Sarasota Open 2015 begins

After a couple of sets at Longwood Park, I headed about five miles east on University to check out the new location for the Sarasota Open, which will be played this year for the first time at Lakewood Ranch Country Club.

On my way over I stop for lunch at Sweet Tomatoes and one of the young ladies working there, Natalia, happens to tell me she’s so excited to get a volunteer job next week for the Sarasota Open, she saw the sign, applied and got it. She was thrilled because she had no idea there was a pro tennis event here, until she saw the sign on University.

So I roll into the lot and there’s the white Kozlov Tennis van, so I park next to it. Stefan Kozlov is playing qualies today on stadium, and his dad my friend Andrei is here.

After chatting with the tournament director Tony Driscoll, I do a Biofile with the effervescent Francis Tiafoe, who just beat the 2013 Sarasota Open champ Alex Kuznetsov in three sets. Tiafoe is hot right now, he just won a $15,000 Futures in Bakersfield. Tiafoe also told me he hit with Nadal at the French Open three days and the locked-in Rafa didn’t smile one time in those three days.

After that I go to watch the end of Mike Russell vs. Romboli on stadium. Russell won the first set 60 but the second was a battle, with ESPN basketball analyst Dick Vitale enjoying the action from the grandstand behind the baseline, by himself. Andrei Kozlov tells me Russell changed his racquet to Head from Babolat and after a netted backhand down the line, he says the Head doesn’t have as much power as the Babolat. Russell was down 4-1 in the tiebreaker but ends up winning it. Iron Mike looks even more pumped up now but his ranking is deflating – he’s fallen outside the top 200.

Stefan takes the court a good five minutes before his Russian opponent Matuskevich, a tall, thin, big hitter, who plays just like Gabashvili. Big power, big serve, steady backhand, good forehand inside out. Matuskevich serves two aces to start the match. Stefan gets broken for 0-2.

Stefan, who hit for three days at IMG and got some forehand pointers from Bollettieri this week, hits a couple of aces early but never gets a foothold in the match. He loses the first set 26. The father thinks Stefan should probe the Russian’s forehand more, especially make him go cross court but the tactic yields some success. He’s scouted Matuskevich on Google videos.

Stefan provokes some forehand misses and breaks at love in the first game of the second set but is broken right back and loses the next two games, to go down 1-3. The Russian keeps driving those steady penetrating Gabashvili backhands and inside out forehands. He never loses his grip and closes it out 62 62. Dick Vitale stayed for the whole match.

After the match, Stefan worked on some footwork and sprint drills on the court, next to the big Korean teen Hyeon Chung, who he beat at Wimbledon juniors. Chung is on a roll now, winning matches in Miami and Houston. Chung wears white sunglasses and makes quiet humming sounds when he drills.

Over on the other court are Alexander Zverev playing a set with Jared Donaldson, with Taylor Dent watching closely from the fence inside the court behind the baseline. These two young lions are hitting big and the points are high quality and high intensity. Donaldson plays Stepanek in the first round of main draw. I watch them hit for 20 minutes and can’t tell who has the edge.

There is another match going on, Uchida of Japan is in the third set with Emilio Gomez of Ecuador, which was eventually won by Gomez 6-4.

The tournament has a great feel, there’s a lot of tree cover, the site is immaculate. Ticket sales this year are 30% ahead of last year. This new site is just miles from Interstate 75 which will be a lot more accessible for fans than last year as the Longboat Key site was just about on the beach, about 45 minutes west, but beach traffic to get to the site could make the trip a lot longer.

The top seed is Tim Smyczek who took a wildcard, Tim is ranked #63 now.

Stay tuned for more reports and Scoops from Sarasota Open.

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