French Junior Champion Masarova Beats Jankovic in WTA Debut; USTA Clay Court Championships Begin Sunday; Quarterfinals Set in Stockton Challenger; US Takes on Croatia in Davis Cup

Rebeka Masarova of Switzerland received a wild card into the main draw of the WTA Gstaad event in her home country after winning the French Open girls singles title last month. Bad weather delayed her debut against No. 2 seed and former WTA No. 1 Jelena Jankovic of Serbia until today. The 16-year-old started slowly, but after losing the first set 6-1, she won the final two sets 6-4, 6-2 to earn a Top 30 win in her first WTA level match.  Masarova, who lost in the third round at last week's Wimbledon Junior Championships, will play Anett Kontaveit of Estonia in the second round, with the tournament still way behind due to rain.

For more on Masarova's win, with quotes from her, see the WTA website.

The USTA Clay Court Championships begin Sunday at their usual locations around the country.  After a hiatus last year due to a conflict with Wimbledon, I'll be back at the Girls 18s site in Memphis to provide daily coverage. Below are the top 8 seeds in the various age divisions, with the girls 16s and the girls 12s seeds not yet published.  Click on the age division to go to the TennisLink page, where some of the draws have already been posted.

Girls 12s
1. Nikki Yanez
2. Robin Montgomery
3. Sonya Macavei
4. Daniella Benabraham
5. Isabella Kouzmanov
6. Katja Wiersholm
7. Maria Drobotova
8. Filippa Bruu-Syversen

Boys 12s
1. Evan Wen
2. Samir Banerjee
3. Jack Anthrop
4. Phillip Deaton
5. Alexander Chang
6. Victor Lilov
7. Phillip Dell
8. Jackson Armistead

Girls 14s
1. Mae Fmar Canete
2. Fiona Crawley
3. Rachel Arbitman
4. Gianna Pielet
5. Maryam Ahman
6. Charlotte Owensby
7. Emma Jackson
8. AnneMarie Hiser

Boys 14s
1. Spencer Whitaker
2. Spencer Brachman
3. Alex Lee
4. Stefan Leustian
5. JC Roddick
6. Alexander Kiefer
7. Faris Khan
8. Jameson Corsillo

Girls 16s
1. Nicole Mossmer
2. Angelica Blake
3. Katie Volynets
4. Rachel Eason
5. Amber O'Dell
6. Cali Jankowski
7. Briana Crowley
8. Hailey Baptiste

Boys 16s
1. Carson Haskins
2. Kevin Zhu
3. Adam Neff
4. Axel Nefve
5. Jared Pratt
6. Govind Nanda
7. Lukas Greif
8. Cannon Kingsley

Girls 18s
1. Janice Shin
2. Samantha Martinelli
3. Meible Chi
4. Ann Li
5. Abigail Chiu
5. Cameron Corse
5. Alyvia Jones
5. Emma Kurtz

Boys 18s
1. Zeke Clark
2. Richard Ciamarra
3. Jacob Brumm
4. William Genesen
5. Adam Ambrozy
6. Sean Sculley
7. Alexandre Rotsaert
8. Chase Wood

The quarterfinals are set at the $50,000 Women's Pro Circuit event in Stockton, with two recent college standouts and 17-year-old CiCi Bellis representing the US in the final eight.  Former UCLA star Robin Anderson defeated Mayo Hibi of Japan 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 and unseeded Jamie Loeb, the 2015 NCAA champion from the University of North Carolina, beat qualifier Jennifer Ellie 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 in today's second round.  Bellis defeated No. 8 seed Sachia Vickery 6-4, 6-0 in a match that took half the time to complete compared to the other two.  Top seed Nicole Gibbs was beaten by Arina Rodionova of Australia, leaving just two seeds in the quarterfinals: No. 3 seed Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium, Loeb's next opponent, and No. 4 seed Urszula Radwanska of Poland.  Catch up with what Bellis has been doing, and her thoughts on attending college, in this article from the San Jose Mercury News.

The tournaments in Winnipeg have been plagued by rain, with two first round matches delayed until today in the $75,000 ATP Challenger. Daniel Nguyen is the only US player to advance to the quarterfinals, although Alex Sarkissian is playing his second round tonight. Should he beat No. 5 seed Go Soeda of Japan, he would play Nguyen in Friday's quarterfinals.

At the $25,000 ITF Women' Pro Circuit event in Winnipeg, qualifiers Francesa Di Lorenzo, Ohio State's rising sophomore and recent Michigan graduate Ronit Yurovsky have made their way to the quarterfinals.  Yurovsky defeated No. 2 seed and WTA 212 Ksenia Lykina of Russia 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 in the first round and beat qualifier Kennedy Shaffer, the rising junior at Georgia 6-2, 6-3 in the second round today.  Di Lorenzo had a 6-1, 6-0 win over Clemson's Marie-Alexandre Leduc of Canada in the first round and defeated qualifier Jessica Failla, the USC rising sophomore, 6-2, 6-1 today. None of the eight remaining players are seeded.

The quarterfinal Davis Cup tie between the United States and Croatia begins Friday in Beaverton, Oregon, with Jack Sock taking on Marin Cilic and John Isner facing Borna Coric in singles. The Bryan brothers are again on the team for doubles on Saturday. The USTA is holding a collegiate training camp in conjunction with the tie, with Virginia's Thai Kwiatkowski and Henrik Wiersholm, Stanford's Tom Fawcett and Georgia Tech's Christopher Eubanks selected to participate.  For more on their experience this week, see this usta.com article.

Bobby Knight has a detailed list of all current and former collegiate players in Davis Cup action this week at College Tennis Today.