Friday, June 9, 2017

Riffice falls in French Open boys doubles semis

   Top-seeded Nicola Kuhn of Spain and Zsombor Piros of Hungary beat unseeded Americans Sam Riffice and Gianni Ross 6-4, 6-4 today in the boys doubles semifinals of the French Open in Paris.
   Riffice, who grew up in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville, and Ross had won all three of their previous contests in match tiebreakers. Both are 18 and based at the new USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla.
   Kuhn and Piros will play another unseeded American team, Vasil Kirkov and Danny Thomas, for the title on Saturday. Kirkov and Thomas edged fourth-seeded Jurij Rodionov of Austria and Michael Vrbensky of the Czech Republic 6-3, 2-6 [10-8].
   Riffice has verbally committed to the University of Florida. He advanced to the singles final of $15,000 Futures tournaments on clay in Vero Beach, Fla., in April and Bucharest, Romania, last month to climb to No. 806 in the world.
   In 2014, Riffice joined Grigor Dimitrov as the only players two sweep the boys 16 singles titles in the Eddie Herr International Championships in Bradenton, Fla., and the Orange Bowl in Plantation, Fla. The tournaments are played in consecutive weeks in December.
   Dimitrov, 26, is ranked 13th after reaching a career-high No. 8 in 2014.

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