My Wimbledon 14U Recap; Tien Rolls on at Chicago Challenger; All-USA Semifinals in Dallas and Champaign; House Settlement Tennis Roster Limits Set; 2025 NCAA Individual Championships Slated for USTA National Campus

My Tennis Recruiting Network article on this month's 14-and-under tournament at Wimbledon is up today, featuring Americans Jordan Lee and Raya Kotseva, who discussed their experience playing on grass and being a part of the tennis festival that is Wimbledon. I also was able to provide some coverage of the championship matches, with Jana Kovackova of the Czech Republic adding to her already impressive resume, and Takahiro Kawaguchi of Japan putting himself at the forefront of the best 14-year-olds in the world.

The USTA 16s and 18s National Championships begin a week from today in Kalamazoo, with the participation of two-time defending champion Learner Tien(USC) increasingly in doubt.  The 18-year-old wild card from Irvine California won his 28th consecutive match today at the ATP Challenger 75 in Chicago, beating No. 8 seed Seongchan Hong of Korea 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the semifinals. Tien, who is on an eight-match Challenger winning streak after claiming the Bloomfield Hills Challenger at the start of this month, will take on No. 6 seed Yunchaokete Bu of China for a place in the Chicago final. Tien and Bu played in the second round in Bloomfield Hills, with Tien mounting an impressive comeback in his 0-6, 7-5, 6-0 win.  

Tien, now 240 in the ATP live rankings, is the last American still in contention, so he will increase his lead in the USTA Wild Card Challenge. That makes the Kalamazoo US Open wild card less urgent, and his ATP ranking would be the best of any player to compete in Kalamazoo this century. Frances Tiafoe, who won the Kalamazoo 18s title in 2015, was came in at 284 that year.

With Cincinnati Open ATP Masters 1000 qualifying beginning Sunday August 11, the day of the Kalamazoo final, Tien would have to forego one of the four qualifying wild cards he might be offered if he played Kalamazoo. The lure of winning an unprecedented third 18s singles title may not be enough with so many possibilities opening up due to this streak.

The other semifinal at the Chicago Challenger features two former college stars: Great Britain's Jake Fearnley, a recent TCU graduate, and Canada's Gabe Diallo, who left Kentucky in 2022 after his junior year.  Qualifier Fearnley defeated Brandon Holt(USC) 6-3, 6-2 and Diallo, seeded No. 4, beat Mitchell Krueger by the same score.

Tien isn't the only USTA National 18s champion to reach a semifinal this week, with Clervie Ngounoue, the 2023 San Diego champion, reaching the final four at the USTA Pro Circuit W50 in Dallas. Ngounoue, a qualifier, defeated No. 4 seed Manachaya Sawangkaew (Oklahoma State) of Thailand 6-2, 7-5 and will face top seed Kayla Day in the semifinals Saturday. Day beat last week's Evansville W75 champion Sophie Chang 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 in the quarterfinals today. Ngounoue, who received a main draw wild card into the WTA 500 in Washington DC next week, has drawn 2022 NCAA singles champion Peyton Stearns(Texas) in the first round.

Texas A&M rising senior Mary Stoiana, who reached the Evansville final, defeated Catherine Harrison(UCLA) 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-2 to set up a semifinal with another former Bruin, Robin Anderson. Anderson beat Elvina Kalieva 3-6, 6-1, 6-1.

As with the women in Dallas, all the semifinalists at the USTA Pro Circuit men's $25,000 tournament in Champaign are from the United States.

Arizona rising senior Colton Smith defeated top seed Aidan McHugh of Great Britain 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 to advance to the semifinals in Illinois. Smith, a wild card, will play No. 3 seed Cannon Kingsley(Ohio State), who beat Noah Schachter(Texas A&M) 6-3, 6-4. In the bottom half, No. 4 seed Andre Ilagan(Hawaii) will face No. 6 seed Harrison Adams(Texas A&M). Ilagan advanced when qualifier Gavin Young(Michigan) retired trailing 6-4, 3-1; Adams defeated University of Illinois rising junior Kenta Miyoshi of Japan 6-2, 3-6, 6-2.

The qualifying for the ATP and WTA 500s in Washington DC begins Saturday, with all four of the men's qualifying wild cards going to former collegians: Eliot Spizzirri(Texas), Tristan Boyer(Stanford), Thai Kwiatkowski(Virginia) and Andrew Fenty(Michigan).

