Yesterday we reported on 69-year-old Gail Falkenberg, who won a round of qualifying at the $25K event in Pelham, Alabama. Today, Falkenberg came up against much stiffer competition in the form of former world No. 94 Taylor Townsend in the next round.
Townsend snagged the 6-0, 6-0 victory to advance. See the drawsheet here.
Tennis.com’s Kamakshi Tandon came up with some numbers on Falkenberg. Here’s some of the details:
Townsend won, 6-0, 6-0, in 36 minutes, not a surprising score given her opponent's record. According to ITF records, Falkenberg played a few professional events in the 1980s and then began a stop-and-start comeback in the mid-nineties. Prior to this tournament, she had not won a match since 1997 and was 0-64 since her most recent return in 2011.
Falkenberg finally snapped her losing streak in the tournament in Alabama. In the first round of qualifying, she defeated 22-year-old Rosalyn Small, who is 0-25 in ITF events.
And here are some of the highlights (see more highlights on Coopersmith's Facebook page). Clearly, wins have been hard to come by for Falkenberg, but we love the fact that she is getting out there and trying to ruffle the feathers of players on the Challenger circuit.
According to sources, Falkenberg won a total of 12 points in the match.