Twenty-three Americans Begin Quest for Main Draw in US Open Junior Qualifying Friday; Vickery, Duval Lose in Second Round Actionl

Qualifying for the US Open Junior Championships begins at 10:00 a.m. Friday on the practice courts outside the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

The draws were released this evening, with 11 US boys and 12 US girls hoping to earn one of the eight available spots in the main draw, which begins on Sunday.

The US boys, with status/seedings in parentheses:

Jake DeVine (WC)
Luke Gamble
William Blumberg (WC)
Francis Tiafoe (3)
Reilly Opelka (WC)
Alex Rybakov
Anudeep Kodali
Julian Zlobinsky (14)
Sameer Kumar (WC)
Taylor Fritz (WC)
Henrik Wiersholm

It appears that to fill the draw, players way down the alternate list were accepted into the qualifying, with both Gamble and Kodali, who were ranked 269 and 402 at the time of acceptance, gaining entrance.

The US girls:
Madison Bourguignon (13)
Raveena Kingsley (WC)
Emma Higuchi (WC)
Katrine Steffensen (3)
Nicole Frenkel
Dasha Ivanova
Mira Ruder-Hook
Claire Liu (WC)
Rianna Valdes (14)
Elysse Graci (WC)
Usue Arconada (12)
Hannah King (WC)

It appears Constanza Gorches of Mexico was the last girl accepted into qualifying and her ranking at the time of the acceptance cutoff was 175.

For the draws, see the ITF junior website, or the junior draw page at usopen.org, where the junior schedule appears with all the other matches Friday.

Both Sachia Vickery and Vicky Duval saw their dreams of advancing to a third round match end with Vickery losing to qualifier Julia Glushko of Israel 7-5, 6-3 and Duval falling to veteran Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia 6-2, 6-3.

American women advancing to the third round with wins today were Serena Williams, Christina McHale and Alison Riske. Jack Sock was the only American man to advance, although John Isner had a two-set to love lead over Gael Monfils in a late match tonight.

Kalamazoo doubles champion Paul Oosterbaan and Ronnie Schneider were beaten by Brian Baker and Rajeev Ram 6-0, 6-4, and NCAA champions Jarmere Jenkins and Mac Styslinger lost to No. 14 seeds Michael Llodra and Nicolas Mahut of France 6-3, 6-2.

Wild cards Austin Krajicek and Denis Kudla won their first round doubles match, beating Martin Klizan and Michal Mertinak of Slovakia 6-3, 6-2.

For complete draws, see usopen.org.