Two important pieces of news from college tennis today, with the House settlement roster limits for all sports announced today. (This is for the Power 4 conferences, other schools have the option of opting out if they decide not to share revenue with student-athletes according to this Yahoo sports article). Beginning with the 2025 academic year, roster spots are capped at 10 for both men and women. According to this article from cbssports.com, all scholarships can now be divided, which has been the case for men's tennis, who have 4.5 scholarships, but not for women, who currently have eight full scholarships.

"Schools will also have flexibility in sharing scholarships, with all sports now labeled as "equivalency sports," allowing for partial scholarships to be distributed to players in football and basketball. Those sports were previously tabbed as "head-count sports," which required players to be on full scholarship."

As a non-revenue sport, tennis is not at the forefront of the explanations, so it will take more time to understand what the impact these roster limits will have on the sport as schools begin to make their decisions on funding.

The 2025 NCAA singles and doubles championships will be held at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona, according to this tweet from John Parsons. Baylor was announced as the 2024 host some time ago, and they are hosting the 2025 NCAA team championships in May, but the 2025 individual championships in the fall, in their second year of a pilot program, did not have a site until this announcement. It was rumored that Georgia, which will have the 2026 NCAA team championships, was not interested in hosting the individuals and that seems to have been the case.

Fearnley Ousts Top Seed at Chicago Challenger; Ngounoue Among Seven Americans in Dallas W50 Quarterfinals; Six US Quarterfinalists at Champaign $25K; European Championships Move to September; Olympic Draws

The strong field at the ATP Challenger 75 this week in Chicago resulted in Great Britain's Jake Fearnley needing to get through qualifying to earn a place in the main draw. But the recent TCU graduate continues to show he'll contend for Challenger titles all summer, reaching the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 1-6, 7-6(3) win today over top seed Terence Atmane of France.

Fearnley, who won the Nottingham Challenger last month as a qualifier, earned his first ATP Top 100 win, over China's Jerry Shang, in that event. His win today over ATP 118 Atmane, from 2-4, 15-40 down in the third set, is the second best by ranking of his career.

Fearnley will play Brandon Holt(USC) in Friday's quarterfinals, after Holt defeated Marc Polmans of Australian 6-4, 7-6(4) to reach his eighth Challenger quarterfinal of the year.

Wild card Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) lost to No. 3 seed Hugo Grenier of France 6-4, 6-0. 

The three Americans in the Chicago quarterfinals--Learner Tien, Mitchell Krueger and Holt--are by far the fewest on the USTA Pro Circuit this week.

Seven US women have advanced to the quarterfinals at the W50 in Dallas, including Clervie Ngounoue, who turned 18 last week. Ngounoue, who like Fearnley was the top seed in qualifying, defeated No. 7 seed Victoria Hu(Princeton) 7-6(7), 6-4 and will face the only non-American remaining, No. 4 seed Manachaya Sawangkaew(Oklahoma State) of Thailand, who beat wild card Katrina Scott 7-6(6), 6-3.

Sophie Chang and top seed Kayla Day will meet in the other top half quarterfinal, while in the all-US bottom half, Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M) will play Catherine Harrison(UCLA) and Elvina Kalieva will face Robin Anderson(UCLA). None of the four quarterfinalists in the bottom half are seeded.

The men's $25K in Champaign features six American quarterfinalists, including wild card Colton Smith(Arizona) and qualifier Gavin Young(Michigan). Seeded Americans advancing are No. 3 Cannon Kingsley(Ohio State), No. 4 seed Andre Ilagan(Hawaii) and No. 6 Harrison Adams(Texas A&M). The sixth American in the quarterfinals is former Texas A&M star Noah Schachter. Top seed Aidan McHugh of Great Britain, a finalist at last week's $25K in East Lansing, and rising Illinois junior Kenta Miyoshi of Japan, a wild card, are the other two quarterfinalists.

McHugh plays Smith, Kingsley faces Schachter, Young gets Ilagan and Adams plays Miyoshi.

