Pfeifler, Neuner and Wilson Do Well at Out of Town Tourneys

Third seeded Jennifer Pfeifler of Gulf Breeze teamed with Maitland's Caitlin McGraw to defeat fourth seeded Lindsay Graff of Ft. Lauderdale and Amber Li of Tampa 9-8(5) and win the USTA-FL Spring Sectional Girls 18 Doubles at Plantation, FL. Pensacola's Will Neuner got two big wins in the same tournament as Pfeifler and Pensacola's Retsy Wilson beat two seeds at the USTA Women's 65 National Clay Courts in Houston.

Pfeifler and McGraw beat the #2 seeds 8-6 in the semifinals.

Pfeifler was the #3 seed in the Girls 18 singles and won her first three matches handily to reach the semifinals against #2 seed Julia Jones of Largo. Jones got the best of Pfeifler 6-1,6-3. Pfeifler won the third place play-off against #4 seed Sophia Dzulynsky of Miramar 6-4,4-6,10-5.

Will Neuner played at Plantation in the Boys 18 singles and doubles. He had a tough draw in all his matches losing first round to #5 seed David Kelleher of Hollywood 6-2,6-2. However, in the consolation draw Neuner got two very good wins 6-3,6-1 over Boris Bogomolov and 6-2,0-6,10-4 over Matthew Saiontz both of Miami. Neuner lost a close match 6-3,6-4 to Garrett Betsarakis of St. Petersburg.

Neuner played doubles with Phillip Gordn of Delray Beach and lost their first round match 8-4 to Bogomolov and Blaine Willenborg of Miami Shores.

Retsy Wilson spent the week at the Houston Racquet Club playing in the USTA National Women's 45 Clay Court Championships. Houston is always the largest draw of the national tournaments. After a first round BYE, Wilson topped 9th seeded Olga Stark of Bayside NY 6-4,4-6,7-6(4) in a nearly three hour match. Rain had caused problems on the first day and as a result, Wilson had to face another seed on the second day, #5 Judy Louie of Corona Del Mar, CA. Louie won 6-1,6-1. In the consolation draw, Wilson downed another seed, #9 Brooks Byrd of Davis, CA 6-2,6-3 before dropping her quarterfinal match 6-4,2-2 ret(inj) to Jan Pierson of Baton Rouge, LA.

Wilson teamed with Minneapolis' Cammie Johnson. After a first round BYE, they downed Bambi Schuette and Chris Smith of Houston 6-2,6-0. The duo lost a quarterfinal match to #2 seeds Jane Pang (Honolulu) and Anne Russ (El Cajon, CA) 6-0, 7-5.

Congratulations to all three locals for carrying the local tennis flag well to far flung tourneys!