ITF Grade B1 Pan American Closed Acceptances; Division III Teams Participate in ITA Grass Court Invitational; Saddlebrook Wins Florida Academy Cup

The acceptances are out for next month's ITF Grade B1 Pan American Closed, the next big ITF tournament in the United States.  The tournament, which has relocated this year from Tulsa Oklahoma to Charlotte North Carolina, begins with qualifying on October 6, with the main draw from October 8-13.

There is only one ITF Top 50 player in the boys field, Trey Hilderbrand, who has begun his freshman year at the University of Central Florida. There are four Top 50 girls in the acceptances: Margaryta Bilokin of Ukraine, Hurricane Tyra Black, Elli Mandlik and Nastasha Subhash.
South American participation, never strong, looks even less than usual this year, and Mexico and Canada, whose best players frequently challenge the top Americans for the titles, have fewer entries than is typical.

Few tennis players ever get the opportunity to compete on grass courts, but dozens of Division III players checked that off their bucket list this past weekend at the third annual ITA Grass Court Invitational at the International Hall of Fame in Newport Rhode Island. Men's teams from Bowdoin, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Trinity(TX) and Washington-St. Louis and women's teams from Emory, Chicago, Carnegie Mellon and Washington & Lee participated in the three-day event.

Flighted play began on Friday in singles and doubles, with the singles finals on Sunday.  Grant Urken of Bowdoin, the NCAA champion this year, won the Michael Stich flight, beating Jack Katzman of CMS 3-6, 6-1, 10-5 in a rematch of the NCAA singles final.  Emory's Daniela Lopez won the Helena Sukova flight, beating teammate Ysabel Gonzalez Rico 6-4, 7-6(8). Below are the finals results from the singles and doubles flights.  Complete coverage, with photos, is available at the ITA website. The Tennis Recruiting Network also provided a look at the Division III participation this year in this article.

Michael Stich Flight
Grant Urken (Bowdoin) def. Jack Katzman (CMS) 3-6, 6-1, 1-0 (5)

Arthur Ashe Flight
Konrad Kozlowski (WashU) def. Radha Vishnubhotla (WahsU) 7-5, 7-6

Helena Sukova Flight
Daniela Lopez (Emory) def. Ysabel Gonzalez-Rico (Emory) 6-4, 7-6 (8)

Virginia Wade Flight
Defne Olcay (Emory) def. Lauren Yoon (Emory) 6-4, 5-7, 1-0 (5)

Seixas/Trabert Flight
Pitts/Lambeth (Trinity) def. Zhao/Wang (Bowdoin) 8-5

Woodbridge/Woodforde Flight
Neves/Vishnubhotla (WashU) def. Patel/Yang (Bowdoin) 8-4

Bueno/Court Flight
Rao/Strome (CMU) def. Wright/Garcia (WLU) 8-5

Navratilova/Shriver Flight
Lopez/Cartledge (Emory) def. Vizelman/Ollis (CMU) 8-3

USTA Florida reported recently on a new competition at the USTA's National Campus in Lake Nona, with eight Florida academies taking part in round robin play to determine the two finalists. As with college tennis, six singles matches were played, with a point for each win, but unlike college, doubles was played only if there was a 3-3 tie. In the final, Saddlebrook defeated Midtown 4-2.  For more on the competition, see this article from National Campus website.