Brooksby, 17, to play in $100K Tiburon qualifying

Jenson Brooksby practices at the Arden Hills Club
& Spa in Sacramento in May, three months before
he won the USTA Boys 18 National Championships
to earn a wild card into the main draw of the U.S. Open.
Photo by Paul Bauman

  Three teenage wild cards from Northern California, including USTA boys 18 national champion Jenson Brooksby, are scheduled to play in Saturday's first round of qualifying in the $100,000 Wells Fargo Tiburon Challenger at the Tiburon Peninsula Club.
   Brooksby, a 17-year-old resident of Carmichael in the Sacramento area, will meet 30-year-old Brazilian Joao Souza, who reached a career-high No. 69 in 2015, on Court 4 at about 4 p.m.
   Brooksby earned an automatic wild card into the main draw of the recent U.S. Open by winning the USTA title in Kalamazoo, Mich. He lost to John Millman of Australia 6-4, 6-2, 6-0 in the first round at Flushing Meadows. Millman later stunned Roger Federer in the fourth round before losing to eventual champion Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the quarterfinals, and Brooksby reached the boys semifinals.
   The 6-foot-4 (1.93-meter) Souza played in the longest singles match in Davis Cup history in 2015, losing to Leonardo Mayer of Argentina 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5), 5-7, 5-7, 15-13 in 6 hours, 42 minutes.
   On Saturday at 10 a.m., Stevie Gould of Corte Madera in the San Francisco Bay Area will play Alejandro Gomez of Colombia, on Center Court and Ryder Jackson of Nicasio in the Bay Area will take on No. 4 seed Jan Choinski of Germany on Court 4.
   Brooksby, Gould and Jackson are high school seniors who have verbally committed to universities. Brooksby is headed to Texas Christian, Gould to Washington and Jackson to USC.
   Also Saturday, top-seeded Liam Broady of Great Britain will meet wild card Florian Lakat, a 23-year-old former Cal star from France, on Center Court not before 1 p.m.
   Broady, a 24-year-old left-hander, reached the final of last year's $100,000 Aptos (Calif.) Challenger as a qualifier and advanced to the quarterfinals there last month. Lakat won last year's Tiburon doubles title with ex-Cal teammate Andre Goransson of Sweden.
   Sebastian Korda, 18, of Bradenton, Fla., will take on No. 2 seed Cem Ilkel of Turkey. Korda, 6-foot-4 (1.93 meters) and only 165 pounds (75 kilograms), won the Australian Open boys title in January, 20 years after his father, Petr, captured the men's title in Melbourne. Sebastian is ranked third in the world among juniors.
   Frederik Nielsen, 35, of Denmark will meet Alexander Sarkissian, 28, of Glendale in the Los Angeles area on Court 4 after the Choinski-Jackson match.
   In 2012, Nielsen and Jonathan Marray of Great Britain became the first wild cards to win the Wimbledon men's doubles title. Nielsen's grandfather Kurt reached the Wimbledon singles final in 1953 and 1955.
   Sarkissian advanced to the 2014 NCAA final as a Pepperdine senior, losing to Marcos Giron of UCLA. Giron, from Thousand Oaks in the Los Angeles region, will play Marc-Andrea Huesler, a 6-foot-5 (1.96-meter) left-hander from Switzerland, on Court 1 at 10 a.m.
   American Mitchell Krueger, a Tiburon quarterfinalist in 2015 and 2016, will face Laurent Lokoli of France on Center Court after the Gould-Gomez encounter.
   Krueger, 24, qualified for a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in 13 attempts in this year's U.S. Open and lost to Roberto Carballes Baena of Spain in the opening round.
   Lokoli made news in last year's French Open when he refused to shake Martin Klizan's hand after losing to the Slovakian 6-4 in the fifth set in the first round. Klizan had celebrated and pointed to his head after a double fault by Lokoli, violating one of tennis' unwritten rules. Lokoli also accused Klizan of faking a leg injury.
   Here are the Tiburon singles qualifying draw and Saturday's schedule. The singles main draw will be conducted Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and play will begin on Monday not before 11:30 a.m. The finals are scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 30, at a time to be determined.