MatchPoint NYC Hosts 2nd Annual QuickStart Tournament

December 14, 2015 | By New York Tennis Magazine Staff

MatchPoint NYC in Brooklyn hosted its second annual QuickStart tournament on Saturday as the club continues to grow its junior development program.

The tournament broke the kids up into an Advanced and Beginner divisions, with round-robin play to determine who would reach the semifinals and finals.

After excellent tennis filled the round-robin stage, the semifinals were set for both the Advanced and Beginner divisions.

Both of the Advanced semifinals would be finished in tiebreakers. Alex Smelyansky knocked off Kiril Libman 7-6 while Ryan Raykin defeated Sean Rosenstein 7-6 to reach the finals. 

Raykin would come out on top in the final, beating Smelyansky 7-3.

In the Beginner division, Joseph Belenky beat Alex Koval 11-7 in one semifinal, while Ivan Televnyy outlasted Chris Dubovici 14-12. Belenky carried his momentum into the finals as he defeated Televnyy 8-6 to win the tournament.

“It was really fun,” said Belenky. “I was so excited to win.”

“It’s nice to see how different it is from practice when we play matches,” said MatchPoint’s Assistant Director of QuickStart Danny Ostrometsky. “The match play is important because you can see how they deal with the nerves. I think the results were somewhat expected for some of them and overall it was really good quality of play.”

The QuickStart programs are something that MatchPoint has emphasized and the growth of it has been evident.

“This is our second annual QuickStart event. We are committed to nurturing these kids and hopefully after QuickStart they will transition into junior development and start competing at a high level,” said MatchPoint’s Marketing Director Larisa Peltin. “Here at MatchPoint we are very family-oriented. We want you to come in and basically feel at home. We encourage kids from a young age to come in and try the sport.

And these tournaments show the parents what the kids have learned and that’s encouraging for a child. It’s one thing to achieve something, but we love to see that they are just excited to play.”

Scenes from the MatchPoint NYC QuickStart tournament (Credit photos to Lee Seidner)

 


New York Tennis Magazine Staff
Oneononedoubles banner art resize
USTA NTC

January/February 2024 Digital Edition