I heard at Wimbledon that the European Championships, usually played in July, have been moved, for all three divisions, to September. I wasn't able to work out why they moved, but the 14s will be in Most Czech Republic the week of September 9th, the 18s ITF J300 Closed will be in Oberpullendorf Austria the week of September 16th, and the 16s will be in Parma Italy, the week of September 23rd.

Usually the points earned from the ITF J300, which had been held for many years in Klosters Switzerland, would count toward the US Open Junior acceptances, but they will not be of any help this year. 

Links to the information on these events can be found at the Tennis Europe site.

The draws for the Paris Olympic tennis events were released this morning. Play begins Saturday at Roland Garros.

Women's singles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12851/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-womens-singles-draw.pdf

Men's singles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12852/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-mens-singles-draw.pdf

Women's doubles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12849/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-womens-doubles-draw.pdf

Men's doubles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12850/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-mens-doubles-draw.pdf

Mixed doubles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12848/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-mixed-doubles-draw.pdf

US Open Wild Card Challenge Standings; Tien Stretches Win Streak to 27; Ngounoue Receives WTA 500 Washington DC Wild Card; Gauff Chosen as Olympic Flag Bearer; Samson Reaches WTA Semifinal in Prague

The USTA provided the latest US Open Wild Card Challenger standings today, with the first week of women's results producing a tie at the top, with three weeks to go.

Maria Mateas(Duke) and Sophie Chang, who both won ITF W75s last week in Granby Canada and Evansville Indiana are leading, with Evansville finalist Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M) in third Both Chang and Stoiana are in this week's W50 in Dallas and have advanced to the second round. Alycia Parks is playing a WTA 125 in Poland on hard courts, so is earning points there by qualifying and reaching the quarterfinals.

Learner Tien(USC) continues to lead the men's standings, with the points from his Bloomfield Hills Challenger victory three weeks ago, with Eiliot Spizzirri(Texas) and Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) in second and third.  

Tien, who won a $15K two weeks ago, which doesn't count in the WC Challenge, defeated qualifier Aidan Mayo 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-3 this afternoon at the ATP Challenger 75 in Chicago to reach Friday's quarterfinals, with Basavareddy playing his second round match against No. 3 seed Hugo Grenier of France Thursday. Tien, who now has won 27 consecutive matches, is up to 249 in the ATP live rankings. Results from the Lexington Kentucky and Lincoln Nebraska Challengers will also count, as will any results from the ATP/WTA 500s next week in Washington DC.

The current standings from the USTA release:

Three weeks remain in the Challenge for both men and women. The current top of the men's and women's standing (player's current ranking in parenthesis)

MEN
1. Learner Tien (258) -- 75
2. Eliot Spizzirri (343) -- 47
3. Nishesh Basavareddy (303) -- 46
4. Stefan Kozlov (365) -- 30

WOMEN
T1. Sophie Chang (260) -- 75
T1. Maria Mateas (206) -- 75
3. Mary Stoiana (463) -- 49
4. Hina Inoue (355) -- 23
5. Jada Robinson (672) -- 19

The men's wild card will go to the American with the highest cumulative total of ATP singles ranking points earned from their best four results over six weeks. The Men's Challenge counts outdoor and indoor hard-court events at the 25-level and above around the world.

The women's wild card will go to the American with the highest cumulative total of WTA singles ranking points earned from their best three results over four weeks. The Women's Challenge counts outdoor and indoor hard-court events at the 35-level and above around the world.

Speaking of the Washington DC Mubadala Citi Open next week, it was announced today that Clervie Ngounoue, the 2023 Wimbledon girls and USTA National 18s champion, would be receiving a main draw wild card, as will 2021 US Open girls champion Robin Montgomery, both of whom are from the DC area.

The wild card release:

The Mubadala Citi DC Open, the fifth largest professional tennis event in the United States and the only combined ATP-WTA 500 level tennis tournament in the world, has announced its main draw wildcards ahead of the highly-anticipated 55th edition of the tournament, July 27 - August 4. The event, which annually takes place in Washington D.C. at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park, has awarded main draw wild cards to World No. 9, 2024 Madrid champion and Olympic Gold medalist Andrey Rublev, 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu, former World No. 2 and 2021 Roland Garros quarterfinalist Paula Badosa, 2021 Wimbledon semifinalist and 2022 Australian Open quarterfinalist Denis Shapovalov, four-time ATP champion Reilly Opelka and Washington, D.C. natives and teenagers Robin Montgomery and Clervie Ngounoue. Two additional ATP main draw wild cards will be announced at a later date.

