Second seeded Ronnie Schneider concentrates on powering a backhand in his championship 16's singles match with 4th seeded Luca Corinteli.KALAMAZOO — Deuces were wild for Ronnie Schneider last week, and he walked away with the big prize.
Schneider, seeded No. 2, won the USTA Boys 16 National Championship, defeating Luca Corinteli, the fourth seed from Alexandria, Va., 5-7, 7-6(3), 6-2, Sunday at Kalamazoo College's Stowe Stadium.
Saturday night, Schneider, Bloomington, Ind., and Yale Goldberg, Beachwood, Ohio, won the USTA Boys 16 doubles championship.
Schneider fueled his run to the singles title with three wins on his favorite Stowe Stadium court: Court 2.
But Sunday's match was on Centre Court and included two rain delays totaling 85 minutes.
"I didn't mind the first one (34 minutes)," Schneider said. "Second one, first of all, I was surprised by it. Second of all, I was up 4-0 and I was rolling and I'm like, ‘Oh, man, I just want to get this done. I hope these people don't leave.'
"But I'm glad they stuck around. It ended up being a little tight. He had a break point at 5-2 in the third, and then I just bore down and said I'm going after it, and went after those next two points aggressively."
Ronnie SchneiderSchneider's the first to admit that it looked like David and Goliath out on the court.
Schneider is 5-foot-8, 130 pounds. Corinteli is 6-3, 210.
"He is a big kid," Schneider said. "Standing next to him when we were getting introduced and they took a picture before, I was like, holy crap.
"You could definitely tell on his serve, I know he cracked at least 120, 125 mph (on the radar gun) a pretty good amount of times when he wanted to. His serve's undeniably big. But I had to work through it and I just fought really well."
By winning the singles title, Schneider earned a wild card into the U.S. Open juniors next month.
"I'm not one of those USTA kids and (Corinteli) is, and Nikko (Madregallejo) and Thai (Kwiatkowski) all are gonna get wild cards into the main draw or qualifying no matter what.
"I knew that this whole week I can't leave (my fate) in their hands. I had to take care of it. Even in the final, nothing was guaranteed (if I lost). Now I could not be happier about it. I've never been to the U.S. Open, even to watch. I've never seen the place, so I'm really excited."
There's no such prize for the 16s doubles win, but "Hopefully I can get Yale into the doubles," Schneider said. "He goes a lot with his family.
"It would be awesome if he could play doubles there, as well. I'm just really looking forward to it. I think it's gonna be a great experience."
The first set featured seven service breaks before Corinteli won on his third set point.
There were six in the second set, but Corinteli had two match points that Schneider fought off.
"I thought after the second set, I really had no momentum because I had such a big lead in the second set," said Corinteli, who defeated Schneider the last four times the two played. "I was up a double break, 30-love, thought I was in cruise control again, but all the credit to Ronnie.
"He fought back. He did the best that he could and I thought I got a little bit nervous and pressed a little bit too much at the wrong time instead of keeping the same tactics."
Corinteli said Schneider's confidence was undeniable.
"He's hitting a little bigger, playing pretty confident right now, beating players like Thai and Nikko, and winning without any trouble is something hard to do," Corinteli said. "When somebody has that much confidence, they could beat anybody,
"I'm not sayinng he could beat Federer or anything like that, but when somebody has that much confidence, you believe in yourself that much more and make shots that you normally wouldn't make. Maybe that was a little bit of why he kept fighting and playing like he did because of the confidence he's had the whole week, winning matches pretty easily."
Schneider said being in the Easter Bowl finals in April, even though he lost, helped him on Sunday.
"This is actually my first supernational singles gold ball (for winning the championship)," Schneider said. "Only the second time I've been in the finals.
"(Easter Bowl) really, really, really helped coming into this one. Even though that one didn't go well, I was a little bit more sure of myself going into (Kalamazoo) and definitely playing with the line judges and ball boys throughout the week definitely helped."
Said Corinteli: "Definitely a good summer, the best summer I've ever had. This is the first time I've ever come to a hardcourt national in August and even gotten past the second round. It's always been tough for me.
"I seem to do well in the Clays and I'm pretty tired coming into this event. This is way better than I've ever done, and to win this many matches through the spring and summer is incredible and I try to take all the positives out of it and forget the negatives or learn from the negatives."