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Rhyne Williams

138K views 1K replies 31 participants last post by  kidbourbon 
#1 ·
Has anyone here seen Rhyne play? He's only 16 (born on 3-22-1991) and the 10th ranked junior player in the world.

More impressive than that however, is that Rhyne is in the final of USA F16 Futures this week. :eek:

Hope to see Rhyne continue to get solid results on the pro tour.
 
#2 ·
You beat me by a few minutes. :)

Williams def. Travis Helgeson 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 to win the title.

To put this in perspective, Donald Young didn't win a Futures title until April of this year (17 years, 9 months). Rhyne Williams is 16 years, 4 months. Of course Williams hasn't had Young's junior success.

There were five highly ranked college players in this draw: Stephen Bass (#10), Travis Helgeson (#11), Luke Shields (#13), Todd Paul (#14), and Greg Ouelette (#21). Williams knocked off Bass and Helgeson (and only lost four games to Bass). He also beat the #3 seed, Jose Statham, ranked #644 in the world, and Marcus Fugate, one of the best U.S. juniors from 1988. The highest ranked player in the draw was Victor Estrella, ranked #431.

I saw some extended highlights of Williams from the Easter Bowl final. He has good size, moves well, and has a potent forehand from what I saw. I didn't see much of his serve, but it's reputed to be pretty good. His backhand looked a tad weak, but not too bad. West Nott, a player/coach/writer, gave a description of Williams after watching him at the Easter Bowl. I'll see if I can find it.
 
#3 ·
Wow, he won. :eek:

He might be the youngest guy to win a futures title since del Potro a few years ago. Thanks for the description of Rhyne's game. :yeah:

Edit: I stand corrected, del Potro was 16 years and 7½ months when he won his first futures title.
 
#4 ·
Here's what West Nott had to say about him after the Easter Bowl:

"Rhyne eaked out two big matches deep in the third sets against Lajola and Sundling. I don't know what the future holds for Rhyne, but his game is big. He can definitely hit a winner from any part of the court, especially off the forehand side. His mind is a little fragile at times, but he is quick to get back on the horse and re-align the tracks. He is one shot away from getting to the next level- my biggest concern is his ability to get the backhand crosscourt with the way he hits it. Don't listen to me though because it seems to be working fine with an Easter Bowl title and a finals appearance at Carson. :)

Rhyne is a legimate contender for the Nats at the Zoo and like I said, one shot away from maybe contending for a Junior Grand Slam Title."

Here's a picture:

 
#5 ·
Cool! Good luck to him! Thanks as always for the great info SHB :)
 
#9 ·
I got this from ZooTennis:

The "youngest" superlative is always going to raise expecatations, and thanks to Tim Curry of the USTA and Steve G, of stevegtennis.com, I was able to determine that Williams is the youngest U.S. male to win a Pro Circuit event in the United States. (The records of the circuit date back to 1998). Mario Ancic of Croatia was the youngest male ever when he won an event in Croatia at age 15.

http://tenniskalamazoo.blogspot.com/
 
#11 ·
He's very very young and is having some nice results, that's all that matters at this point. Hopefully it continues and he keeps it up! :yeah:
 
#13 ·
Williams advanced to the QFs at the Junior U.S. Open where he lost to #1 junior Tsung-Hua Yang 3-6, 7-6, 3-6. He blew a 3-1 third set lead. Nevertheless, it was a good showing for him that will hopefully propel him to play at a higher level than he has thus far. Yang called him "a new star for America" after the match.
 
#14 ·
Williams advanced to the QFs at the Junior U.S. Open where he lost to #1 junior Tsung-Hua Yang 3-6, 7-6, 3-6. He blew a 3-1 third set lead. Nevertheless, it was a good showing for him that will hopefully propel him to play at a higher level than he has thus far. Yang called him "a new star for America" after the match.
Cool I didn't know he said that. Were you at the match? I'm not too surprised with the result, as Yang is very good and has been playing very well (made it to the semifinals of a challenger a couple weeks ago), but it's nice to see Rhyne pressure him, especially since he's struggled a bit this year.
 
#16 ·
I have seen him play only on the grainy live feed that they had at the NCAAs a couple months ago. His forehand is really really good. He hits it with a bit of a whiplash motion in a way that reminds me a bit of the way Rios hit his forehand. His backhand is fine, and I actually don't think he gives it quite enough credit. He is constantly running around it when I don't know that he necessarily needs to do that, but who the heck am I? I've actually heard him (or just seen the quote) say in an interview that he is at his best when he is moving his opponent around the court with his forehand...that that's his game.

He's got a big serve and he moves well. He is definitely reluctant to move forward to the net. I would say a little bit too reluctant.

The biggest knock on him -- and I would agree with this -- is that he is a bit streaky. Or at least unable to sustain his best tennis for as long as maybe you would like. I don't know him personally or anything, so I don't know if that is a byproduct of focus or fitness, but I definitely saw it in the final of the NCAAs. He was working Steve Johns over pretty good in the first set, and really appeared to be the better player. And then Johnson worked him over in the last two sets.

Rhyne has got some nice wins under his belt, though. And now that he is a pro, I hope to see him get a bunch more.

Full disclosure: I'm a Tennessee grad. So I'm definitely rooting for him.
 
#17 ·
I saw him in person when Tennessee played Baylor in 2010. He beat Atila Bucko that day 6-3 6-2. I was watching the JP Smith vs Lukacs match at the time.

Rhyne has been having some good results lately. Right now he is playing better than Shabaz,Kosakowski or Sandgren
 
#46 ·
See what I was saying about him having a whiplash motion on the forehand?

I can't think of anybody else offhand that has that kind of exagerrated whiplash action on the forehand. Initially I was thinking Rios, but after watching some clips, Rios' was more of a body whip. A better example is Safin. Safin definitely had that whiplash action on his forehand, though not quite as exagerrated as what you see with Williams.
 
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