Junior Fed Cup, Junior Davis Cup Begin Tuesday in Budapest; Rybakov Wins Battle of the Bay; ITF Junior Circuit Update

There's been a lot of conversation lately about the changes to Davis Cup and the other ATP Team events on the horizon, but the ITF has made very few changes to the format of the 16-and-under Junior Davis and Junior Fed Cup competition over the years. On Tuesday, 15 teams who qualified in regional competitions earlier this year, along with the host country, in this case Hungary, will play in four-country round robin groups to determine the quarterfinalists. The knockout portion of the event begins then, with the title decided on Sunday.  The US girls are the defending Junior Fed Cup champions, the US boys lost in the Junior Davis Cup final to the Czech Republic last year.

The US Junior Fed Cup team this year:
Coco Gauff, 14
Alexa Noel, 16
Connie Ma, 15
Captain: Erik Kortland

The US Junior Davis Cup team this year:
Martin Damm, 14 (turns 15 on Sunday)
Toby Kodat, 15
Alex Lee, 16
Captain: Eric Nunez

Although it's after 11 p.m. in Europe, the draws for the event have not yet been posted, so the seedings are not known, although the US teams would likely be seeded 1 or 2.  I will update here when they have gone live.  (Update 9 p.m. EDT: I still can't find the draws, but this article on the ITF junior website says the US girls are the No. 1 seed. Italy is the top seed for the boys and it sounds as if the US boys are the No. 3 seed behind Italy and France.)

While the ITA Oracle Masters took place last weekend, with USC's Laurens Verboven and Miami's Estela Perez-Somarriba taking the title in Malibu, a tournament 400 miles north arguably had a better men's field. The Battle of Bay in San Francisco featured NCAA champion Petros Chrysochos of Wake Forest, last year's Masters champion Brandon Holt of USC and TCU star Alex Rybakov.  Rybakov took the title, beating Georgia's Jan Zielinski 6-3, 6-4 in the final Zielinski had beaten Chrysochos and Rybakov took out Holt in the semifinals. The reason for the impressive field may be found on the tournament's ITA webpage, which states that main draw wild cards will be given to the winners at the big Challengers in Tiburon, Stockton and Fairfield. Holt is in this week's Tiburon field as a wild card. For more on Rybakov's win, see this article from the TCU website. Below are the results from round of 16 through the final.

I reported Friday on the ITF Grade 2 results from Canada, with Emma Navarro taking the singles title in Montreal, but there were other American titles last week, in smaller events.  At the Grade 5 in Nicaragua, which could not draw a full 32-player field for either gender, top seeds Alfredo Casso and Jennifer Kida took the singles titles. The 17-year-old Casso defeated No. 5 seed Manuel Alonso of Mexico 6-1, 6-3 in the boys final and Kida, 16, defeated Gabriella Soliman of the US, the No. 2 seed, 6-3, 6-2 in the girls final. Kida and Soliman won the doubles title, playing only one match to do so, owing to a lack of teams to fill the draw.

At the Grade 5 in Puerto Rico, No. 2 seeds Quinn McLeod and James Tracy won the all-US doubles final, beating Alex Han and Graydon Lair 6-3, 6-1.  Unseeded Zoe Hammond and Kelsey Mize won the girls doubles title, beating Alexandra Centra of the US and Ariana Salgueiro-Estela of Puerto Rico, the No. 3 seeds, 6-3, 6-4.  Mize also reached the singles final.

This week marks the beginning of the ITF Junior Circuit fall hard court season in the US, with a Grade 5 in Austin Texas.  Hunter Heck and Kailey Evans are the top seeds.