March Aces; Fritz Advances to Semifinals at ITF Junior Masters in China

Before the quarterfinals begin at the ITF Grade 1 International Spring Championships today in Carson, here's a link to my March Aces at the Tennis Recruiting Network.  My monthly column, which I've been writing for TRN since 2007, now has a new sponsor, Southern California Tennis Academy.  Welcome!

The inaugural ITF Junior Masters is underway in China, with the first round now complete.  Taylor Fritz has advanced to the semifinals, where he'll play No. 2 seed Orlando Luz of Brazil.  Fritz, by the way, is still entered in the Easter Bowl Grade B1 next week at Indian Wells, an undeniably ambitious schedule. The Masters is featuring a live stream of all matches and a live blog, links to which can be found at the ITF tournament page.  First round results are below:

No. 1 Andrey Rublev (RUS) d. Michael Mmoh (USA) 64 75

Duck Hee Lee (KOR) d. Marcelo Zormann (BRA) 63 60

Taylor Fritz (USA) d. Jaume Munar (ESP) 60 63

No. 2 Orlando Luz (BRA) d. Chung Yunseong (KOR) 62 67(6) 75

No. 1 Xu Shilin (CHN) d. Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov (ESP) 63 63

Jil Teichmann (SUI) d. Marketa Vondrousova (CZE) 63 62

Kristina Schmiedlova (SVK) d. Elena Gabriela Ruse (ROU) 61 62

No. 2 Iryna Shymanovich (BLR) d. Jelena Ostapenko (LAT) 61 1-0 ret.