Palisadians brought a ballhopper’s worth of hardware home from the 79th annual Santa Monica Junior Tennis Open last weekend, dominating most of the younger age groups in the Novice, Satellite and Open divisions. In the boys 8-and-under Satellite, Jake Sands made it back-to-back titles after winning the Jack Kramer event the week before. Sands defeated Daniel Naryshev, 6-3, 6-4, in the final. In the 8-and-under Novice, 6-year-old Lincoln Bellamy won his first tournament, beating Lyle Adomian, 6-1, in the final. The 10-and-under crown went to R.J. Sands who, like his brother, won the Jack Kramer a week before. This time, R.J. defeated fellow PTC player Christian Gambale, 6-3, 6-1, in the final. Playing his first tournament in the boys 12s Novice, Adam Stryer beat Zachary Gorokhovsky, 6-4, to win the title. Stryer is steadily improving with every match and showed he is clearly going to be a force in his age group. PTC player Myles Pindus reached the finals of the boys 12s satellite but perhaps the biggest win went to Harry Cohen, who tore through three matches en route to the final, where he beat Ben Gelfand in a third-set tiebreaker. “Our boys are clearly pushing each other so much everyday that they are winning everything in Southern California now,” PTC Head Pro Jon Neeter said. “Our next big push is going to be to get more girls winning.” Neeter was pleased to see Caroline Vincent win the girls 8-and- unders, ousting Kaitlin Zuber, 6-0, 6-2, in the semifinals and Jane Homer, 7-6, 6-4 in the final. “Tennis is a really interesting paradigm for girls right now,” Neeter said. “There are about 3,000 girls tennis scholarships in the United States each year. A girl can start playing tennis here at the park, just hang in the pack, play regular tournaments in Southern California and get numerous scholarship opportunities.” Palisades Pair Aims for #1 Ranking Robbie Bellamy and Alex Giannini of the Palisades Tennis Center have been playing doubles together for almost a year and already they are within reach of the top national ranking in their age group. Giannini has one of the hardest serves in his age group (they are both 13) and is a smart, competitive player. Bellamy, meanwhile, has one of the best forehands and return of serve in the juniors. Together, they have begun to gel. They finished last year in the 12s by twice nearly upsetting the No. 1 duo in the country’Gregory Garcia of San Diego and Garrett Auproux of Studio City. “We will beat them this year,” Giannini predicted after beating Auproux in straight sets in singles at the USTA nationals in Sacramento. “And we are going to finish the boys 14’s as the No. 1 team in the nation.” Last weekend, Bellamy and Giannini were seeded third in the San Diego National Doubles at the Barnes Tennis Center. On Friday, the boys got a bye to set up a second round match against Adam Ferguson and Luis Miranda of La Mesa. The local boys rolled to a 6-1, 6-0, setting up a quarterfinal match against fellow PTC players Blake Anthony and Brandon Clarke, who were seeded fifth. The teams split the first two sets, setting up a 10-point super tiebreaker now common in all national events. There, Giannini’s serve proved nearly unreturnable as he and Bellamy prevailed, 10-2, and advanced to the semifinals against Irvine’s Stefan Menichella and Jake De Vries. The PTC duo won the first set 6-2 but lost the second, setting the stage for another super-breaker. At 7 points all, Bellamy and Giannini reeled off three points in a row, setting up a finals showdown against top-seeded Garcia and Auproux, who had beaten PTC player Eduardo Nava and his partner, Logan Smith of Carlsbad. It was a close final, but Garcia and Auproux prevailed, 7-5, 7-5. “This one hurt because we had our chances at 5-all in both sets and Alex was serving both times so we should have held at least one of those,” Bellamy said. “However, we are really confident now and know we can win these big matches.” Bellamy and Giannini both plan on playing at Palisades High. “If Brandon [Clarke], Robbie and I all go to Pali we think we can help make that team No. 1 in the nation,” Giannini said. “Blake [Anthony] might go there as well and there are a lot of really good players on the team now.”
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