Both 17-year-old Eleana Yu and 20-year-old Peyton Stearns — both coached by Roland Lutz of Hamilton’s Riverside Athletic Club — were knocked out in their opening rounds. But, Lutz said, both women played strong and picked up important experience at this stage of their careers.
“The trip was good! It was fun, it was exciting, [and] the girls played well,” Lutz said. “We didn’t bring home a win, but I think they both had really good experiences and enjoyed their time there.”
Stearns managed to pick up a set win in a tight 4-6, 6-4, 5-7 match against the tournament’s #28 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, a player with years of experience on the pro tour. Lutz said Stearns played great and suspected the match would be tight.
“With Peyton’s game, and her power, it was a pretty good matchup, and obviously the score indicated that,” Lutz said.
Lutz said simple experience can be the factor that causes key points to swing one way or the other.
“I don’t know that she really did anything wrong,” Lutz said. “I mean, obviously she came up short, but at the end of the day, it was one of those that could have gone either way.”
At the top of the game, Lutz said, the margins are “razor thin,” from the top-20 to as deep as the top-200, all the players are extremely talented. Sometimes, it’s just about being comfortable when the pressure is amped up when the match is most tense.
“It’s [about] being able to do it day-out and day-in and winning those tight matches. I think some of that comes with just confidence, and some of that comes with experience,” Lutz said.
For Yu, who lost her first round match in straight sets to the #29 seed Alison Riske-Amritraj, another player with years of pro-level experience, Lutz said the match could have been much closer with a couple different points going differently.
Yu got the second set to 5-4, with her opponent on serve to close out the match. At love-love, the two hit a 30 ball rally that Lutz described as the best point of the match.
Yu lost the rally, but had she won it, it could have put a different complexion on the rest of the game, Lutz said. Serving it out is tough, players can tighten up. Mentally, it’s easy to hesitate.
That experience, Lutz said, can help players grind out wins in the future.
“In both cases, they’re disappointed, right? They wanted to do better than they did. And, I think in both cases they feel like they can play [better], now that they’ve been there,” Lutz said.
Lutz said both players now are embarking on different aspects of their careers. Stearns is now a full-time pro after leaving college and will be mainly based out of Florida and training with a traveling coach who can get to all her tournaments.
Yu, on the other hand, is considering college, of which Lutz said she has her options.
But, for each, Lutz said they’re both “even more motivated to work harder and do better and get back to that stage.”
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