The weather got out of the way, finally.
After an approximately 30-minute delay because of wet courts from the day before, rounds of tennis began and ended without interruption on the final day of the United States Tennis Association's Southern 16s Championships at Rebsamen Tennis Center in Little Rock on Friday.
Roberto Ferrer Guimaraes of Lakeland, Tenn., defeated Gabe Avram of Charlotte, N.C., 6-1, 6-3 to win the boys singles championship, and top-seeded Saray Yli-Piipari of Braselton, Ga., returned from a 0-6, 1-5 deficit to defeat Sarah Elizabeth Branicki of Marietta, Ga., 0-6, 7-5, 6-0 in the girls final.
"I knew that [Avram] would be there all day," Guimaraes said. "He's very fast and very well-conditioned. I was prepared to stay there all day, and as long as I dictated the pace and stayed in there and minimized my pace, I thought I would be all right."
Over the 11-day course of the preceding professional Little Rock Open and the Southern 16s, which overlapped last weekend, rain fell every day. There were a total of 18 rain delays.
Tournament director Chip Stearns said the circumstance was new to him.
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"This is the most extreme I've ever had," Stearns said. "We had a rain delay every day since [a week ago] last Tuesday, including the Challenger."
Ninth-seeded Branicki appeared to romp away from Yli-Piipari throughout the first hour of their match, but each of the games was hard-fought. Two in the first set lasted through five deuce points.
"If it would have been love-40 every game, that would have been a lot more discouraging," Yli-Piipari said. "I just knew I had to close out those games."
Set to win with her 6-0, 5-1 lead, Branicki watched things change. Yli-Piipari won the next 12 games.
"She just started to do more, but I'm OK," Branicki said.
Yli-Piipari said she was motivated not to get blown out.
"I really didn't want to end playing bad," she said. "I had the motivation to win a few games and play better, then it just started rolling for me."
Second-seeded Guimaraes dominated the first set in a fashion consistent with the score. Still, Avram, the 13th seed., dug in to control the early stages of the second.
Guimaraes served to win the second set's first game, but Avram won his first serve and held to lead 2-1.
"In the first set, my shots just weren't feeling good," Avram said. "I just wasn't feeling the ball, but I just tried my best."
Guimaraes said Avram, after the first set, was free to take chances.
"He was fighting for the tournament," Guimaraes said. "When you're down, and you have to come back, you don't have that much to lose anymore, so he started going for things, and they were going in. It worked for him."
Guimaraes responded to lead 3-2, after which Avram took an eight-minute medical timeout for pain in his right foot. A trainer diagnosed the source of Avram's discomfort as minor inflammation, and Avrom returned to break Guimaraes' serve and tie the second set, 3-3.
Guimaraes won the final three games and the championship.
"What makes him hard to beat is he doesn't make many simple errors," Avram said. "He makes you work for every point. It's just a battle with him."
Guimaraes said weather at the Southern 16s troubled everyone throughout the week but provided experience with delays that helped him overcome the break for Avram's foot pain.
"That definitely helped," Guimaraes said. "I got in the shade, drinking Powerade and water. It was a nice break for me."
