Montgomery Reaches Quarterfinals at Grade A Osaka Mayor's Cup; Nakashima Prepares for ITF Junior Masters; Volynets, Crawford Move on at USTA Pro Circuit $25Ks

Fourteen-year-old Robin Montgomery advanced to the quarterfinals of the ITF Grade A Osaka Mayor's Cup, beating No. 10 seed Diana Shnaider of Russia 6-4, 6-1. In the second round, Montgomery had defeated No. 6 seed Mananchaya Sawangkaew of Thailand 6-2, 6-7(4), 6-3. She faces top seed Clara Tauson of Denmark next.

Montgomery is the only American remaining in singles or doubles, with No. 3 seed Gabby Price losing in the second round. No. 12 seed Zane Khan lost in the third round, to unseeded Keisuke Saitoh of Japan, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.

Khan and Price were the only Americans in the field who were not part of the Junior Tennis Champions Center. It turns out that the College Park Maryland Academy went to Japan early to participate in the International Club Junior Challenge Worldwide Finals, a competition between Academies representing individual countries. The JTCC team of Montgomery, Ayana Akil, Trinity Grear and Muhammad Dossani won the overall title, beating teams from Japan, India, Italy, South Africa and Uruguay. Their success continued this week in Osaka, with Akil, Grear and Dossani qualifying and Akil and Dossani both winning two main draw matches.  For more on the JTCC's title, including photos, see this article.

Next week's ITF Junior Masters in China has only one American participating, Brandon Nakashima.  The ITF Junior Circuit website has been posting features about each of the eight boys and eight girls participating, with today's article about Nakashima.  For articles on other players, click on the links below (eight have not yet been featured).

The girls field:
Xiyu Wang, China
Xinyu Wang, China
En Shuo Liang, Taiwan
Maria Osorio Serrano, Colombia
Clara Burel, France
Clara Tauson, Denmark
Eleonara Molinaro, Luxembourg
Leylah Fernandez, Canada

The boys field:
Chun Hsin Tseng, Taiwan
Sebastian Baez, Argentina
Hugo Gaston, France
Lorenzo Musetti, Italy
Nicolas Mejia, Colombia
Adrian Andreev, Bulgaria
Brandon Nakashima, USA
Tao Mu, China (wild card)

Sixteen-year-old qualifier Katie Volynets and University of Florida sophomore Oliver Crawford are among the Americans advancing to the quarterfinals of the two USTA Pro Circuit events this week.

Volynets defeated wild card Emina Bektas (Michigan) 6-2, 6-3 today at the $25,000 tournament in Florence South Carolina to advance to her first Pro Circuit quarterfinal. She will play No. 6 seed Sherazad Reix of France on Friday.  Other Americans advancing to the quarterfinals are Robin Anderson(UCLA) and Duke freshman Maria Mateas. Anderson defeated qualifier Hanna Chang 7-6(4), 6-3 and Mateas defeated University of Texas junior Bianca Turati of Italy 6-4, 6-4.  Both will play seeded Canadians next, with Anderson taking on No. 3 Bianca Andreescu and Mateas facing No. 2 Francoise Abanda.

At the $25,000 Futures in Harlingen Texas, wild card Crawford defeated No. 2 seed Ronnie Schneider(UNC) 6-3, 6-3 to reach his second career Futures quarterfinal.  Crawford will face UCLA senior Maxime Cressy, who beat fellow French qualifier Valentin Vacherot(Texas A&M) 6-4, 6-4.  The only other American to advance to the quarterfinals is unseeded Jordi Arconada, who will face former Texas A&M teammate Juan Carlos Aguilar of Bolivia, now a sophomore on the Aggie team, next.