Fields Set for Next Week's Oracle ITA National Fall Championships; Douglas, Li Advance to Tyler Texas $80K Main Draw; Men's AO Wild Card Challenge Has Begun in Charlottesville

The ITA revealed the rest of the fields for next week's National Fall Championships in Surprise Arizona, which begin on Wednesday November 7th. The regional finalists qualified automatically, as did the Masters champions and the quarterfinalists from this month's All-American championships, but now that the fields are 64, not 32 as they were for the Indoor Championships that this tournament replaces, many more at-large bids are available. Brandon Holt of USC and Wake Forest's NCAA champion Petros Chrysochos, a finalist last year, are in the field, but Oliver Crawford of Florida, who won a Futures title earlier this month, and All-American champion JJ Wolf of Ohio State, are not.
Duke freshman Maria Mateas, an ITF All-American finalist, is not entered, nor is preseason No. 1 Bianca Turati of Texas, who has been playing Pro Circuit events throughout the fall.

The finals will again be streamed on ESPN3 and the ESPN app, with delayed coverage on ESPNU the following week. For more details on that, see this ITA release.

The complete selection lists, as well as the schedule for next week is available at the ITA tournament page.

Qualifying concluded today at the $80,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit event in Tyler Texas, the second of the tournaments that will decide the USTA's Australian Open Wild Card.  Texan Ellie Douglas, who recently revealed she will be joining TCU in January, won three qualifying matches, all in three sets, with today's 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-4 win coming over former USC star Giuliana Olmos of Mexico.  Ann Li defeated former Texas Tech star Gabriela Talaba of Romania 6-2, 6-4 and Quinn Gleason(Notre Dame) qualified with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Vladica Babic(Oklahoma State) of Montenegro. Texas's Bianca Turati, mentioned above, took out top qualifying seed Dalma Galfi of Hungary 6-3, 6-0 to move into the main draw.

Sixteen-year-old Whitney Osuigwe won her first round match, beating wild card Sophie Chang 6-2, 5-7, 6-3.

The leader in the women's USTA Wild Card Challenge is Macon champion Varvara Lepchenko, who is also entered this week in Tyler, although unseeded. Lepchenko will face top seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland if both win their first round matches Wednesday. Madison Brengle is the No. 2 seed.

The men start their three-week Wild Card Challenge this week at the $75,000 ATP Challenger in Charlottesville Virginia. Although other ATP Challenger events (and the Paris Masters) count toward the Challenge, this tournament is likely to be the only one to provide substantial points to an American in need of the wild card.  Qualifying ended yesterday, with Marcos Giron(UCLA) the only American to reach the main draw with a win (Tommy Paul and Jared Hiltzik got in as lucky losers). Petros Chrysochos(see above) of Cyprus qualified, beating Paul in the final round, and defeated No. 4 seed Lloyd Harris of South Africa 6-1, 6-3 in the first round today.

In other first round action, top seed Bradley Klahn(Stanford) advanced, as did Giron, Bjorn Fratangelo, wild card Thai Kwiatkowski(Virginia) and Paul, who beat No. 7 seed Noah Rubin(Wake Forest) 6-2, 6-1 in a rematch of the 2015 Charlottesville final, which Rubin won in three sets.  No. 2 seed Michael Mmoh, who accepted a wild card, will play his first round match Wednesday against Darian King of Barbados.

The third USTA Pro Circuit event this week is a $15,000 Futures in Birmingham Alabama, which has drawn a large contingent of international collegians, eight of whom qualified yesterday.  Only eight Americans were in the main draw, with two of them wild cards: Cannon Kingsley and Neel Rajesh, both of whom lost their first round matches. Fabrizio Ornago of Italy is the top seed, with Strong Kirchheimer(Northwestern) seeded second.