Saturday, August 30, 1997

Brandon Hawk wins in first round

NEW YORK -- In an atmosphere billed as "the world's toughest tennis," Clyde's Brandon Hawk made a stunning debut Friday with a first-round doubles win in this country's most important tennis tournament -- the U.S. Open.

Hawk and teammate Nathan Overholser of Okemos, Mich., defeated Tom Nijssen of the Netherlands and Marius Barnard of South Africa, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5) in an afternoon match at The National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow.

"We started out down 3-0 and 4-1, but it was just one break," Hawk said Friday. "We held serve to get to 4-2, then broke and held for 4-all. They went up 5-4 and Nathan held to make it 5-all.

"We finally got a break and then I served out the set. We were up 40-15 with two set points, and we lost both of those. Then we won the next two. On the third set point, I hit a serve up the middle and Nathan poached for a winner."

The second set proved to be as closely contested as the first.

"In the second set, there were no breaks of serve," Hawk said. "We got up 3-1 in the tiebreaker and it was 4-2 at the switch. Then we had a real long point, and I had an easy volley at the net and missed it. We were on Court 9, there were a lot of people watching, and everybody gasped for air when I missed that shot.

"Then they won both of their serves to go up 5-4. Nathan held both of his serves to put us back up at 6-5. Then I was returning on match point, and I hit a good return off of a first serve. I followed it in and hit a swinging backhand volley winner to close it out."

Hawk and Overholser will have little time to celebrate their victory as they are scheduled to play the Swedish Davis Cup doubles team of Jonas Bjorkman and Nicklas Kulti today in a second-round match.

Bjorkman recently won the RCA Championships in Indianapolis, defeating Carlos Moya in the final and Pete Sampras in an early round match. Kulti and Bjorkman also reached the doubles final in that tournament.

Kulti was a 1995 French Open doubles finalist and a 1994 U.S Open doubles semifinalist with Magnus Larsson. Bjorkman reached the 1994 French Open doubles finals and Australian Open semifinals with Jan Appell of Sweden.

"They're a very good team -- it will be a tough match for us," Hawk said. "They're definitely one of the top teams in the world. But we practiced with (Patrick) Galbraith and (Wayne) Ferreira, and we played them pretty close.

"But we think we've got a chance. A lot of the players in the locker room were really surprised we won such a close match. They were surprised that we handled the pressure as well as we did."

Hawk and Overholser, a pair of 17-year-olds, qualified for the tournament as a wild-card entry by winning the USTA National Hardcourt Championships three weeks ago in Kalamazoo, Mich.

"It's been a lot of fun up here," Hawk said. "We've been talking to some press and doing some poster shoots for Wilson. It's pretty amazing."

Nijssen was the 1989 French Open mixed doubles champion and the 1991 U.S. Open mixed doubles champion with Manon Bollegraf on each occasion.

Should Hawk's run continue into next week, he could be playing on his birthday which is Sept. 3.