Montgomery, 19, is an alumnus of the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park, Maryland. She currently sits at a career-high WTA Ranking of No. 133. Montgomery concluded her junior career in 2021 by sweeping the US Open girls' singles and doubles titles. This year, she reached the third round in Madrid and took a set off World No. 3 Aryna Sabalenka, recorded her first WTA quarterfinal in ’s-Hertogenbosch and advanced through the qualifying draw at Wimbledon before winning her maiden Grand Slam main draw singles match at the professional level.

Ngounoue, 18, grew up playing on the courts at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center. She made her WTA debut last year in DC and defeated top seed Anna Blinkova in the opening round of qualifying, two weeks after winning the Wimbledon girls' singles title. In the time since, Ngounoue captured her first career ITF singles title, advanced through qualifying at the WTA Tour event in San Diego and teamed with Montgomery to reach the third round in last year's US Open women's doubles draw.

In addition, the men’s and women’s singles qualifying draws will feature recent Wimbledon doubles champion Taylor Townsend, former World No. 9 Roberto Bautista Agut and 2021 Roland Garros quarterfinalist Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. 2019 Roland Garros finalist Amanda Anisimova and Louisa Chirico have accepted qualifying wild cards. Other notable names in the qualifying draws include last year’s DC quarterfinalist J.J. Wolf and D.C. native Hailey Baptiste, who defeated former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova last year at Rock Creek Park.

Ngounoue, who qualified at this week's Dallas W50 and has advanced to the second round, will travel from coast-to-coast next week, with the USTA Nationals starting Sunday August 3 in San Diego.

The Washington DC 500s have good fields considering that the Olympic tennis competition begins this Saturday at Roland Garros and run until Sunday August 4.  For more about the Olympic tennis competition, see these articles from the WTA and the ATP websites.

Americans competing are Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Danielle Collins(Virginia), Emma Navarro(Virginia), Desirae Krawczyk(Arizona State), Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Chris Eubanks(Georgia Tech), Marcos Giron(UCLA), Austin Krajicek(Texas A&M) and Rajeev Ram(Illinois).

The draws will be released on Thursday.

Coco Gauff has been selected by her fellow USA Olympic competitors to be a flag bearer at the opening ceremony, which is Friday in Paris, joining Lebron James in leading the Team USA delegation. For more on Gauff's selection, see this article.

Laura Samson, who was the No. 2 seed, lost in the third round earlier this month at the Wimbledon Junior Championships, but the 16-year-old Czech quickly put that disappointment behind here this week after receiving a wild card into the WTA 250 in Prague. After defeating qualifier Tara Wurth of Croatia 6-0, 6-2 in the first round, the 2024 Roland Garros girls finalist beat No. 2 seed Katerina Siniakova 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 for her first top 50 win. She had not played anyone in the Top 200 before facing Siniakova. Today Samson, No. 3 in the ITF junior rankings, defeated qualifier Oksana Selekhmeteva of Russia 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 to reach the semifinals, where she'll face No. 6 seed Magdalena Frech of Poland. 

See this article from the WTA website for all the "youngest since" milestones Samson has accomplished with this run.

My Wimbledon Junior Championships Recap; USTA National Hard Courts Wild Cards; Qualifying Concludes at USTA Pro Circuit Events in Dallas, Champaign

I hope you had an opportunity to read my daily coverage of the Junior Championships at Wimbledon here, but if you didn't, I've summarized the historic titles for Renata Jamrichova of Slovakia and Nicolai Budkov Kjaer of Norway in this article for the Tennis Recruiting Network. Also featured are American doubles champions Iva Jovic, Tyra Grant and Alex Razeghi, whose titles made it five straight years that the United States has had Wimbledon junior champions.

Those three Americans will be among the contenders at the USTA National Championships next month in San Diego and Kalamazoo, which now have their full 192-player fields, following the selection of the wild cards, listed below.

USTA National Championships Wild Cards

Boys 18s:
Krish Arora
Meecah Bigun
Joseph Oyebog Jr
Jordan Reznik
Evan Sharygin
Abhishek Thorat

Girls 18s:

Ashton Bowers

Alex Ackman

Sydney Jara

Sophie Llewellyn

Anya Murthy

Mia Yamakita

Boys 16s:

Jerrid Gaines Jr.

