Day 1 of the Tallahassee Tennis Challenger got underway under cloudy skies that quickly turned to rain. After a couple of hours delay in starting the 1st round of qualifying matches, play finally began around 11:30 A.M. thanks to both the dedicated work of volunteers drying off the courts (which included myself oddly enough) and the sun. On a positive note, the rain delay allowed for lots of interaction with the players while we all waited out the rain and it was a joy to strike up a friendly chat with some of them.
Once play began the sun was plenty hot and the tennis was even hotter. First matches included American Dennis Lajola who was in control throughout his match and advanced 6-0 7-6 over Alexandre Lacroix of France, Australian John Peers pulled off a mild upset of fan favorite Floridian Greg Ouelette, who was making his 2nd straight appearance at the challenger, 7-6 6-3. I watched two matches most closely: the first between former junior no.1 and junior Australian open champ, Tiago Fernandes of Brazil and Denes Lukacs of Hungary who was also making his 2nd appearance in a row at the challenger. Unfortunately, it didn’t prove to be much of a match as Fernandes was sluggish throughout calling for the trainer at the end of the 1st set and even though he chose to continue he went down in defeat 6-0 6-1 narrowly avoiding a double bagel by holding serve at the end of the 2nd set. Fernandes may have been injured but Lukacs still played very well making the young Brazilian run and hitting the ball corner to corner.
The other big morning match was what turned into a 3 hour battle on stadium court between the Brit Chris Eaton and Zimbabwean number 1 Takanyi Garanganga. Both players held serve throughout with Eaton getting a big break of serve at the end of the 3rd set and although Garanganga had his chances Eaton came out on top, eventually outlasting the Zimbabwean 7-6 4-6 7-5. It was a very spirited match with Eaton shouting encouragement to himself throughout and Garanganga letting out the occasional scream. Eaton, especially, relied on his serve and volley skills to triumph.
In the next matches up South African Fritz Wolmarans, making his 2nd straight appearance at the challenger, handled young American Morgan Mays with ease 6-2 6-2, noted doubles player Martin Emmrich of Germany knocked off sunglasses wearing, ankle tattooed Jeff Dadamo of the USA (reminds me of a certain current top 10 Serbian player not named Djokovic, if only for his look) 6-3 6-1, David Rice of Great Britain defeated local high school Tennis star and pre-qualifying tournament winner Terrance Whitehurst, who had his own very vocal cheering section, 6-2 6-4 and in another lengthy 3 set battle on the stadium court rising American Daniel Kosakowski, the former Pac-10 freshman of the year defeated American Josh Zavala 3-6 6-3 6-4. Kosakowski played a rather sloppy 1st set but quickly recovered and finished off Zavala who battled till the end.
In the remaining 1st round qualifying matches Blake Strode, who you may remember for winning the 2010 US Open National Playoffs, handily defeated fellow American Erik Graves 6-2 6-1 , Romanian Catalin Gard making his 2nd straight apperance at the challenger recovered from getting breadsticked in the 2nd set and defeated American and current Florida State Seminole Dominic Cotrone 6-3 1-6 6-3, Edward Corrie upset fellow Brit and no. 1 qualifying seed Alex Bogdanovic7-6 7-5, Alexander Ward of Great Britain, the no 2. qualifying seed beat Mark Verryth of Austrailia who was making his 2nd straight appearance at the challenger 6-1 6-4, Sekou Bangoura a former American Tennis phenom defeated fellow American Terence Celestine 6-2 6-1, American Ty Trombetta defeated Sean Thornley of Great Britain 6-4 6-2, Russian born New Zealander Artem Sitak defeated the 2009 Wimbledon Junior finalist Jordan Cox of the USA 7-6 6-4, Olivier Sanjous of Haiti defeated the big man, 6 foot 5 inch Vlad Obradovic of Serbia, who was making a repeat appearance at the challenger, 7-6 6-4 in what was a very testy match between both players and the umpire.
In 2nd round qualifying matches completed the same day Emmrich defeated Rice 3-6 6-2 (ret), Lajola defeated marathon man Eaton 6-4 6-2, Peers defeated Lukacs 6-4 6-2 continuing his strong run and Kosakowski defeated Wolmorans.
It was a great day of Tennis and luckily the weather held all day after earlier rains. Doubles qualifying and the end of singles qualifying is tomorrow and then the main draw starts monday.
One other note:
The main draw is out and the seeds are world no. 56 Lu Yen-Hsun (TPE) ATP Houston defending champ Ryan Sweeting (USA, world no. 81 Igor Kunitsyn (RUS), Tasuma Ito (JPN), Vasek Popisil (CAN), last years runner up Wayne Odesnik (USA), Rogerio Dutra Silva (BRA) and Bobby Reyonolds (USA). Other notables in the main draw include Mischa Zverev (participation may be contingent on his play in the Le Gosier Challenger where he is set to play David Goffin in the final tomorrow), Benjamin Becker, rising American Tennys Sandgren, Michael Russell, Jesse Levine, Rajeev Ram, Tim Smyczek, Michael Yani, Alex Kuznetsov and Carsten Ball.
The full main draw can be found here and qualifiers will be added after tommorows matches https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=303748419693653&set=a.123650807703416.21229.106184189450078&type=3&theater.
–Steen Kirby
Tennis Atlantic 
Return Serve?