Mercer Tennis Classic: Townsend, Udvardy into Singles Final
10/21/2023 8:37:00 PM | Men's Tennis, Women's Tennis
MACON - An exciting week of professional tennis is winding down with just the singles final to play at the Mercer Tennis Classic held this week at the John Drew Smith Tennis Center in Macon. The singles final will take place on Sunday at 2 p.m.
For the first time in the history of the Mercer Tennis Classic, the top four seeds advanced to the singles semifinals. That made for a great showcase of tennis on Saturday.
Top seed Taylor Townsend is motivated to get a title in Macon and it showed with her play on Saturday. Taking on a tough out in Katie Volynets made for some great points and forced Townsend to go to her "bag of tricks."
"She never gives up. She plays for every point," Townsend said. "I am trying to embrace my entire game and sometimes it's kind of difficult. I feel confident (that) I can execute every shot I want to hit!"
Townsend went to the drop-shot and drop-volley numerous times during the match, including a beautiful drop-volley on match point to frustrate Volynets. Townsend served at 70 percent for the match and converted six breakpoint opportunities.Â
Kayla Day, the 2016 champ in Macon took 3 hours and 45 minutes to hold off University of Miami junior Alexa Noel on Friday. Panna Udvardy of Hungary, a 2022 singles finalist, spent three hours on court Friday to take out Raluca Georgiana Serban, a Romanian who now plays for Cyprus.
Something had to give. In another three-setter, this one lasting 2 hours and 30 minutes, Udvardy appeared the fresher of the two and outlasted Day 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
"Yesterday, I played three hours," said Udvardy. "It wasn't easy to recover in a short amount of time. I knew I wouldn't be my best today and I wasn't, but it was all mental and staying there and trying to motivate myself."
The doubles final followed the singles semis and Jana Kolodynska/ Tatiana Prozorova defeated Sofia Sewing/ Anastasia Tikhonova 6-3, 6-2.
For the first time in the history of the Mercer Tennis Classic, the top four seeds advanced to the singles semifinals. That made for a great showcase of tennis on Saturday.
Top seed Taylor Townsend is motivated to get a title in Macon and it showed with her play on Saturday. Taking on a tough out in Katie Volynets made for some great points and forced Townsend to go to her "bag of tricks."
"She never gives up. She plays for every point," Townsend said. "I am trying to embrace my entire game and sometimes it's kind of difficult. I feel confident (that) I can execute every shot I want to hit!"
Townsend went to the drop-shot and drop-volley numerous times during the match, including a beautiful drop-volley on match point to frustrate Volynets. Townsend served at 70 percent for the match and converted six breakpoint opportunities.Â
Kayla Day, the 2016 champ in Macon took 3 hours and 45 minutes to hold off University of Miami junior Alexa Noel on Friday. Panna Udvardy of Hungary, a 2022 singles finalist, spent three hours on court Friday to take out Raluca Georgiana Serban, a Romanian who now plays for Cyprus.
Something had to give. In another three-setter, this one lasting 2 hours and 30 minutes, Udvardy appeared the fresher of the two and outlasted Day 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
"Yesterday, I played three hours," said Udvardy. "It wasn't easy to recover in a short amount of time. I knew I wouldn't be my best today and I wasn't, but it was all mental and staying there and trying to motivate myself."
The doubles final followed the singles semis and Jana Kolodynska/ Tatiana Prozorova defeated Sofia Sewing/ Anastasia Tikhonova 6-3, 6-2.
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