Keaton Hance

Marcel Latak

Ford McCollum

Navneet Raghuram

Vihaan Reddy

Girls 16s:

Hannah Ayrault

Maria Aytoyan

Chukwumelije Clarke

Zaire Clarke

Ariana Ikwueme

Nicole Okhtenberg

Boys 14s:

Elliott Awomoyi

Diego Custodio

Luke Jones

Daniel Malacek

Girls 14s:

Adelina Iftime

Addyson Munroe

Boys 12s:

Reynold Griffin

Oliver Rottcher

Girls 12s:

Cathryn Chartrand

McClellan Cooley

The USTA Girls Nationals in San Diego put out a press release today on the return of defending champion Clervie Ngounoue this year, who is warming up for the August 4th start date for 18s this week at the USTA Pro Circuit W50 in Dallas.

Ngounoue was the top seed in qualifying and she advanced to the main draw with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Jada Robinson today.  She will face 2015 NCAA singles champion Jamie Loeb(North Carolina) in the first round Wednesday.

Other Americans qualifying are wild card Bridget Stammel(Vanderbilt), wild card Alexis Blokhina(Stanford), Sara Daavettila(North Carolina) and Dalayana Hewitt.

Two of last week's W75 finalists received special exempt entries: Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M) and Kayla Cross. Kari Miller(Michigan) used one of her ITA/ITF Accelerator entries and there were four wild cards awarded: Drew Morris, SMU rising senior; Emma Charney, USC rising junior; Katrina Scott and Kimmi Hance, UCLA rising senior. Only two first round matches were played today at the rare summer event on indoor hard courts, with Scott beating Charney and Robin Anderson(UCLA) defeating Sahaja Yamalapalli(Sam Houston State). Kayla Day is the top seed; the only other junior in the draw is Akasha Urhobo.

At the USTA Pro Circuit men's $25,000 tournament in Champaign Illinois, two of the eight qualifiers are Fighting Illini, giving that program seven of the 32 players in the draw: qualifiers Lucas Horve(recent graduate) and Gabrielius Guzauskas(rising senior), Zeke Clark(assistant coach), wild cards Alex Petrov(recent graduate), William Mroz(rising senior) and Kenta Miyoshi(rising junior) of Japan and Karlis Ozolins(rising senior) of Latvia.

The fourth wild card went to Arizona rising senior Colton Smith, with Rochester $15K champion Alex Bernard(Ohio State) and Rochester finalist Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State) getting special exempt spots. 

Seven of the eight qualifiers are Americans, with Canadian Cleeve Harper(Texas) the exception; in addition to Guzauskas and Horve, US qualifiers are Aidan Kim(Florida, Ohio State), Kyle Kang(Stanford), Connor Bruce(Dayton), Gavin Young(Michigan) and Adhithya Ganesan(Florida). 

Ganesan is the only player competing in Champaign that is expected in Kalamazoo for the tournament's August 2 start.

The first round of the ATP Challenger 75 in Chicago is nearly complete, with lightning delaying the final match between top seed Terence Atmane of France and Micah Braswell(Texas) with Atmane leading 7-6(4), 1-2.

Among those advancing to the second round are qualifiers Jake Fearnley(TCU) of Great Britain and Aidan Mayo, with the latter facing wild card Learner Tien Wednesday; Brandon Holt(USC); wild card Nishesh Basavareddy and 2019 NCAA singles champion Paul Jubb of Great Britain.

Teams for ITF World Junior Tennis 14U Team Championships Announced; Pareja Extends Winning Streak to 15 with ITF J200 Title in Colombia; Hoo, Ahmad, Budacsek Claim ITF Junior Circuit Titles; Tien's Streak Reaches 26 at Chicago Challenger

The teams for the ITF World Junior Tennis 14-and-under Team Championships were announced today, with the United States teams competing in Prostejov in the Czech Republic next month featuring all five of the Americans who played the Wimbledon 14-and-under tournament two weeks ago.

The US boys team consists of Michael Antonius, Jordan Lee and, the one participant who did not play the Wimbledon event, Teodor Davidov. USTA National Coach Sylvain Guichard is the captain. 

