Dowie breaks the ice with first singles title
Israel Dowie finally broke the ice when he won his first ITF U18 junior singles title in Windhoek on Saturday. The rising Namibian junior tennis star had previously reached 10 semi-finals in a row. Although he also lost the ITF J30 singles final to Oluhle Senti of South Africa the previous weekend, he made a […] The post Dowie breaks the ice with first singles title appeared first on The Namibian.
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Israel Dowie finally broke the ice when he won his first ITF U18 junior singles title in Windhoek on Saturday.
The rising Namibian junior tennis star had previously reached 10 semi-finals in a row.
Although he also lost the ITF J30 singles final to Oluhle Senti of South Africa the previous weekend, he made a breakthrough on Saturday with a 6-2, 7-5 victory against second seed Juliusz Stanczyk of Poland.
Dowie, who is only 15 years old, yielded significant height and strength to the more powerful Stanczyk, but maintained great consistency with a reliable serve and solid groundstrokes from the baseline.
He made an early break in the first set to go 5-1 up before winning the set 6-2, and although Stanczyk made a determined comeback in the second going 3-1 ahead, Dowie immediately broke back to draw level at 3-3.
Stanczyk once again broke Dowie’s serve to go 4-3 ahead, but Dowie fought back, levelling at 4-all before going on to win the set 7-5 and his first singles title.
Speaking after the match Dowie, said it was a special victory.
“It’s special to win in Namibia, the place I was born and grew up, so I’m very happy about it,” he said, adding that he was relieved to finally break the semis hoodoo.
“I think when I made the 10 semi-finals in a row, it was like a mental block to make the final, because I wasn’t getting any points for making semi-finals, so it was tough,” he said.
“And then I beat the Norwegian guy in the semis so I thought maybe it’s over now, so its great to finally win it,” he added.
Dowie said it was not that easy.
“It was a tricky match – this court is super fast, so you never know how the ball is going to bounce, and his serving was unbelievable.
“Even if I went 40-15 up in the game, I knew it was not over yet, because he could just serve two big serves and then he would have the game. So I think it was a good match and it’s nice to finally get a title,” he said, adding that his win will give him a significant improvement on the international junior rankings.
“Points wise, I’m going from 616 in the world to 430 in the world, so it’s been a good week. I believe there’s more to come.”
In the semis, Dowie beat seventh seed Mattis Thorsnes of Norway 6-3, 6-4, while Staniczyk beat third seed Senti 6-1, 7-5.
Dowie had earlier beaten fifth seed Tshepang Maisela 6-4, 6-3, while Thorsnes beat top seed Dehan van Deventer of South Africa by default after the South African retired due to injury.
Dowie and his partner, Senti, also reached the doubles final after beating Norwegian pair Thorsnes and Henrik Aaman 2-6, 7-6, 11-9 in a titanic semi-final, but they lost the final 6-4, 6-4 to Brice Baisa of the Philippines and Francisco Sardinha of Portugal.
Catarina Braun of Portugal, meanwhile, won her second girls’ singles title following on her ITF J30 title last weekend.
Braun, who was seeded second, beat sixth seed Pallavi Patel of India 7-5, 6-1, while in the semis, Pallavi defeated top seed South African Milan Swanepoel 7-6, 6-4 and Braun beat seventh seed Zimbabwean Minenhle Moyo 6-0, 6-1.
Swanepoel and Ceressa Jackson of Australia won the girls’ doubles title after beating Mari can Schalkwyk of Namibia and Megan van Vuuren of South Africa 6-3, 6-4.
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