Qualifying Begins Saturday at ITF Grade A Abierto Juvenil in Mexico City; Kypson Reaches Semifinals at Niceville Futures; More NLI Signings

Qualifying begins Saturday at the ITF Grade A Abierto Juvenil in Mexico City, the first of four consecutive major ITF Junior Circuit events held on clay.

Eight US boys are in the 64-player qualifying draw, which has four byes.  Two of those byes belong to Americans: No. 2 seed Jaycer Lyeons and No. 4seed Emilio Nava, who reached the finals of the Grade B1 Pan American Closed last month.  The other Americans participating in the boys qualifying are Max Wild[5], Anuj Watane, Trinity Grear[13], Samuel Rubell[15], Alex Bancila and Hayden Postin.

Only 42 girls are entered in the girls qualifying, including three Americans: Shelly Yaloz[2], Megan Polnet[6] and Maia Sung.  As is normally the case in Mexico, most of those attempting to qualify are from the home country.

Three rounds of qualifying will be played over the weekend, with the main draw beginning on Monday. Qualifiers will not play until Tuesday.

At the $15,000 USTA Pro Circuit event in Niceville Florida, 2017 Kalamazoo 18s champion Patrick Kypson has reached his second career Futures semifinal with another marathon victory. After beating Roberto Cid in 2 hours and 55 minutes on Thursday, Kypson took out Wil Spencer in 3 hours and 5 minutes today, earning a 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 win. Kypson's previous Futures semifinal was last year in the same series of tournaments on the Har-Tru courts of the Florida Panhandle.[correction: Kypson also reached a third Futures final this past January in Florida]. He will face unseeded Luis Patino of Mexico in the semifinals.  Patino defeated wild card Christopher Haworth 6-4, 6-3. Top seed Sekou Bangoura won the battle of Florida Gators, with the former Florida star beating freshman Oliver Crawford 7-6(3), 6-0.  Bangoura will play No. 3 seed Fabrizio Ornago of Italy in the semifinals.

Kayla Day, who won the USTA's Australian Open Wild Card Challenger last year was eliminated from the race today at the $80,000 Waco Pro Circuit tournament, losing to Croatia's Ajla Tomljanovic 6-4, 6-2. No. 3 seed Sonya Kenin defeated Danielle Lao 6-4, 6-3 to eliminate Lao from the race and Kenin will play top seed Taylor Townsend. Townsend has dominated in her first three matches, losing only two games total, and today beat No. 5 seed Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia 6-1, 6-0. Kenin and Townsend will probably get into the Australian Open main draw on their own rankings with their performances this week. If they do, current race leader Kristie Ahn will get the wild card.  Kenin and Townsend have also reached the doubles semifinals, with Anastasiya Komardina of Russia and Jessica Pegula, respectively.

At the $75,000 ATP Challenger in Knoxville, unseeded Bradley Klahn and Denis Kudla will play for a place in the final tomorrow after Klahn defeated Ed Corrie of Great Britain 6-3, 7-6(3) and Kudla ousted No. 5 seed Bjorn Fratangelo 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 in today's quarterfinals.  Filip Peliwo of Canada beat No. 3 seed Taylor Fritz 7-6(7), 6-1 and will face No. 2 seed Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland, who beat Tim Smyczek 7-6(1), 6-4.

More Division I early signings were announced today. Below are links to several releases. If there is no country given, the player is from the United States.

Women:
Michigan has signed Alyvia Jones and Anca Craicun of Canada.

Duke has signed Maria Mateas and Hannah Zhao. Zhao will start in January.

Oklahoma has signed Martina Capurro of Argentina, Jasmine Asghar of Great Britain, Laura Rico-Garcia of Colombia, Ivana Corley and Kianah Motosono.  Capurro and Asghar will start in January.

Southern California has signed Salma Ewing.

LSU has signed Ann Li and Luba Vasilyuk. Vasilyuk will start in January.

TCU signs Kate Paulus.

Men:
Texas A&M has signed Austin Abrrat, Alejandro Vedri Asensi of Spain, Guido Marson of Italy, Jack Pulliam and Noah Schachter.

Illinois has signed Lucas Horve and Keenan Mayo.

Oklahoma has signed Max Stewart of Great Britain, Mason Beiler and Matthew Rodriguez.