Qualifiers Advance to Quarterfinals in Three USTA Pro Circuit Events; Potapova Out of Wimbledon Juniors; Hodge Out at Georgia

All three USTA Pro Circuit events this week will still have their No. 1 seeds in action after today's matches, but the No. 2 seeds have all been eliminated, and qualifiers have picked up some big wins.

At the $25,000 Futures in Winston-Salem North Carolina, only two seeds remain: No. 1 seed Austin Krajicek and No. 8 seed Jose Statham of New Zealand, who will play Friday for a place in the semifinals.

Last week's champion Christopher Eubanks, the rising Georgia Tech senior, continued his run with a  7-6(3), 7-5 win over 2012 NCAA finalist Eric Quigley and will meet USC rising sophomore Riley Smith, son of USC coach Peter Smith. Smith, a qualifier who beat No. 4 seed Filip Peliwo of Canada in the first round, took out North Carolina graduate Ronnie Schneider 6-3, 6-2 to reach his first Futures quarterfinal.  Tommy Paul beat No. 5 seed Philip Bester of Canada 6-2, 6-2 and will play Wil Spencer, who advanced via a walkover from qualifier Brandon Holt.  The other quarterfinal will feature last week's finalist Kevin King(Georgia Tech) and qualifier Henry Craig.  Craig beat 2015 NCAA champion Ryan Shane 7-6(3), 6-3 today, with Shane having beaten No. 2 seed Alex Sarkissian, the 2014 NCAA finalist, in two tiebreakers.  It's the 22-year-old Denver graduate's second career Futures quarterfinal.

University of Michigan rising senior Alex Knight earned his first ATP point yesterday at the $15,000 Rochester Futures with a 7-6(4), 6-3 win over No. 4 seed Naoki Nakagawa of Japan, but the 20-year-old qualifier didn't stop there. Today Knight defeated Ohio State recruit John McNally 6-3, 7-6(5) to reach a quarterfinal meeting with top seed Mikael Torpegaard of Denmark, the rising Ohio State senior.

Knight is one of two qualifiers into the quarterfinals in Rochester, with former Indiana standout Samuel Monette of Canada joining him by virtue of a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 win over No. 4 seed Dennis Nevolo.  Monette will face No. 7 seed Alexios Halebian.

NCAA champion Thai Kwiatkowski, seeded fifth, needed over three hours to get by Alex Rybakov, last week's champion in Buffalo, 6-7(5), 7-6(9), 6-2 in yesterday's first round. Today the recent Virginia graduate defeated qualifier Sasha Gozun, a recent South Florida graduate, 6-4, 6-4 to advance to a meeting with No. 3 seed Kaichi Uchida of Japan.

Former Elon star Cameron Silverman advanced to his second straight Futures quarterfinal with a 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-3 win over No. 2 seed Adam El Mihdawy.  Silverman meets No. 8 seed Gonzalo Lama of Chile next.

The only qualifier still remaining at the $25,000 women's tournament in Baton Rouge is former Notre Dame star Quinn Gleason.  The 22-year-old Gleason beat No. 2 seed Olivia Rogowska of Australia in the first round yesterday and today she took out fellow qualifier Raveena Kingsley 6-2, 7-6(8).  Gleason will play No. 6 seed Chanel Simmonds of South Africa next.

Top seed Nicole Gibbs faces last week's Sumter champion Ashley Lahey in one of the top half quarterfinals. In the other, Julia Elbaba plays Vicky Duval.  In the other bottom half quarterfinal, wild card Ashley Kratzer will face last week's Sumter finalist, No. 4 seed Francesca Di Lorenzo.

Yesterday 16-year-old Anastasia Potapova of Russia received a qualifying wild card into Wimbledon and the 2016 Wimbledon girls champion also withdrew from this year's junior championships.  She joins Amanda Anisimova and Bianca Andreescu of Canada as prominent junior girls who have withdrawn since the initial acceptance list was posted.  By not defending her title, Potapova will relinquish her No. 1 ranking.

The Macon Telegraph is reporting that Georgia men's assistant Bo Hodge, who was suspended during an ongoing police investigation into missing drugs, will not return to the team.  The article says the University has posted the assistant coach's position as of this morning. The article makes no mention of the status of women's associate head coach Drake Bernstein, who was also suspended last month for reasons yet to be publicly acknowledged by the school.