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Thursday, June 23, 2016

Final Round of Wimbledon Qualifying Rained Out; USA Girls Win Maureen Connolly Challenge in Eastbourne; Roehampton Qualifying Starts Friday; Oosterbaan, Dolehide Oust No. 2 Seeds in Tulsa and Baton Rouge

Rain overnight made for soggy courts at Roehampton, the site of the final round of Wimbledon qualifying, and although three matches were in progress when rain again halted play this afternoon, none of the 28 singles matches on Thursday's schedule were completed.   In one of the three matches that did start, all best-of-five men's matches, Bjorn Fratangelo leads Austin Krajicek 6-3, 6-1, 3-3.  Former Texas star Ed Corrie of Great Britain has lost the first two sets in tiebreakers to France's Albano Olivetti.  Friday's schedule is available here.

The annual Grand Slam Nations Cup for junior girls was held in Eastbourne, where the WTA event is taking place, and it too fell victim to bad weather.  Australia ended up winning the event, which is a round robin competition, after today's final day was first started with a shortened scoring format and then abandoned.  The Maureen Connolly Challenge, a competition between the US and Great Britain, was decided in their meeting during this competition, with the US winning 4-2.  The two teams split singles matches, with the US getting wins from Sonya Kenin and Claire Liu, and the US won both doubles matches. The US lost to Australia 4-2, finishing second in the event. Complete, or more accurately, final, results are available here.

The US boys are playing Great Britain in the LTA Junior Challenge Trophy in Nottingham, with the USA taking 7 of 8 matches today. Today's results:


John McNally(USA) def. Jay Clarke(GBR) 6-4, 6-4
Sam Riffice(USA) def. Alastair Gray(GBR) 7-6(6), 6-4
Ulises Blanch(USA) def. Ryan Storrie(GBR) 6-2, 6-2
JJ Wolf(USA) def. Alexis Canter(GBR) 6-1, 6-3
Ryan Storrie(GBR) def. John McNally(USA) 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(6)
Sam Riffice(USA) def. Alexis Canter(GBR) 6-4, 6-2
Ulises Blanch(USA) def. Jay Clarke(GBR) 7-5, 7-6(6)
JJ Wolf(USA) def. Alastair Gray(GBR) 7-6(3), 6-3

Four more singles matches are scheduled for Friday, but even if Great Britain wins them all, plus the two doubles matches on the schedule, the best they can do is tie.

Qualifying begins tomorrow for the ITF Grade 1 in Roehampton, the only warmup tournament for the Wimbledon Juniors.  Five US juniors are entered in qualifying: Chiara Lommer, Gianni Ross, Trent Bryde, Vasil Kirkov and Oliver Crawford. Only Lommer is on Friday's schedule, with all four US boys seeded and receiving byes into the final round of qualifying. The main draw will not be out until qualifying is complete Saturday, but the list of wild cards is here.


Several interesting results from the Pro Circuit today, with both No. 2 seeds going down in the men's and women's $25,000 events at the hands of qualifiers. Twenty-year-old Paul Oosterbaan, a rising junior at Georgia, earned his first ATP point in Tulsa yesterday with a win over teammate Walker Duncan. Today he defeated Sekou Bangoura, who won last week's $25,000 Futures in Winston-Salem, 7-6(5), 6-4. Oosterbaan's opponent in the quarterfinals is No. 7 seed Adam El Mihdawy.  Top seed Mitchell Krueger will play TCU's Cameron Norrie, No. 3 seed Tennys Sandgren faces recent Tulane graduate and qualifier Dominik Koepfer and Ryan Haviland meets No. 4 seed Michael Mmoh.

In Baton Rouge, Caroline Dolehide continued her impressive results this month, beating second seed Arina Rodionova of Australia 6-2, 6-3. Dolehide, now 15-1 the past four weeks (including qualifying), will play unseeded Jennifer Elie. All four US players are in the bottom half, with Raveena Kingsley taking on No. 4 seed Jamie Loeb in its other quarterfinal.  Last week in the Sumter $25K, CiCi Bellis defeated Valeria Solovyeva of Russia 6-1, 6-3 in the final. They met again today in Baton Rouge, and three and a half hours later, Solovyeva had her revenge 7-6(5), 6-7(1), 6-3.  Solovyeva will play Australia's Olivia Rogowska and top seed Riko Sawayanagi of Japan faces No. 7 seed Francoise Abanda of Canada.

In the $25,000 Futures in Canada, two US men have reached the quarterfinals.  Top seed Jason Jung(Michigan), now playing for Taiwan, will play Alexios Halebian and Raymond Sarmiento(USC) will face former Illinois star Farris Gosea of Great Britain.

A couple of second round matches are yet to finish at the $10,000 Futures in Rochester, but three US players have advanced to the quarterfinals: wild cards Julian Zlobinsky(Texas) and Thai Kwiatkowski(Virginia), and No. 6 seed Nathan Pasha(Georgia). 

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