For several years, the Palisades Tennis Center has played host to an annual tennis tournament. Yet until last week it had never held an event sanctioned by the United States Tennis Association. Tournament Director Scott Wilson changed all that with a lot of persistence and a few well-timed phone calls to make the inaugural Palisades Tennis Center Junior Open a reality. Strictly for junior players, the tournament was staged on courts at the Palisades Tennis Center and Santa Monica High last Tuesday through Friday. Wilson was concerned that holding a tournament right after a holiday weekend might affect the turnout, but he was pleased that the event drew 127 participants. “Everything turned out great and we had some great tennis out here,” Wilson said. “All of the divisions were very competitive.” Players from all over Southern California and as far away as Nebraska and Nevada showed up to participate in the event, which included 10 divisions–five each for boys and girls ages 8-18. Several Palisadians won their age divisions, including Robbie Bellamy in the boys’ 10-and-under division and 15-year-old Katie Nikolova, who won both the girls 16s and 18s divisions. Nikolova beat Caroline Richman in the 16s final and Dalya Perelman in the 18s. Bellamy, son of PTC founder and The Tennis Channel co-founder Steve Bellamy, lost the first set of his championship match against Kaelan Hicks in a tiebreaker but recovered to win the last two, 6-4, 6-2. Neither Bellamy nor Hicks lost a set en route to the finals. Bellamy has been on quite a roll recently. He took second place in the 10-and-under division of the Santa Barbara Tennis Open–one of the largest annual junior tournaments in Southern California. The following week he played up an age group (in the boys 12s) and won the 10th annual USTA Mountaingate Tournament. Palisadian Spencer Pekar advanced to the round of 16 in the boys’ 12s while Jordan Alper reached the quarterfinals of the 14s. Kathryn Cullen reached the semifinals of the girls’ 14s and the girls’ 16s draw featured Palisades High players Mary Logan and Sarah Yankelevitz. In the 18s, Krista Slocum, PaliHi’s No. 1 singles player, beat Erika Lee in the first round, 6-0, 6-1, before losing to the eventual champion, Nikolova. Local player Anthony Rollins was runner-up to Justin Gold in the boys 16s and Thomas Norminton won the boys 18s singles, defeating Chris Nguyen, 7-6, 6-0 in the finals. Jordan Brewer won the girls’ 12s championship with a 6-4, 6-0 victory over Andrea Kinnerk. Brett Alchorn won a three-set final over Brian Foley in the boys’ 12s and Evan Teufel beat Tom Griffiths in straight sets in the finals of the boys’ 14s singles. Many other local players reached the finals and semifinals in their respective draws. Meagan Wilson lost in the 10-and-under girls finals, 12-year-old Krystal Hansard lost in the girls’ 14s finals to Marie Zalameda, Alex Baettig advanced to the semifinals of the boys 12s, Naomi Rosenberg reached the semifinals of the girls 10s and Perri Zaret made the semis in the girls 12s. The PTC will be hosting another event, called The Tennis Channel Open, August 15-19, which will be open to all USTA junior players. “We’re hoping we get as good a turnout for that as we had for this tournament,” Wilson said. Since 2001, the PTC has been the site for the Palisadian-Post Tennis Open–a tournament for players of all ages. PTC teaching pro Francesco Franceschini reached the final of the men’s Open draw each year.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
