Top 18s Seeds Brown, Zhao Ousted at USTA Winter Nationals; Teens Train in Miami with Murrays

After a relatively calm first two days at the USTA Winter Nationals, both the No. 1  seeds in the 18s division were defeated today in Scottsdale, while the No. 2 girls seed was also sent to the consolation tournament.

Easter Bowl 16s champion Carson Haskins, a 17 seed, defeated top seed Alex Brown 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 in third round action. Both are in the Missouri Valley section and just last month, Brown had defeated Haskins for the third straight time at a sectional tournament. For Haskins, who reached the final of the 16s Winter Nationals last year, it is his second win of 2016 over the ITF Pan American Closed champion.

In girls 18s third round action, top seed and Duke recruit Hannah Zhao was beaten by unseeded Mary Profit in another all-section battle, this one between Southern Californians. Profit defeated Zhao 6-4, 6-4, and as Bobby Knight pointed out in his College Tennis Today post about the Winter Nationals, that result was a Universal Tennis Rating upset.  No. 2 seed Samantha Martinelli was beaten by unseeded Vivian Glozman 6-1, 6-1, so, with No. 3 seed Janice Shin's loss on Wednesday, No. 4 seed Elysia Bolton is now the highest seed remaining in the girls 18s.

The top seeds in the 16s advanced to the fourth round, with boys No. 1 seed Brandon Nakishima and No. 2 seed Cannon Kingsley posting straight-sets wins. The top 4 seeds in the girls 16s, including No. 1 Angelica Blake and No. 2 Briana Crowley, also advanced in straight sets.

Complete draws can be found at the TennisLink site.

The 12s and 14s divisions in Tucson will play their quarterfinals on Friday, and all four No. 1 seeds are still at the top of the draws.

The only unseeded boy in the quarterfinals is Noah Gampel in the 14s; there are no unseeded girls in either the 12s or 14s.

Katja Wiersholm, a 17 seed, defeated No. 2 seed Ava Catanzarite 6-1, 6-4 in the girls 14s today; Wiersholm had played the 12s division at the Junior Orange Bowl last week.

How the Top 8 seeds have fared:

B12s
1. Jackson Armistead
2. Cooper Williams
3. Lucas Brown
4. Phillip Dell out 3rd rd
5. Jelani Sarr out 3rd rd
6. Cole Stelse
7. Learner Tien
8. Will Mayew

B14s
1. Maxwell McKennon
2. Aryan Chaudhary
3. Matthew Robinson
4. Alex Lin out 4th rd
5. Peter Murphy
6. Sam Feldman out 2nd rd
7. Filipe Costa
8. Baylor Sai out 1st rd

B16s:
1. Brandon Nakashima
2. Cannon Kingsley
3. Andrew Dale out 1st rd
4. Robert Cash out 3rd rd
5. Siem Woldeab
6. Ryder Jackson
7. Jacob Bullard out 3rd rd
8. Nathan Han

B18s:
1. Alexander Brown out 3rd rd
2. Richard Ciamarra
3. Mason Beiler
4. Maxwell Freeman
5. Christian Alshon out 1st rd
6. Ryan Seggerman
7. Robert Maciag
8. Matthew Lord

G12s
1. Vivian Ovrootsky
2. Matilyn Wang
3. Tsehay Driscoll
4. Meera Jesudason out 4th rd
5. Gracie Epps out 1st rd
6. Liv Hovde
7. Phoebe Peus out 4th rd
8. Stephanie Yakoff

G14s
1. Gianna Pielet
2. Ava Catanzarite out 4th rd
3. Muskan Mahajan out 1st rd
4. Kylie Collins
5. Jenna DeFalco
6. Neha Velaga out 4th rd
7. Jennifer Kida
8. India Houghton out 3rd rd

G16s
1. Angelica Blake
2. Briana Crowley
3. Sedona Gallagher
4. Dasha Kourkina
5. Lauren Stein out 1st rd
6. Ashley Yeah out 3rd rd
7. Niluka Madurawe
8. Jayci Goldsmith

G18s
1. Hannah Zhao out 3rd rd
2. Samantha Martinelli out 3rd rd
3. Janice Shin out 2nd rd
4. Elysia Bolton
5. Anika Yarlagadda
6. Abigail Forbes
7. Sara Choy
8. Chelsea Kung

As I was working my way through my neglected RSS feeds, I ran across this article from Scotland's The Herald about two Scottish juniors, 16-year-olds Aidan McHugh and Ewen Lumsden, who trained in Florida this month with Jamie Murray and former Virginia star Dom Inglot.  They also got an opportunity to interact with Andy Murray at one of his training sessions on Key Biscayne and share lunch with the World No. 1 at his Miami apartment.