Brooksby battles back, will take on Tallahassee top seed

Jenson Brooksby, shown en route to the Orlando (Fla.)
title last week, played his first clay-court match in two
years today. Photo courtesy of USTA

   Jenson Brooksby survived one test.

   An even tougher one looms on Wednesday.

   Brooksby, a 20-year-old resident of Carmichael, Calif., in the Sacramento area, subdued 17-year-old wild card Martin Damm, a 6-foot-6 (198-meter) left-hander from Bradenton, Fla., 6-7 (11), 6-1, 6-2 today in the first round of the $52,080 Tallahassee (Fla.) Tennis Challenger on green clay.

   Brooksby, who won the $52,080 Orlando (Fla.) Open on hardcourts Sunday, played his first clay-court match in two years. He saved five set points and Damm two in the first set of the 2-hour, 30-minute battle.

   Damm was seeking his first Challenger main-draw victory. His Czech father, also named Martin, won the 2006 U.S. Open men's doubles title with Leander Paes of India and peaked at No. 5 in the world in doubles in 2007. 

   Brooksby, ranked a career-high No. 194, is scheduled to face top-seeded Thiago Seyboth Wild, a 21-year-old Brazilian, for the first time on Wednesday at about 1:30 p.m. PDT. All Tallahassee matches are being streamed live.

   Seyboth Wild, ranked No. 124, played only doubles today. He dispatched Tomas Martin Etcheverry of Argentina 6-3, 6-1 in the opening round of singles on Monday.

   Seyboth Wild won the Santiago title on clay early last year as a 19-year-old wild card ranked No. 182, becoming the first ATP Tour champion born in the 2000s and the youngest Brazilian champion in the Open Era (since 1968). He took the 2018 U.S. Open boys singles crown, outlasting Italian sensation Lorenzo Musetti.

   In the opening round of doubles today, third-seeded Matthew Ebden of Australia and Dennis Novikov of San Jose, Calif., beat Peter Polansky and Brayden Schnur of Canada 6-3, 6-3. 

   ATP Tour — Third-seeded Rajeev Ram, a volunteer assistant coach at the University of California, Berkeley from Carmel, Ind., and Joe Salisbury of Great Britain routed Cristian Garin of Chile and Guido Pella of Argentina 6-0, 6-3 in the first round of the Barcelona Open.

   In Belgrade, Serbia, wild cards Ivan Sabanov and Matej Sabanov, 28-year-old twins from Croatia, eliminated third-seeded Ben McLachlan (Cal, 2011-14) of Japan and Raven Klassen of South Africa 6-4, 6-2 in the opening round. 

   WTA Tour — Sharon Fichman of Canada and Giuliana Olmos, a 28-year-old San Francisco Bay Area product who plays for Mexico, topped Belinda Bencic of Switzerland and Sofia Kenin of Pembroke Pines, Fla., 4-6, 6-4 [10-4] in the first round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany.