My Eddie Herr Preview; Xu Withdraws From Eddie Herr ITF Tournament; ITF Qualifying Begins Saturday

Qualifiers wait to register for the ITF Grade 1 Eddie Herr Tournament

©Colette Lewis--
Bradenton, FL--

The Eddie Herr is a huge tournament, with eight separate 64-player draws. So for my previews for the Tennis Recruiting Network, I split the ITF Grade 1 event from the 12s, 14s, and 16s, with the younger age group article going up today, and the ITF preview coming on Sunday.

The qualifying for the younger age divisions began Wednesday, and the eight qualifiers will be decided on Saturday morning in the Boys and Girls 12s, the Boys and Girls 14s and the Girls 16s.  Due to rain on Wednesday morning, the Boys 16s draw has only reached the round of 32, so their qualifying will extend to Sunday. 

Qualifying for the 18s begins at 9 a.m. on Saturday, with one round, and is completed with two rounds on Sunday.  The 15 US boys in qualifying are: Vincent Lin
Chase Burton
Sami Kirberg
Carter Lin
Gabriel Pilones
Jake Gabay(15)
Gui Gomes
Nikola Samardzic
Alexander Lebedev(5)
Jakub Wojcik
Zachary Bessette
Emil Reinberg(7)
Alan Sweet
Evan Zhu
Emanuel Llamas

The 29 US girls in the qualifying are:
Kylie McKenzie
Jenna Dean
Abigail Desiatnikov
TIffany Davis
Sofia Sewing
Samantha Fine
Jessie Aney
Jessica Livianu
Taylor Russo
Alexandra Sabe
Alexandra Sanford(12)
Nadia Dimovska
Kayla Day
Meghan Kelley
Chiara Lommer
Ally Miller-Krasilnikov
Jessica Golovin
Daniela Moreno-Kaste
Sabrin Faybyshev
Maria Mateas
Ndindi Mwaruka
Roxanne Fine
Amanda Meyer
Christie Cesarini
Julia Eshet
Stephanie Hazell
Abby Altick(8)
Karine Vyrlan
Caroline Turner

The draws and order of play for all Saturday's qualifying matches can be found at the tournament website.  The 18s OOP is a separate document.

World No. 1 Shilin Xu was entered in the Eddie Herr, but she withdrew today, after reaching the semifinal of the women's Asia-Pacific Australian Open Wild Card Play-off.  The 16-year-old, who received a wild card into the tournament, played in Shenzhen China, beat No. 4 seed Miharu Imanishi of Japan in the second round and will face 37-year-old Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand for a place in the final.

Eighteen-year-old Hyeon Chung of Korea has also reached the semifinals of the men's tournament.

At the ITF Grade 1 ITF in Yucatan, the girls final is set, with No. 5 seed Sofya Zhuk of Russia facing No. 7 seed Luisa Stefani of Brazil.  Zhuk took out Grade A Abierto Juvenil champion Dalma Galfi of Hungary 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 and Stefani upset top seed Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-1 in today's semifinals. Top boys seed Andrey Rublev of Russia is into the final, where he will meet the winner of the Taylor Fritz - Mikael Ymer (Sweden) match later tonight.  No. 2 seed Fritz was not originally planning to play this week, but took a wild card after an early singles loss last week in Mexico City.