My Article on Asics Easter Bowl Travel Voucher Initiative; Johnson Beats Top Seed Swan to Join Wolf in Santa Croce G1 Quarterfinals; NCAA Division III Individual Participants Announced

The Asics Easter Bowl gave out $10,000 in travel vouchers to competitors who reached the third round in the ITF Grade B1 last month, a first for an ITF tournament in the US. I spoke with tournament director Lornie Kuhle about his decision to offer these grants and the prospects for continuing it in the future in this article for the Tennis Recruiting Network

At the ITF Grade 1 in Santa Croce, Italy, Taylor Johnson picked up the best win of her ITF junior career, beating top seed Katie Swan of Great Britain 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in the third round.  Johnson, the No. 13 seed, will play No. 7 seed Tatiana Pieri, one of three Italians still in the girls draw, in the quarterfinals Thursday.

JJ Wolf, the No. 3 seed, again had no trouble, beating No. 14 seed Bojan Jankulovski of Macedonia 6-1, 6-2.  Wolf's opponent in the quarterfinal will be unseeded Artem Dubrivnyy of Russia.

Oliver Crawford fell to No. 4 seed Alexei Popyrin of Australia 7-6(9), 6-3, while No. 10 seed Sam Riffice suffered a tough loss. After winning six straight games to go from 5-3 down in the second set to 2-0 up in the third, Riffice served for the match at 5-3 in the third set.  He had three match points, but didn't convert, and unseeded Evan Furness of France is the one advancing, posting a 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(5) victory.

Boys top seed Youssef Hossam of Egypt lost to Tung-lin Wu of Taiwan 6-4, 6-3.

The order of play, live scoring and some live streaming is available at the tournament website.

Two US boys doubles teams have reached with semifinals: Brandon Holt and Vasil Kirkov, the No. 5 seeds, and unseeded Patrick Kypson and Crawford.

The 32-player draws for the Division III NCAA individual championships, held May 26-28 at Kalamazoo College, were announced today.  Kalamazoo College will have one player from each of its teams, Brandon Metzler and Sarah Woods, in the singles field.  Unlike Division I, the seeding is not done now, but will wait for the draw during tournament week.

The women's selections are here, the men's selections are here.

At the $25,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit event in Naples, CiCi Bellis, Kayla Day and Ellie Halbauer joined fellow teens Caroline Dolehide and Sonya Kenin in the second round.  Bellis, the No. 4 seed, blanked Renata Zarazua of Mexico, while Day beat qualifier Mara Schmidt (Purdue) 6-2, 6-2.  Day will play No. 5 seed Gabriela Ce of Brazil in the second round, while Bellis plays Halbauer, who defeated Justyna Jegiolka of Poland 6-1, 7-5.  Halbauer has just returned from a successful trip to Argentina, where she won one $10,000 tournament and made the final of another the past two weeks.