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Collin Altamirano is the Runner-Up at the Long Beach Pro Futures Tournament
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Jan. 15, 2017
Tournament Home | Live Scoring
LONG BEACH, Calif. – Three Virginia men’s tennis players are competing this week in the main draws of the Legends Long Beach $25,000 Futures Tournament. Junior Collin Altamirano (Sacramento, Calif.) was the runner-up in the singles tournament.
Altamirano and freshman Carl Soderlund (Stockholm, Sweden) advanced to the singles semifinals where they played one another on Saturday afternoon. Altamirano won in three sets, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to advance to his first career USTA Pro Circuit final. Altamirano fell 7-6 (3), 6-1 to 2014 NCAA Singles champion Marcos Giron in the final. In the first set, Altamirano trailed 5-1, but won five straight games to come back and make it 6-5, including surviving two set points against him at 4-5, before falling 7-3 in the tiebreaker. It was the fifth pro title of Giron’s career.
Altamirano, who was awarded a wild card into the main draw, downed eighth-seeded Dennis Nevolo 7-6(5), 6-4 in the opening round. After play was rained out on Thursday, Altamirano downed both USC sophomore Logan Smith 7-6(4), 6-3 and fourth-seeded Mackenzie McDonald, 6-3, 6-1, on Friday to advance to the semis. McDonald won both the NCAA singles and doubles titles last season while playing for UCLA before turning pro this summer. McDonald was also the singles champion at last week’s LA Futures tournament.
Freshman Carl Soderlund (Stockholm, Sweden), who was the runner-up at LA Futures, is seeded seventh this week at Long Beach. Söderlund downed qualifier Ronnie Schneider, a senior at North Carolina, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 in the first round. Söderlund rallied after Schneider was serving for the match up 5-4 in the second set to advance. On Friday, he dispatched USC freshman Riley Smith, 6-2, 6-2, and top-seeded Tommy Paul, 6-3, 7-5.
Senior J.C. Aragone, whose hometown of Yorba Linda is 30 miles east of Long Beach, earned a spot in the main draw by advancing through qualifying with victories over Joaquin Marquez (6-1, 6-2), Cristobal Rivera (6-1, 7-5) and Lucas Renard (6-3, 6-4). Aragone fell 7-5, 6-2 to McDonald in the first round of the main draw.
Additionally, Aragone and Söderlund partnered to play in the doubles draw, downing fourth-seeded Eduardo Russi and Kaichi Uchida, 6-2, 6-1, in a delayed first-round match on Friday. In Saturday’s quarterfinal, they were eliminated after losing a third-set tiebreaker to Brandon Holt and Riley Smith. Aragone and Söderlund dropped the first set 6-3, but won the second 7-6 (5) to force the tiebreaker.
In other Futures action, redshirt freshman Aswin Lizen (Douglas, Isle of Man) competed in qualifying at the Hammamet Open in Tunisia, but did not make the main draw, falling 6-2, 6-3 to Luca Gelhardt.