NEW YORK–16-year-old Michael Antonius is playing with house money now after advancing to the second round of the US Open qualifying tournament earlier today. “I have no expectations at all,” he said after breezing past Briton Henry Searle, 6-1, 6-2 on Court 11 at the USTA Billie Jean Kid Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows. “I’m going with the flow.”
Antonius was runner up in juniors singles at Roland Garros earlier this year and he’s entered into juniors singles here at the US Open, so we expect to see him in September competing up until the end of this year’s event.
“I was pretty nervous but I dealt with it well,” he confided after the match. “I tested my strokes.”
You couldn’t know he was nervous out there as he started strong and didn’t falter during the 63-minute routining of his 20-year-old opponent who could only manage to return 57% of the young American’s serves. Antonius, from Buffalo, NY, broke his opponent’s serve on 4 of 7 attempts while giving up no breaks on his own service games.
The Buffalo native is a diehard NFL Bills fan and he declared that “this is their year!”. It may be the year for the Bills after all, but this may also be a few weeks Antonius will remember for a lifetime.
—S. Fogleman
Tennis Atlantic 
Return Serve?