Futures: Week 15

Here’s a quick summary of what happened in at the futures level last week:

*CHINA F3: Ti Chen from Taiwan took the title over South Korean (and ’91 born) Yong-Kyu Lim. Former juniors No.1 Marton Fucsovics (’92) from Hungary advanced to his second-ever semi-finals, both times in Chinese soil. However, another former top Junior, Taiwanese Liang-Chi Huang (’91/ex-No.3) continued to struggle at the pro-level. He was defeated in R2 by Chinese wonder-kid Di Wu (’91). Daniel Evans (’90), of Great Britain, also advanced to the semi-finals of this 15K tournament.

*FRANCE F6: 7/8 quarter finalists were Frenchmen with Charles-Antoine Brezac taking the title over red-hot Kenny De Schepper. Mathieu Rodrigues continued his great 2011 run with a semi-final appearance. Former juniors stars Gianni Mina (No.1 in 2010) and Alexandre Sidorenko (No.3 in 2006) continue to struggle in 2011 with the former having trouble making his mark in the pros, and the latter finding it hard to recover the form that took to a ranking of 145 almost 2 years ago.

*ITALY F5: German Jan-Leonard Struff (’90) continued his red-hot 2011 run with a final appearance at this future. He was defeated by Italian veteran Stefano Galvani but nonetheless improved his record to 18-4. This tournament had the presence of Crazy Dani Koellerer and fellow Austrian Dominik Thiem (current Junior No.3 and using one of the Junior Exemptions), but both were taken out by Galvani, the eventual winner.

*ARGENTINA F1: The best of the Argentinean young talent (with the exception of Facundo Arguello) was present in this tournament. Ever-improving Diego Schwartzman (’92) made a run to the final, only to lose to fellow Argentine Agustin Velotti (former Junior No.2 and 2010 Roland Garros winner). Velotti won his second-ever futures title. Guillermo Duran (’88) and Guido Andreozzi (’91) were the other semi-finalists.

*BRAZIL F9: Due to having 2 other futures in the region (Chile and Argentina), a challenger event in the same country (Blumenau) and being played on a hard surface, this tournament had a very low cut-off, with a few unranked players making the draw without even playing the qualys. A pair of Argentineans achieved their first points ever (Manuel Belda and Benjamin Tenti) and another Argie, Gaston Grimolizzi, aided his comeback bid by taking the title over No.1 seed Rodrigo Guidolim.

*CHILE F3: Frenchman Guillaume Rufin took the title for the second week in a row, this time without even dropping a set the whole tournament. It’s hard to understand why a guy so young and with so much talent is not looking for stronger competition. He beat local Guillermo Hormazabal in the final. This tournament featured Gonzalo Lama (’93, Chile) earning his first ATP point.

*INDIA F3: Former Junior No.1 Yuki Bhambri of India reached the final but lost to first-seeded and fellow Indian Vishnu Vardhan. The ’92-born former Junior Australian Open and Orange Bowl champion has found it very hard to advance his ranking into challenger territory and has been a disappointment so far in his career.

*SPAIN F12: The star of the week was Roberto Carballes-Baena (’93 and current Junior No.9), who at the tender age of 18 won his second futures title defeating Gabriel Trujillo-Soler in the final. He will be inside the top-550 when the new ranking arrives next week. British young guns Jack Carpenter (’92) and Oliver Golding (’93 and current Junior No.4) earned 1 point each this week, thanks R1 wins. So did ’94-born Frenchman Matthias Bourgue, who earned his second-ever ATP point by defeating Spaniard Juan Lizariturry in R1.

*THAILAND F3: South Korean veteran Young-Jun Kim took the title over German Jaan-Frederik Brunken (‘90). Brunken had defeated fellow class of 1990 Alexander Ward of Great Britain in the semi-finals.

*TURKEY F13: Moldavian Radu Albot defeated German Peter Gojowczyk to claim this future crown. Slovakian Jozef Kovalik (’92) made a surprise run to the semis before losing to the eventual winner. Meanwhile, Aussie Brydan Klein (former Junior AO champion), the No.1 seed this week was defeated in the semi-finals. He’s one of the many Australians who had great success in the juniors but have so far failed to do the same at the pro level.