The Southern Open Boys & Girls 14 Tournament completed July 1st at the Pelham Racquet Club with 6 days of top-flight junior tennis competition. The best junior players from across America came to Pelham to contest one of the titles on the USTA National Junior Tournament Schedule. Competitors from states as far away as California, Arizona, and New York entered as well as many players from Florida and a strong contingent from the South vied for a Southern Champion title. There were 118 boys in their singles draw and 64 girls played in their singles event. Many of them also played in the doubles draw which featured several hard fought matches as well. The singles draws had a Feed-In-Consolation thru the quarterfinals which meant each player had to lose twice to be eliminated completely from singles competition.

Form held true as the two top seeds in the singles won their draws without losing a set. Ebie Wilson from Mobile continued a successful tournament year by displaying her solid baseline game and winning the event. Boy's top seed Dominic Bermudez from Tucson, Arizona showed great timing by taking the ball on the rise and running his opponents from side to side and leaving them no time to recover.

Winners and final place finishers of each draw were:

Girls Singles

• Champion - Ebie Wilson, Mobile, Alabama
• Finalist - Katie Goepel, Chatham, New Jersey
• 3rd Place - Nicole Gibbs, Cleveland, Ohio
• 4th Place - Brooke Hawthorne, Atlanta, Georgia
• 5th Place - Taylor Crosby, Ponte Vedra, Florida

Boys Singles

• Champion - Dominic Bermudez, Tucson, Arizona
• Finalist - Zachary Weiss, Great Neck, New York
• 3rd Place - Jason Magnes, Short Hills, New Jersey
• 4th Place - Charlie Alvarado, Costa Mesa, California
• 5th Place - William Schumacher, New Orleans, Louisiana

Girls Doubles

• Champions - Charlotte Calhoun, Dallas, Texas & Taylor Vick, Bellaire, Texas
• Finalists - Charlotte Ezratty & Monica Yajima, Both Greenwich, Conneticut

Boys Doubles

• Champions - Eric Kazmierczak, Weston, Florida & Alexander Teppert, Ponte Vedra, Florida
• Finalist - Spencer Newman, Miami, Florida & Danny Riggs, Pompano Beach, Florida

Congratulations to all these fine players on a great tournament! If you wish to see all the results go to http://www.usta.com/ and select the TennisLink tournament search, put in code 703202405 and you will be able to view all the draws completely.