US Open Juniors Third Round, American Collegiate Invitational on Tap for Thursday; Mountford Leaving USTA; All-USA Women's Semifinals Set

©Colette Lewis 2017--
Flushing Meadow NY--

The decision Tuesday to cancel all US Open Junior Championships matches for Wednesday proved to be a wise one, with rain off and on all day and evening preventing completion outdoors of any of the three doubles matches that were on the schedule.

The forecast is for improving weather for Thursday afternoon, and the forecast is good for the weekend, so all the third round singles matches are scheduled for Thursday, as well as the boys doubles quarterfinals and the completion of the girls doubles second round. US boys in the doubles quarterfinals are Trent Bryde (with Duarte Vale of Portugal), Alexandre Rotsaert (with Axel Geller of Argentina) and Alafia Ayeni(with Jakub Paul of Switzerland).  Ann Li and Elysia Bolton have advanced to the the girls doubles quarterfinals, with Sofia Sewing, who is playing with Carson Branstine of Canada, the only other US girl still competing in doubles.

Thursday's third round junior singles matches featuring Americans:

Anastasia Khartionova(RUS) v Katie Volynets
Dalayna Hewitt v Coco Gauff
Paula Arias Manjon(ESP) v Amanda Anisimova[4]
Kelly Chen v Emiliana Arango(COL)
Sofya Lansere(RUS) v Elysia Bolton
George Loffhagen(GBR) v DJ Thomas
Trey Hilderbrand v Sebastian Baez(AR)[10]
Emil Ruusuvuori(FIN) v Sam Riffice
Uisung Park(KOR) v Oliver Crawford[11]

The American Collegiate Invitational begins on Thursday, with Ohio State's Francesca Di Lorenzo and Georgia Tech's Christopher Eubanks the top seeds.  Thursday's matchups:

Francesca Di Lorenzo(Ohio State) v Sara Daavettila(North Carolina)
Ena Shibahara(UCLA) v Brienne Minor(Michigan)
Alexa Graham(North Carolina) v Sydney Campbell(Vanderbilt)
Ingrid Neel(Florida) v Hayley Carter(North Carolina)

Christopher Eubanks(Georgia Tech) v Michael Redlicki(Arkansas)
Brandon Holt(Southern Cal) v William Bushamuka(Kentucky)
Tom Fawcett(Stanford) v Thai Kwiatkowski(Virginia)
Alfredo Perez(Florida) v Alex Rybakov(TCU)

All matches will be played on Courts 4, 5, and 6, and there is no admission charge for all the Thursday day matches.

Bill Mountford at inaugural American Collegiate Invitational

Bill Mountford, the USTA's Director of Junior Tournaments, who also serves as the tournament director of the American Collegiate Invitational, will be leaving the organization for a position at a private club, Chelsea Piers in Connecticut.  Mountford, who has done two separate stints at the USTA, the first as the Director of Tennis at the National Tennis Center. After working for several years at the LTA in London, and then with World Team Tennis,  Mountford rejoined the USTA as a market development specialist and then became director of junior tournaments. Mountford spent the past eight months commuting to the National Campus at Lake Nona Florida, while his family remained in the New York area.  I spoke to Mountford last month in Kalamazoo about many of the issues involving junior tennis for this article for the Tennis Recruiting Network, and I have always appreciated his willingness to answer my questions and seek my opinion on issues of concerning junior tennis in the United States. He will be missed.

The last time four American women were in the semifinals of a major was 1985 at Wimbledon, when Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Zina Garrison and Kathy Rinaldi were in the final four. With Coco Vandeweghe beating WTA No. 1 Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic today and Madison Keys defeating Kaia Kanepi of Estonia tonight, an American woman is guaranteed to win the 2017 US Open singles title. Venus Williams and Sloane Stephens will play in the the first semifinal Thursday evening on Ashe.

Wednesday's match results for Americans:
COCO VANDEWEGHE[20] def. Karolina Pliskova(CZE)[1] 7-6(4), 6-3
MADISON KEYS[15] def. Kaia Kanepi(EST) 6-3, 6-3

Thursday's matches featuring Americans:
SLOANE STEPHENS v VENUS WILLIAMS[9]
COCO VANDEWEGHE[20] v MADISON KEYS[15]