Young, Smyczek to meet for third straight week

Donald Young has won 12 consecutive matches, all in Northern
California Challengers since losing in the second round of the
U.S. Open as a qualifier. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Here we go again.
   Americans Donald Young and Tim Smyczek will meet for the third consecutive week and 12th time overall today in the quarterfinals of the $100,000 First Republic Bank Tiburon Challenger.
   Young, seeded seventh, defeated Peter Gojowczyk of Germany for the second straight week 6-3, 6-1 at the Tiburon Peninsula Club. It was Young's 12th straight victory, all in Northern California Challengers, since he lost in the second round of the U.S. Open as a qualifier.
   Young, a 24-year-old left-hander from Atlanta, seeks a NorCal sweep after winning the Napa and Sacramento Challengers in the past two weeks.
   Smyczek, the second seed, held off Denys Molchanov of Ukraine 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 to improve to 9-2 since becoming the last American man left in the U.S. Open. The 25-year-old Milwaukee native lost 7-5 in the fifth set to Marcel Granollers of Spain in the third round at Flushing Meadows.
   Young leads Smyczek 8-3 in their series, winning 6-3, 6-2 in the Napa semifinals and 7-5, 6-3 in the Sacramento final.

Tim Smyczek improved to 9-2, all in NorCal
Challengers, since falling in the third round
of the U.S. Open as the last American man
remaining. Photo by Paul Bauman

   Smyczek is ranked a career-high No. 91 after cracking the top 100 for the first time last week. Young is No. 103 after climbing to a career-high No. 38 in February last year and plummeting to No. 202 this past February.     
   Both players are undersized. Smyczek is listed at 5-foot-9 (1.75 meters) and Young at 6 feet (1.83 meters), but both appear two or three inches (5.1 or 7.6 centimeters) shorter.
   Tennys Sandgren of Gallatin, Tenn., joined them in the quarterfinals with a 6-1, 7-6 (7) victory over eighth-seeded Bradley Klahn, a former Stanford star from Poway in the San Diego area. Klahn had won their three previous meetings, all in three sets.
   Sandgren will face Canada's Peter Polansky, a 6-4, 7-5 winner over Jarmere Jenkins of College Park, Md. Sandgren and Polansky, both unseeded, have split their two meetings.
   The other quarterfinals were set on Wednesday. Top-seeded Denis Kudla of Boca Raton, Fla., will take on Australian left-hander John-Patrick Smith, and third-seeded Matthew Ebden will play fellow Aussie Benjamin Mitchell, 20.
   Kudla is 1-0 against Smith, prevailing 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-5 in the first round of qualifying in Brisbane on the elite ATP World Tour in January.
   Ebden and Mitchell also have met once, but that was four years ago. Ebden, who's five years older, coasted 6-1, 6-3 in an Australian Futures tournament.
   Following are the Tiburon singles and doubles draws and Friday's schedule:
   http://assets.usta.com/assets/1/15/singles_draw293.PDF
   http://assets.usta.com/assets/1/15/doubles_draw294.PDF
   http://assets.usta.com/assets/1/15/schedule294.PDF