glib Sekachov of Ukraine and Dmitry Suboch of Slovenia 6-3, 6-3 to earn their first J300 title.

"We played a very high level match with no breaks against yesterday and today," said Morazzi, who is heading to USC for the spring dual match season.

Yesterday in semis, we didn't face a single break point," said Trouve, who is also joining the Trojans alongside his good friend. "So it was great, pressure off."

The girls doubles champions were no surprise, with No. 1 seeds Alena and Jana Kovackova defeating No. 2 seeds Tereza Krejcova and Julie Pastikova in the all-Czech final 6-4, 6-0.

In their four tournaments as a team since the beginning of October, the Kovackovas have won every doubles title, three of them at the J300 level, and one J500 two weeks ago in Mexico. They have lost only two sets during their 18-match winning streak.

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About Colette Lewis

Colette Lewis has covered topflight U.S. and international junior events as a freelance journalist for over a decade. Her work has appeared in Tennis magazine, the Tennis Championships magazine and the US Open program. Lewis is active on Twitter, and she writes a weekly column right here at TennisRecruiting.net. She was named Junior Tennis Champion for 2016 by Tennis Industry Magazine.

Lewis, based out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has seen every National Championship final played since 1977, and her work on the tournament's ustaboys.com website led her to establish ZooTennis, where she comments on junior and college tennis daily.