The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

For the second straight week, Kevin Major Jr has hoisted a championship trophy won in singles at a USTA tennis tournament.

This time, it came at the Delray Fall Prize Money Open at the ProWorld Tennis Academy in Delray Beach, Florida, where he was the No.2 seed.

Major Jr forced top seed Serge Becerra into submission in the second set as he retired as Major Jr was awarded a 6-1, 3-1 victory.

“This one was a lot harder because I was tired from playing so much tennis, but I just had to gut it out,” said Major Jr, who is coming off his 2018 UTR/Reel Tennis Open Circuit 9 Tournament victory at the Frank Veltri Tennis Center in Plantation, Florida, a week ago.

Major Jr, 23, won his opening match 6-3, 6-0 over Caleb Strother, who was “much younger than me, but once his energy level died down, I was able to take control of the rest of the match.”

His next victim was No.11 seed Gabriel Hurtado, whom Major Jr wiped away 6-1, 6-0 before he got his first real test in a rematch against lefty Ricardo Pabon in the quarter-finals, only to prevail with a hard-fought 6-1, 6-3 win.

Major Jr’s semi-final match came the same day that he won over Pabon and he was able to “control the match from start to finish” as he won 6-2, 6-2 over No.6 seed Hillel Rousseau.

That set up the showdown against Becerra.

Major Jr said he thought the match “would be harder because on paper, the guy was better than me,” according to the stats.

“He won the first game in the first set, but I won six straight games and I was pretty confident. In the second set, he again won the first game, but I said I will do the same thing over. I won three games in a row comfortably and I guess he realised that there’s no way he was going to beat me, so he retired.”

With back-to-back titles under his belt, Major Jr said he is confident going into the rest of the season.

“It feels pretty good to have this kind of success pretty early in my professional career,” said Major Jr, who only turned pro this year. “If you told me this six months ago, I would laugh at you because I really didn’t believe in myself.

“But about two months ago when I went to California and saw the competition and how close I was to being where I want to be in tennis, I’m just going to keep going and ride the wave until the tide changes.” Today, Major will return home for a break before he heads off to the Dominican Republic on November 21 to play there for three weeks.

“Hopefully I can do some damage down there,” he said as he looks ahead to stepping up the ladder and playing in two ITF Tournaments.

Major, who is coached by Lawrence Carpio and trains at the LAT Tennis Academy in Boynton Beach, Florida, will then return home to participate in the Bahamas Lawn Tennis Association’s 2018 Giorgio Baldacci National Tennis Tournament and Davis Cup trials at the National Tennis Centre in late December.