USTA National Rankings: September - #5-1 Girls 12

An interesting fact about Santa Barbara is that in the last year their population decreased by almost 2,000 people, which is strange for such a large city.  We assume that they were all tennis players looking for a hometown with easier competition.  It's tough to be a 12 year old tennis player in Southern California when you have to face Kayla Day on a local level and a player like Ryan Peus who won the Woody Hunt Memorial Tournament, Santa Barbara Junior Tournament and SoCal Jr. Sectionals all in the span of a couple of months.  At the Clay court championships, Ryan advanced to the finals, but came up short in a hard-fought match against the tough Maria Ross.  This past month at the USTA National, Peus advanced to the semi-finals, finishing fourth overall.

Michaela Gordon is another great player from California, who has some awesome accomplishments this season.  In fact, she's played so valiantly that it's tough not to call her "Flash" Gordon.  At this year's USTA National Championships, Michaela finished second in singles and doubles, both of which included quality top-10 wins.  She is also the July National Open champion in the G12 division and champion of her SoCal Sectional Tournament.  One week after sectionals, Ms. Gordon played at the Regional Championships in Sacramento in the G14 division, finishing 3^rd overall.  One of the highlights of Michaela's season is her 19-match win streak in singles, which ran from May 14^th July 9^th.  Two months is a long time when you're a twelve year old.

Even with her superb tournament appearances over the past few months, don't be taken off guard if Kayla turns up the intensity as we head into the fall.  Last year, Kayla had a 16-match win streak that started in September.  Even with the top-level competition that Southern California imposes, Day has been able to win matches consistently.  Kayla is the silver medalist at of the SoCal Junior Sectional, USTA Clay Court Championships and USTA National Doubles Tournament.  That's quite a run in big events and just in case you feel bad about her not taking home a championship, she's the champion of this year's Fullerton Tournament, May US National Open and ESME Pearson Memorial Tournament. So, yeah, Kayla's got plenty of hardware.

Cities that are deemed important to the financial and social systems of the world are called Alpha or Beta world cities and there aren't too many of them.  One such city that holds a lot of power is the capital of Bulgaria, named Sofia.  In the same way, Sofia Kenin is an Alpha-tennis player.  She has a record of 81-16 this year against almost exclusively 14-year-old competition.  Her only same-age event was the G12 Spring Championships, where she dominated with all two-set wins, including five 6-0 sets.  Sofia also has at least five wins at nine separate tournaments in the past year.  When you take on older competition in the major championships of your sport one can be expected to have a tough go, but Kenin played tough at the National Championships and after losing in the second round at the Clay Court Championships won each round for rest of the tournament.  She shows great control and mental toughness, which are strong attributes for a tennis player of any age.

It should be no surprise by now that California is the home of the national points leader.  Bellis is the USTA National Champion and USTA Clay Court Champion of the 2011 season.  Bellis is also this past May's USTA National Open champion, who continued her winning ways.  Since this May, Catherine has played against five top 10 opponents and has cleared the pile with a record of 5-0 against them.  Bellis also found an open schedule slot to take on much older competition in the G16 division at the Spare Time Memorial Excellence Tournament.  All expectations are high for the future of this division and Bellis is a definitive reason why.