NorCal's Riffice, Gordon fall in Orange Bowl 18s

   Sam Riffice and Michaela Gordon, both 16-year-old Northern Californians, suffered similar fates on Friday in the Orange Bowl in Plantation, Fla.
   The difference was that Riffice played two singles matches and Gordon one.
   The unseeded Riffice, from Roseville in the Sacramento area, lost to No. 2 Mate Valkusz of Hungary 6-2, 6-2 in the boys 18 quarterfinals of the prestigious clay-court tournament.
   The 12th-seeded Gordon, from Saratoga in the San Francisco Bay Area, fell to No. 7 Evgeniya Leveshova of Russia 6-3, 6-0 in the third round of the girls 18s.
   Leveshova then lost to No. 2 Dalma Galfi, the reigning U.S. Open girls champion from Hungary, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5) in the quarterfinals.
   Two rounds in the boys and girls 18s were played on Friday because of rain early in the week.
   Riffice, last year's 16-and-under champion, had needed nearly three hours to turn back Toru Horie of Japan 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2) on Friday morning. Valkusz, 17, had defeated qualifier Rudolph Molleker of Germany 7-6 (3), 6-3 but has been battling an illness.
   Gordon and 15-year-old Keenan Mayo, Riffice's friend and neighbor in Roseville, reached the doubles semifinals in their respective draws.
   Gordon and Jaqueline Cristian of Romania dispatched Georgia Craciun and Oana Gavrila of Romania 6-3, 6-1 in a matchup of unseeded teams.
   Unseeded Mayo and Trey Hilderbrand of San Antonio eliminated fifth-seeded Juan Ignacio Batalla Diez of Mexico and Sergio Luis Hernandez Ramirez of Colombia 7-6 (3), 6-3 in the 16s.
   Mayo and Hilderbrand had knocked out top-seeded Jonas Eriksson Ziverts and Karl Friberg of Sweden in the second round.