BELLEVILLE – Championships in the eight age groups in both boys and girls competition were decided in the final day of the Tiger Classic junior tennis tournament, held indoors Sunday at the Kings Point tennis club in Belleville.
Play was originally scheduled for the Edwardsville Tennis Center, but was moved to the Kings Point club because of rainy weather and a threat of rain in the Sunday forecast. Rain and storms moved throughout the St. Louis area the entire weekend, playing havoc somewhat with the schedule.
In the third and final round of the boys’ 12-and-under round-robin, it was Jesse Hattrup of Edwardsville defeating Charles Randall of St. Louis 3-6, 6-3, 12-10, and Owen Kizer of St. Louis winning over Chandler Nelson of St. Louis 6-2, 6-3, with Kizer winning the title with a three-match sweep. In the boys’ 14-and-under singles final, top seed Colton Hulme of Edwardsville won over Glen Carbon’s Michael Karibian 6-1, 7-5. In the boys’ 16-and-under semifinals, fourth seed Tomasz Lawrence of St. Louis upset top seed Michael Ji of Chesterfield, Mo. 6-4, 3-6, 10-4, while Omar Taysi of Ballwin, Mo., won over second seed Gaurav Muthusamy of St. Louis 6-2, 6-1. In the final, Lawrence defeated Taysi 6-1, 6-2. In the boys’ 18-and-under final, top seed Andrew Bower of Alton won the title over Evan Potter of O’Fallon 6-3, 7-6 (7-4 in the tiebreak).
In the girls’ 12-and-under singles final, top seed Hadley Allaria of Kirkwood, Mo., won over Ashley Behan of St. Louis 6-3, 6-3, in the 14-and-under final round-robin round, Kashish Motwani of St. Louis defeated Anna Dunn of Chesterfield 6-2, 6-0, while in the 16-and-under semifinals, top seed Laura Finnie of St. Louis won over Emma Tobin of Ballwin 6-1, 6-1, and Suzanna McLellan of St. Louis upset second seed Sophie Bly of St. Louis 6-0, 6-1, with McLellan winning the final over Finnie 6-0, 6-2. In the 18-and-under final, top seed Sophia McLellan of St. Louis defeated second seed Nawal Cheema of O’Fallon, Mo. 6-4, 6-1.
In the final match of the boys 14-and-under doubles round-robin, it was Hattrup and Karibian defeating Kizer and Nelson in a one-set match 8-6, while in the girls’ 18-and-under doubles round robin, in the first round, the McLellan sisters, Sophia and Suzanna, won over Allaria and Behan 8-1, in the second round, the McLellan sisters won over Elisa Nunez and Alicia Kennedy of St. Louis 8-0, and in the final match of the day, the third round saw Allaria and Behan win over Nunez and Kennedy 8-4.
