Jennifer Pfeifler Wins Tallahassee Designated; Stellar Performances turned in by Nowak, Acree, Neuner and Ephron

The North Florida Junior Designated tennis tournament was held July 18-20 at four different sites in Tallahassee.

Gulf Breeze's Jennifer Pfeifler, seeded #8, won the Girl's 18 division 6-1,6-1 over 6th seeded Sarah McLean of Cutler Beach. In the quarterfinals, Pfeifler downed #3 seed Ilana Dreyfuss from Miami 6-1,6-1 and defeated 9th seeded Leah Fried of Delray Beach 6-5,7-5.

Pensacola's John Nowak was the 13th seed in the Boy's 16 division and he had a terrific tourney reaching the semifinals before losing to Lakeland's Danny Mack. Mack won the division. Nowak beat #9 7-5,7-5 and survived a round of 32 match with Nick Runac of Jacksonville Beach 4-6,6-3,10-5.

Unseeded Reece Acree of Pensacola played up in the Boy's 16 and won four matches. He whipped #10 Eddie Shelton of Jacksonville 6-1,6-1 in the first round. He also beat Tallahassee's Brennan Doran 6-0,6-0 before falling 7-5,6-4 in the quarterfinals to the top seed Luis Elizondo of Weston.

Pensacola's Will Neuner, the #14 seed, in the Boy's 18 division won four matches over the weekend. Neuner won three straight set matches before falling 6-1,6-2 to #4 seed Beauregard Treyz of Ponte Vedra. In the backdraw, Neuner lost a heartbreaker to Matthew Lasprilla of Lake Worth 6-3,0-6,11-9.

In the Boy's 12 division, Christopher Ephron, upset the 6th seeded Andrew Heller of Weston 6-4,5-7,10-7. He followed that with a 6-1,6-3 round of 16 victory. Ephron gave top seeded Dimitri Salzman of Hollywood all he could handle before falling 6-4,6-7,10-5. Continuing his great play in the backdraw, Ephron downed Elliot Seckler of Boca Raton 5-7,6-4,10-3 before falling in the finals 7-6,7-5 to Martin Stoyanov of Wesley Chapel.

Ten other Pensacola area tennis players participated in the even including 8 from Pensacola, one from Pace and one from Gulf Breeze.

Pensacola's Melanie Lewis (G16) and Keegan Lowery (B18) won three matches each while Patricia Izbicki (G18) won two. Other Pensacola players that participated included Jacob Baehr (B12), Millie Nowak (G18), Austin Racine (B14), Rachael Soloway (G16) and Claudio Yurdadon (B16).

Also playing in the event were Pace's Britni Thibodeau (G16 and Gulf Breeze's Clay Pfeifler won a match in the Boy's 16.

Complete results from the North Florida Designated may be found at http://tennislink.usta.com/tournaments/tournamenthome/tournament.aspx?T=74037