Jovic Among 15 Americans in Roland Garros Junior Acceptances; Wild Cards Clarke and Nguyen Post Upsets at W35 Boca Raton; Six US Junior Boys Competing at M15 in Orange Park; Jovic and Nava Lead USTA's Roland Garros Wild Card Race Heading into Final Week
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photo credit: Armand Khoury via unsplash.com |
Acceptances for the 2025 Roland Garros Junior Championships were announced today, and, as usual, the fields are strong.
WTA 141 Iva Jovic has entered, although she also entered the Australian Open Junior Championships this year, but later withdrew after playing two matches in the women's draw as a wild card. Now leading the USTA's Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge (see below), the 17-year-old could be in a similar position in Paris.
Jovic, No. 5 in the ITF junior rankings, is one of seven Top 10 juniors in the field, which features all of the Top 5: No. 1 Emerson Jones of Australia; No. 2 and Australian Open champion Wakana Sonobe of Japan, who, like Jovic, won a ITF Women's World Tennis Tour W100 title last week; No. 3 Kristina Penickova. the AO girls finalist; No. 4 Jeline Vandromme of Belgium, and Jovic.
The top 10 juniors missing are No. 6 Tyra Grant, No. 8 and US Open girls champion Mika Stojsavljevic of Great Britain, and No. 10 Laura Samson of the Czech Republic.
Other notable absences include, as expected, No. 16 Renata Jamrichova, who won Australia and Wimbledon junior titles last year, and 2024 Roland Garros girls champion, No. 39 Tereza Valentova of the Czech Republic. No. 17 Mimi Xu of Great Britain is also not on the entry list.
American girls who received entry into the main draw are Penickova, Jovic, Annika Penickova, Thea Frodin, Julieta Pareja and Maya Iyengar.
The cutoff for the main draw for the girls was 51. Pietra Rivoli of Brazil, ranked 117, is in the main draw via a regional wild card competition held by the French Tennis Federation; this is the first year the ITF is publishing these wild cards as entrants in the initial acceptance list.
Six more US girls are in qualifying, Leena Friedman, Capucine Jauffret, Kaitlyn Rolls, Ishika Ashar, Ava Rodriguez and Nancy Lee. The cutoff for qualifying was 114. Jahnie Van Zyl of South Africa received a spot in qualifying as a regional representative, which requires a ranking in the top 150 for a region that has no other representation in the draw.
The boys draw is unbelievably strong, with only one of the ITF's Top 43 players not entered: No. 6 Maxim Mrva of the Czech Republic.
There are three boys who received regional entry spots, which require a Top 80 ITF junior ranking: Morocco's Karim Bennani (Africa), Australia's Ty Host (Oceania) and Puerto Rico's Yannik Alvarez( Central America and Caribbean). Pedro Henrique Chabalgoity of Brazil is the boys wild card from the competition sponsored by the French federation. Cruz Hewitt, Lleyton Hewitt's son, missed out on the Oceania wild card by one spot; Host is ranked 51 and Hewitt 52.
With the main draw cutoff 43, Ryan Cozad at 44 is the first player out, with Max Dussault third out and Ronit Karki fourth out. Other American boys in qualifying are Matisse Farzam, Lachlan Gaskell, Gavin Goode, Roshan Santhosh, Nischal Spurling and Michael Antonius.
The qualifying cutoff for the boys was 104. India's Manas Dhamne, who has played only ITF and ATP men's tournaments this year, was accepted into qualifying based on his ATP ranking of 760.
The USTA Pro Circuit has two women's events this week, and with the green clay ATP Challenger Circuit in the US now complete, just one M15 for men.
The M15 in Orange Park Florida features six American junior boys, three receiving wild cards and three receiving entry via the ITF junior reserved program.
Wild cards were given to Keaton Hance, who reached the quarterfinals of last week's M15 in Vero Beach, ITF J300 San Diego champion Jack Satterfield and Maximus Dussault. Satterfield play his first round match today, falling to No. 2 seed Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State) 6-2, 6-3; Dussault lost his opening match to No. 4 seed Cannon Kinglsey 6-3, 6-2. Hance will play the fourth wild card, Matthew Segura, on Wednesday.
Jack Kennedy, Noah Johnston and Benjamin Willwerth are the three US juniors who received junior reserved spots, with their first round matches all scheduled for Wednesday. Kennedy, a quarterfinalist last week in Vero Beach, faces Ryan Fishback(Virginia Tech), Willwerth takes on No. 5 seed Strong Kirchheimer(Northwestern) and Johnston plays qualifier Maxwell Benson(Presbyterian).
Garrett Johns(Duke) is the top seed in Orange Park.
Americans qualifying today are Benson, Ryan Dickerson(Duke, Baylor), Dakotah Bobo(LSU, Southern Miss), Adam Lynch(Barry) and Evan Bynoe.
At the W35 in Boca Raton Florida, wild cards Zaire Clarke and Alexis Nguyen won their opening matches today. The 15-year-old Clarke, who won the ITF J100 last week in Delray Beach and reached the second round of the W50 in Zephyrhills the week before that, defeated No. 2 seed Kayla Day, who was returning to competition for the first time since last October, 7-6(7), 6-3.
The 17-year-old Nguyen, who reached the quarterfinals of the W35 in Charlotte North Carolina last week, defeated WTA 489 Haruna Arakawa 6-2, 6-4. Sixteen-year-old Thea Frodin and 17-year-old Monika Ekstrand received the other wild cards and they will play their first round matches Wednesday.
Despina Papamichail of Greece is the top seed.
Americans qualifying into the main draw today are Emily De Oliveira(Florida), Dasha Ivanova, Rhiann Newborn(Syracuse, Baylor), Brandy Walker(Northern Arizona), Ole Miss recruit Allie Bittner and Salma Ewing(USC, Texas A&M).
Only one of the four first round matches at the W100 in Bonita Springs were completed today, with the others pushed into Wednesday. But the final qualifying round did finish, with Alan Smith(NC State) and Haley Giavara(Cal) the two Americans to reach the main draw.
Iva Jovic, who leads the USTA's Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge after her title Sunday in Charlottesville, is the top seed, with Arina Rodionova of Australia the No. 2 seed.
Jovic plays wild card Caty McNally in the first round; McNally is in third place in the standings, with this the final week, so McNally obviously needs to win that to have any chance of catching Jovic. The two played in the second round in Charlottesville last week, with Jovic winning 6-1, 6-1.
Eighteen-year-old Akasha Urhobo was up a set on Rodionova when their match was suspended for the day.
In addition to McNally, wild cards were given to Tori Osuigwe, who lost today to Elvina Kalieva, Claire Liu and Isabella Barrera Aguirre.
The Roland Garros wild card standings were released today are are shown below.
Women's Standings:
(Player's current ranking in parentheses)
1. Iva Jovic (141) -- 130
2. Julieta Pareja (335) -- 116
3. Caty McNally (287) -- 102
4. Louisa Chirico (151) -- 79
5. Varvara Lepchenko (120) -- 70
Men's Standings:
(Player's current ranking in parentheses)
1. Emilio Nava (132) -- 119
2. Ethan Quinn (119) -- 100
3. Colton Smith (161) -- 63
4. Chris Eubanks (108) -- 50
5. Eliot Spizzirri (125) -- 44