Glass Court Hosts LPRT at 32nd Turkey Shoot

2024 LPRT Turkey Shoot Recap
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
- Singles: Maria Jose Vargas
- Doubles: Michelle Key & Brenda Laime
Vargas gets back on top with a solid win over her rival Longoria, winning her 11th career title. She's now nearly into the top 10 all-time of tourney wins. Meanwhile, Key & Laime break the strangle hold that Mejia & Herrera have had on the pro doubles circuit with a breakthrough win.
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In the 32s, nothing too surprising. Great all-USA wins by Lotts and York respectively over younger rivals.
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In the 16s:
- Amaya takes out her close rival in the rankings Munoz in two. Amaya has really rebounded as of late; she went three straight seasons without getting past the round of 16, and now has done it 3 times in the last 10 events.
- Herrera holds off Centellas in a tiebreaker that looked like it'd go the other way for a while.
- Laime is stretched but gets past Parrilla in three
- Mendez blasts Salas once again, the second time in a row she's had a dominant win over her long time LPRT rival.
- Key takes a game off of #2 Longoria but runs out of gas in the breaker 11-3.
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In the Quarters
- Vargas has to go three to top the resurgent Amaya.
- Herrera holds serve against Lawrence to move on.
- Laime dominates Mejia and wins 6,5, a surprising result. Laime and Mejia have similar game styles, and as we've pointed out in the past Laime usually comes out of nowhere for deep tourney runs.
- Longoria handled Mendez to move into the semis 4,4
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In the Semis
- Vargas cruised past Herrera 7,8 to move into the final.
- Longoria and Laime had themselves a heck of a battle, with it coming down to a 10-10 tiebreaker with all the drama one would expect. At the end of a brutal 2 hour marathon that featured dozens of side outs in each game, Laime cracked out a serve at 9-9 to earn the match point opportunity but Longoria blasted a cross-court winner to save match point against. As is typical in these close or die situations, referee calls loomed large. At 9-10 down, Longoria looked for an avoidable on a passing shot but didn't get it, even on appeal. Then, Laime got a forehand setup and hit what this observer thought was a simple kill shot; called a skip by the ref and then one-up/one-down from the line judges. This led to a heated discussion, a side-out, and of course the inevitable two-point swing to Longoria's favor to win the match.
In the Finals, Vargas won games 1 and 3 going away, lost game 2 going away.
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Doubles review
Great win from Key and Laime, both excellent doubles players, for taking out both the #1 and #2 seeds in one event.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
- Parrilla took the Women's Open over Ros (who had taken out #1 Munoz in semis)
- Men's Open was taken in an all-Chicago final between winner Thomas carter and Jeremy Dixon