USC's Johnson, Sanchez Receive Indian Wells Qualifying Wild Cards; Pepperdine, Notre Dame Take Blue Gray Titles; Cavaliers Qualify for Dallas 50K

Although it hasn't yet been formally announced, two University of Southern California players have been awarded wild cards into the qualifying for the upcoming BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. Senior Maria Sanchez and junior Steve Johnson will have the opportunity to compete among the world's best players when qualifying begins next month. The women's qualifying starts on Monday, March 7; the men's qualifying begins on Tuesday, March 8. There is also a pre-qualifying tournament that begins on March 2. The winner of the men's and women's tournaments will also received a qualifying wild card. For more details, see the tournament website.


At the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic today, the No. 2 seeds in both the men's and women's draws collected the winners' trophies. Pepperdine beat No. 3 seed Auburn 4-0 for the men's title, their second in the 28 years the Blue Gray has been a team tournament. The Waves' Sebastian Fanselow was named tournament MVP. For details, see pepperdinesports.com.


Notre Dame took the women's title with a 4-0 victory over top seeded Virginia. This is the first year that women have competed in the event. Kristy Frilling of the Fighting Irish was named the Most Valuable Player. For more, see the Notre Dame athletic website.

For the draws and results for all three days of competition, see the tournament website. Thanks to Bill Kallenberg for the team championship photos from the event.

I also wanted to pass along a link to the article about the No. 20 Cal men's 5-2 win over No. 5 UCLA in Los Angeles yesterday. With all the surprises this weekend, and the computers doing the team rankings for the first time, Tuesday's new rankings should be very interesting.

Qualifying for the $50,000 Dallas Challenger at T Bar M was completed today, with University of Virginia's Alex Domijan and Jarmere Jenkins reaching the main draw with upsets of the top two seeds. Domijan beat No. 2 seed Gastao Elias of Portugal 6-2, 6-3, and Jenkins defeated top seed Raven Klaasen of South Africa 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Former Oklahoma star Andrei Daescu of Romania also advanced to the main draw, beating former Aggie Brett Joelson.

Both Domijan and Jenkins play their opening round matches on Monday. Jenkins will play Matt Ebden of Australia and Domijan faces No. 4 seed Rainer Schuettler of Germany. Wild card Jack Sock is also on Monday's schedule, playing Rik De Voest of South Africa. There should be live streaming with commentary beginning Monday at frontrowtennis.com. For draws and order of play, see the Pro Circuit page at usta.com.

In the final of the $15,000 Brownsville Futures, No. 4 seed Nicholas Monroe captured the singles title with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win over recent Baylor grad Denes Lukacs, an unseeded wild card. Number three seeds Greg Ouellette and Devin Britton won the doubles title with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over No. 4 seeds Boris Bakalov of Bulgaria and Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia. Ouellette and Britton did not need a match tiebreaker in any of their four victories. For more on today's finals, see this article from The Brownsville Herald.

Tags: college tennis, junior tennis, BNP Paribas Open, Maria Sanchez, Steve Johnson, USC, Blue Gray National Tennis Classic, Pepperdine, Notre Dame, Pro Circuit, Colette Lewis