Huntington's Jack Kennedy loses in US Open boys' singles quarterfinals as pro career looms

Jack Kennedy’s run at the U.S. Open ended Thursday when the Huntington teen bowed out in the quarterfinals of the boys’ singles tournament, losing to German Jamie Mackenzie, the No. 2 seed, 6-4, 3-6, 2-6.

“I’m obviously a little bummed to lose,’’ a reflective Kennedy said. “It’s never easy to lose a match, especially in three sets, knowing that you had a chance. But you know, all in all, I’m just super-happy with my junior career and super-happy to leave it all out there, do everything I could have. And just to do it here in New York, in front of friends and family, is a really special feeling.’’

Kennedy, the No. 5 seed, won the first set and led Mackenzie, a hulking, 5-11, 191-pounder against whom he’d played many times in their junior careers, 2-0 in the second set when Mackenzie doffed the baseball cap he was wearing. Exposing his flaming red hair seemed to change the momentum for Mackenzie, who won six of the next seven games to take the second set and then won the first four games of the third set to take control of the match.

“I don’t blame him,’’ Kennedy said of Mackenzie’s hat trick. “I mean, I do some stuff when I’m losing. I’ve got to change something. So I think that’s kind of what his mindset was. I mean, I don’t want to speak for him, but . . . he did something just a little different that maybe made him a little bit more relaxed and, you know, played a little bit better after that.’’

Kennedy briefly got back into the match when he served an ace (one of seven he had in the match) to get on the board at 1-4 in the third set, sparking chants of “Here we go Jack!’’ and “U-S-A!’’ from his family and supporters.

When he crushed a weak second serve from Mackenzie in the next game to break and pull within 2-4, Kennedy waved his arms excitedly, asking the crowd to make noise. A turnaround seemed possible at that point. But Mackenzie recovered to break back and then served out the match, ending Kennedy’s junior career.

“It was everything we had hoped and dreamed for for him,’’ Kennedy’s father, Bryan, said of his son’s junior career. “He’s had so much success . . . getting to be a top junior in the world, not just the country, to be the top tennis recruit, the number one tennis recruit, is just an achievement in itself. But to have the consistency that he’s had I think is just going to set himself up for the pros in such a big way.’’

Kennedy, who already has been playing in pro events on the Challenger tour, has a ranking of No. 394 in the ATP (he was No. 379 at the end of July). He is set to play a slate of Challenger events in the fall before starting college at the University of Virginia in January, so the end of his junior career didn’t really seem like that big a deal in the big picture. His dad viewed it as more like the end of a chapter.

“He’s a pro now,’’ Bryan Kennedy said. “I mean, if this was any other week, that [Thursday’s match against Mackenzie] would have been a pro match. Both of them are playing at the Challenger level, and they’re going to see each other in the pros.

“Going forward, obviously they both will be at school in January [Mackenzie will be attending TCU] and be playing against each other on the collegiate level. So this is just one of the many battles that is part of their entire career.’’

Kennedy’s next match will be a Challenger in San Diego on Sept. 21. Mackenzie is planning on attending the same event. The two could find themselves playing against each other again.

Jack Kennedy is looking forward to being a full-time pro player in the fall.

“I think we’re definitely going to push for the Challengers, play a lot of them using the wild cards that I’m getting with the Junior Accelerator program,’’ he said. “We’re really going to push these last four months of the year, five months, to try to build an ATP ranking and just see how well I can do.’’

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.