The US girls team is Welles Newman, Maggie Sohns and Raya Kotseva, who recently switched her country representation from Bulgaria to the United States. At Wimbledon, I confirmed with Kotseva, who has lived for years in Las Vegas, that she had recently received her green card. USTA National Coach Thierry Champion is the captain.

There are seven countries that have teams for both boys and girls: Argentina, Czech Republic(hosts), Japan, Korea, Great Britain, Morocco and USA, with 25 countries having at least one team. All four of the boys in the Wimbledon 14U semifinals are competing in Prostejov: champion Takahiro Kawaguchi of Japan, finalist Lee, Donjae Kim of Korea and Stan Put of the Netherlands. Two of the girls semifinalists, champion Jana Kovackova of the Czech Republic and Great Britain's Megan Knight are representing their countries, as are several other boys and girls who did not win their round robin groups.

Fifteen-year-old Julieta Pareja won her first ITF Junior Circuit singles title two weeks ago at a J100 in Medellin Colombia and followed that up last week with the title at the J200 in Bogota, both on clay. With her ITF women's W15 title in Rancho Santa Fe in June, Pareja now has a 15-match winning streak, and she has not lost a set in either of her two ITF Junior Circuit championship runs. In Bogota, the ninth-seeded Pareja beat No. 2 seed Christasha McNeil in the final 6-1, 6-1. She is now at 106 in the ITF junior rankings, up 44 spots from last week.

Calvin Baierl, the No. 3 seed, reached the boys singles final, falling to Luis Guto Miguel of Brazil 7-5, 7-5 in the championship match.

Fifteen-year-old Carrie-Ann Hoo won her third, and biggest, ITF Junior Circuit title of her career at the J100 in the Dominican Republic. Hoo, seeded No. 11, defeated No. 7 seed Isabella Marton of Canada 6-2, 7-5 in the final, while also making the doubles final with Brooke Wallman. All three of Hoo's ITF Junior Circuit singles titles have come in 2024.

At the J30 in El Salvador, 14-year-old Izyan (Zizou) Ahmad won his second consecutive singles title, and his third this year. Seeded No. 3, Ahmad defeated the top seed in the semifinals and then unseeded Jeronimo Duque Salazar of Colombia 6-0, 6-1 in the final. Fifteen-year-old Sophia Budacsek swept the girls titles, with the No. 2 seed winning her first singles title with a 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 victory over top seed Carlota Balseiro of Argentina. Budacsek and Balseiro were on the same side of the net for the doubles final, with the top seeds defeating No. 2 seeds Viktoria Monge of Ecuador and Alison Ramirez of Guatemala 6-2, 6-4 for the title. 

The sixth ITF Junior Circuit title of the week came at the J30 in Jamaica, with 16-year-old Taylor Yarnell winning his second doubles title with Jerry Han of Canada. The top seeds defeated unseeded Mac Goldemberg and Hong Kong's Terry Lau 7-5, 6-1 in the final. 

The final round of qualifying and six first round singles matches were played today at the ATP Challenger 75 in Chicago, with attention again focused on 18-year-old wild card Learner Tien and his winning streak. Tien won his 26th consecutive match this evening, beating No. 2 seed Benjamin Bonzi of France 6-4, 6-4. Tien, who didn't face a break point, broke Bonzi serving at 4-5 in each set. At 133 in the ATP rankings, Bonzi represents the best win of Tien's career. He now faces the winner of Tuesday's match between Juan Pablo Ficovich of Argentina and qualifier Aidan Mayo. 

The others who qualified today are: Great Britain's Jake Fearnley(TCU), who missed today's White House visit by the NCAA champion TCU team; Estonia's Mark Lajal; Michael Zheng(Columbia); Tung-Lin Wu of Taiwan and Japan's James Trotter(Ohio State).

Wild cards were given to Tien, Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) and Andrew Fenty(Michigan).

An ATP feature on Tien and his winning streak was published Friday.

Giron Claims First ATP Title, Shnaider and Borges Make it Three Collegiate WTA/ATP Champions Sunday; Jamrichova Falls in WTA Debut; Bernard and Monday Earn USTA Pro Circuit Championships; Mateas Celebrates Birthday with Granby W75 Title

College tennis continues to expand its influence, with three of six champions in the ATP and WTA tournaments going to players who chose Division I tennis to help prepare them for a professional career.

