Fratangelo Reaches French Junior Quarterfinals; Wimbledon Acceptances; Pro Circuit in Hilton Head; Morton to UCLA

Bjorn Fratangelo made his way into the quarterfinals of the French Open junior championships today, with wins in both singles and doubles. Fratangelo beat No. 11 seed Joris De Loore of Belgium 7-6(1), 7-6(8) and will meet No. 4 seed Oliver Golding of Great Britain in the quarterfinals Thursday. Golding beat Marcos Giron of the US 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 in a match that featured 14 service breaks. Golding and Fratangelo met in the third round at the Italian Open two weeks ago, with Fratangelo winning 6-2, 6-0.

Frantangelo and partner Alexios Halebian advanced to the quarterfinals in boys doubles with a 7-6(4), 4-6, 10-7 win over No. 5 seeds Luke Saville of Australia and Joao Pedro Sorgi of Brazil. Mitchell Krueger and Shane Vinsant had advanced to the doubles quarterfinals with a win on Tuesday.

As I mentioned in a tweet earlier today, the boys draw features two qualifiers, two seeds (Golding and Eddie Herr champion Dominic Thiem(14) of Austria), a French wild card Tristan Lamasine, an 18-year-old who has played a total of four ITF junior tournaments, including last year's and this year's French Open.

Vicky Duval lost in the third round to No. 4 seed Natalija Kostic of Serbia 6-4, 4-6, 6-2. Kostic will face No. 5 seed Monica Puig of Puerto Rico in the quarterfinals. Puig, who is one of the subjects of the ITF junior website's coverage of today's action, beat Sofiya Kovalets of Ukraine 4-6, 6-1, 6-1. Unlike the boys final eight, the girls features mostly well-known juniors including 2009 and 2010 French girls finalists Daria Gavrilova(1) of Russia and Ons Jabeur(9) of Tunisia, who play each other, as well as Caroline Garcia(3) of France, who was up a set and 4-1 on Maria Sharapova in the second round of the women's draw this year. Garcia plays 2010 US Open girls finalist Yulia Putintseva of Russia. Anett Kontaveit of Estonia is the only unseeded girl in the quarters; she meets No. 2 seed Irina Khromacheva of Russia for a place in the semifinals.

Duval will not be heading to the grass tournaments just yet however. She and Australian Ashleigh Barty are in the doubles quarterfinals at Roland Garros after a 6-4, 6-4 win over Christina Dinu of Romania and Viktoriya Tomova of Bulgaria. Complete draws are at rolandgarros.com.

Speaking of grass, I don't know how long the Wimbledon junior acceptances have been out, but they can be found here.

As I suspected, there are more US girls entered Wimbledon than entered the French. Americans accepted into the main draw are: Grace Min, Madison Keys, Vicky Duval, Christina Makarova, Krista Hardebeck and Gabrielle Andrews. Stephanie Nauta is in qualifying.

The US boys in the main draw are: Shane Vinsant, Mitchell Krueger, Mac Styslinger, Alexios Halebian and Marcos Giron. No Bjorn Fratangelo (he didn't seem to care for the surface when he played the Philadelphia Grass Courts last year). Dennis Novikov and Connor Farren are in qualifying.

The only Pro Circuit action this week is the $10,000 women's event in Hilton Head. The first round is complete, and juniors Hayley Carter, Catherine Harrison, Jan Abaza and Sherry Li are on to the second round. Carter, who trains at Smith Stearns Academy on Hilton Head, received a special exemption into this week's main draw because she reached the semifinals of last week's $10,000 tournament in Sumter. I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but Brooke Austin reached the final at Sumter, losing to former Florida Gator Alexis (Gordon) King. See the Pro Circuit page at usta.com for the draws and results.



With the tip in the comments from UCLA fan, I've confirmed that Skylar Morton will be joining the Bruins this fall. The recently released women's recruiting class rankings from Tennis Recruiting Network, which has UCLA at No. 3 based on Robin Anderson and Kaitlin Ray's commitments, doesn't reflect this signing.