RANCHO SANTA FE, October 5, 2024 (by Steve Pratt)
With the recent passing of legendary tennis coach Robert Lansdorp, Canadian Katherine Sebov lost a trusted advisor and mentor, but more importantly she lost a great friend.
Unseeded this week at the sixth annual Rancho Santa Fe Open taking place at the Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club, the 25-year-old Sebov upset No. 1-seed and 18-year-old University of Texas freshman Maya Joint, 6-4, 6-4, in Friday’s quarterfinals.
After the match Sebov reflected on the mid-September passing of the iconic Lansdorp, who coached Grand Slam champions and former world No. 1s such as Tracy Austin, Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport and Maria Sharapova.
“I spent a lot of hours with Robert,” said Sebov, who is of Ukranian descent and was born in Toronto. “He came to Toronto to a conference and invited us to train at his place for a month at a time.”
Sebov, who was also taught the game by her mother Oksana Petrovska, said she worked with Lansdorp until she was 18 years old. “I have a lot of credit to give him for where my game is today and the strokes that I have today are all him and for that I am very grateful,” said Sebov, who will take on former UCLA star and two-time Pac-12 Player of the Year Ena Shibahara in the semifinals on Saturday.
“It wasn’t just the strokes, but the mental part of the game too,” Sebov continued. “I’m going to really miss him and found out that he recently passed away so it hasn’t been easy hearing this news.
“I just hope he’s somewhere up there watching me play and that he’s proud of me.”
Sebov said she saw Lansdorp last year and talked to him on the phone two months ago. “I always called him and checked in on him,” she said. “We were quite close.”
In beating Joint, Sebov said: “I think she’s a really good player. She’s what I like to call a ‘feel’ player and tough to play because she’s very adaptable and very smart. So she knows how to beat her opponent. She was tricky and I had to play really good tennis to beat her.”
Ranked No. 288 in the world rankings, Sebov is trying to get her ranking back into the 100s after missing two and a half months off because of wrist injury she suffered at the Australian Open.
“I would love to make it to Australia but I’m kind of at a one step at a time mindset and I have some points I have to defend at the end of this year,” said Sebov, who has won four titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour and has beaten Shibahara the one time they have faced each other. “If Australia doesn’t happen it’s OK. It hasn’t been easy but I’m getting back into it and we’ll see where it goes.”
In the other semifinal, the unseeded 16-year-old Iva Jovic from Torrance will take on No. 5 seeded Lanlana Tararudee of Thailand. Jovic needed just over an hour to beat Gabriela Knutson from the Czech Republic and Tararudee took out No. 2 seed Rebecca Marino from Canada, 6-4, 6-2.
One of Sunday’s doubles finalists was determined as No. 2 Maria Kononova and Maria Kozyreva beat American Madison Sieg and Veronika Miroshnichenko from Russia, 10-1 in a super tiebreaker after splitting sets. Sieg played her college tennis at USC and Miroshnichenko at Loyola Marymount.
In a quarterfinal doubles match, San Diego’s Haley Giavara and Rasheeda McAdoo advanced to a Saturday semifinal as the No. 3 seeded pairing beat Maya Iyengar and Annika Penickova, 10-7 in a super tiebreaker. Giavara-McAdoo take on No. 1 seeded American Carmen Corley and Iryna Shymanovich of Belarus in the first match of the day starting at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
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