The oldest of the three, 30-year-old Marcos Giron, won his first ATP title, saving a match point in his 6-7(4), 6-3, 7-5 win over 19-year-old Alex Michelsen in the all-Southern California final at the ATP 250 in Newport Rhode Island. Giron, who won the 2014 NCAA singles final as a junior at UCLA, had lost his previous two ATP finals, in San Diego in 2022 and earlier this year in Dallas. Giron, who will reach a new career-high of 38 with the title, is representing the United States at the Olympics late this month in Paris. For more on the final, see this article from the ATP website.

2024 NCAA doubles champions Robert Cash and JJ Tracy(Ohio State), who received a wild card into the tournament, were beaten in the Newport doubles final by No. 6 seeds Andre Goransson(Cal) of Sweden and Sem Verbeek(Pacific) of the Netherlands 6-3, 6-4.

Giron is not playing the ATP 250 this week in Atlanta, which like Newport, is no longer on the ATP calendar after this year, but there are plenty of other Americans in the draw, with Ben Shelton(Florida) the top seed, Frances Tiafoe No. 3 and Brandon Nakashima(Virginia) No. 7 the seeded Americans. Reilly Opelka, a semifinalist at Newport, received a special exemption into the main draw, and Mackie McDonald(UCLA) and Aleks Kovacevic(Illinois) are direct entries. Two-time Kalamazoo champion Zachary Svajda advanced through qualifying, beating Maxim Cressy(UCLA) 4-6, 7-6(2) 6-4 in today's final round, and recent Georgia Tech graduate Andres Martin received a wild card. Opelka plays Kovacevic and McDonald faces Nakashima in the first round.

Back to today's pro finals, 2019 NCAA singles finalist Nuno Borges(Mississippi State) won the first ATP title of his career, with the 27-year-old from Portugal defeating Rafael Nadal 6-3, 6-2 in the final of the ATP 250 in Bastad Sweden. Borges, now a career-high 42 in the ATP rankings, is only the second Portuguese man to claim a title on the ATP Tour. For more on his memorable first title, see this article from the ATP website.

And Diana Shnaider of Russia, who 14 months ago was competing in the NCAA team championships for North Carolina State, earned her third WTA title, on a third different surface, today on the clay the 250 in Budapest Hungary. The top seed, Shnaider defeated Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus 6-4, 6-4 in the final, and will move to a career-high WTA ranking of 23. For more on the final, see this article from the WTA website.

Wimbledon girls champion Renata Jamrichova of Slovakia received a wild card into the WTA 250 in Prague, making her WTA main draw debut today. The 17-year-old left-hander dropped a tight match to No. 5 seed Viktoria Tomova of Bulgaria 7-6(3), 6-3. Unlike her performance throughout the Wimbledon junior tournament, Jamrichova's serve was not an overwhelming advantage, as she had eight double faults today.

Two of the three USTA Pro Circuit titles were won by collegians, with Johannus Monday(Tennessee) of Great Britain winning the title at the $25,000 men's tournament in East Lansing Michigan and Ohio State rising junior Alex Bernard taking the title at the $15,000 tournament in Rochester New York. No. 6 seed Monday defeated top seed Aidan McHugh, also of Great Britain, 6-2, 6-2 for his third ITF men's WTT singles title. The unseeded Bernard defeated Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State), also unseeded, 6-3, 6-1 for his second career Pro Circuit singles title.

Unseeded Sophie Chang won the USTA Pro Circuit W75 in Evansville Indiana, beating unseeded Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M) 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 in today's final. It's the fourth career singles title for the 27-year-old Chang and by far the biggest, with her previous three at the 25 and 15 levels. Stoiana will break into the WTA Top 500 for the first time with her appearance in the final.

Former Duke star Maria Mateas gave herself a welcome 25th birthday present today at the ITF women's World Tennis Tour W75+H tournament in Granby Canada: the biggest title of her career. The top seed, Mateas defeated unseeded 19-year-old Kayla Cross of Canada 6-3, 7-6(3) in just over two hours for her third career ITF WTT women's singles title. Mateas has also assured herself a US Open qualifying spot, with her ranking now up to a career-high of 206 with the cutoff date for entry tomorrow.