Back in his hometown, Jason Ontog knows he can celebrate this morning at the Manker Patten Tennis Club.
One of the players he works with as assistant women's tennis coach at the University of Mississippi can win the women's open singles title in the Tennessee Valley Open Championships. If she doesn't, the winner will be the woman staying in Ontog's and his wife's apartment in Oxford, Miss., while they're in Chattanooga this summer.
It also will be either a Hollands -- or a Holland -- victory.
Top-seeded Dianne Hollands of New Zealand faces No. 2 seed and Ole Miss standout Karen Nijssen from the Netherlands at 9 a.m. for the championship. Hollands won 6-0, 6-3 over Ashley Murdock of Memphis in one semifinal Saturday, and Nijssen defeated Alabama player Paulina Bigos 6-3, 6-3.
Hollands, a 26-year-old former University of Arizona player, returned recently to the United States and begins ITF circuit play this week in Brownsville, Texas.
"I'm actually quite happy with the way I'm playing here. I haven't played in a tournament in two months (in Indonesia)," she said Saturday. "All I wanted was matches -- to get some competition."
This is her first full-time pro effort, she said, and she's got a six-month visa to play the ITF events. She knew Ole Miss women's head coach Mark Beyers, as did Nijssen from Holland, and asked if she could use Oxford as a base while in the United States.
"We've been practicing for a couple of weeks now," she said, noting that she and Nijssen are 1-1 in practice matches against each other. "I think we're both just happy to be competing."
Nijssen and Ole Miss teammate Mimi Renaudin got the best of Hollands and another Lady Rebel in a doubles semifinal Saturday, 7-6(8), 5-7, 10-8.
Earlier, Nijssen said, "I feel good. I like to play on clay, and I just want to play some matches. I wasn't planning on playing any tournaments this summer, but this one came up."
That was at the suggestion of Ontog, a former Chattanooga Christian and University of Tennessee standout who was an UTC women's assistant for a year and Baylor's girls' coach for two years before going to Ole Miss.
He acknowledged that he wanted to see Nijssen do well carrying out things he's shown her in the past year, "but Dianne's a very, very good player and a very nice person. They're both talented players. I just want to see good tennis."
Robbye Poole and Mattias Wellerman can make it an Ole Miss championship sweep if Poole topples top-seeded Julio Peralta in the men's singles final at 10 a.m. and the No. 1 pair wins in doubles at 1:30 p.m. Poole and Wellerman beat Peralta and William Boe-Wigaard 7-5, 6-2 on Saturday.
The second-seeded Poole, who won the TVOC men's crown in 2008 soon after completing his Rebels career, overcame the only other former champion in the open draw, 33-year-old Alabama alumnus Francisco Rodriguez, 6-7(6), 6-0, 6-3.
In the other semifinal, Peralta lost the first two games to fourth-seeded Chattanooga teenager Bo Seal but won 6-2, 6-2. Seal is in the doubles final with partner Ryan Noble from Fayetteville, N.C.
Another Chattanooga teen, Claire Bartlett and Ohio State player Cameron Hubbs from Omaha, Neb., will face Nijssen and Renaudin in the women's doubles final at 12:30. Seeded third, Bartlett and Hubbs outlasted second-seeded Bigos and Murdock 7-5, 4-6, 10-6.
Or login with:
New Account