USTA Winter Nationals 12s and 14s Begin Thursday in Tucson; Elbaba, Boyden Defend USTA National Women's and Men's Open Titles in New York; Bodo on Anderson and Isner's Prospects for 2019

The USTA Winter Nationals begin on Thursday for the 12s and 14s divisions, which are played in Tucson Arizona.  First round matches in the 128 singles draw begin Thursday, after a round of doubles. Below are the top 16 singles seeds for each of the four divisions. For the draws, see the TennisLink site. The 16s and 18s divisions will begin on Saturday at the USTA's National Campus in Lake Nona Florida.

Boys 12s:
1. Rohan Belday
2. Cooper Woestendick
3. Santiago Muhala
4. Maxwell Exsted
5. Jordan Reznik
6. Abhinav Chunduru
7. Joseph Hobbs
8. Darren Huang
9. Mason Nguyen
10. Nikita Filin
11. Alex Feies
12. Andrew Spurck
13. Cole Henceroth
14. Prathinav Chunduru
15. Emmanuel Alex
16. Kenneth Chan

Boys 14s:
1. Evan Wen
2. Sebastian Gorzny
3. Lucas Brown
4. Will Mayew
5. Aidan Kim
6. Yannik Rahman
7. Ritesh Patil
8. Waleed Qadir
9. Ethan Quinn
10. Eric Li
11. Kurt Miller
12. Alex Cairo
13. Cooper Williams
14. Learner Tien
15. James Lian
16. Payton Young

Girls 12s:
1. Amber Yin
2. Thea Latak
3. Thalia Smith
4. Patricia Grigoras
5. Mariana Shulman
6. Annika Renganathan
7. Kinley Vanpelt
8. Bella Payne
9. Natasha Rajaram
10. Bianca Molnar
11. Polina Krumkachev
12. Aspen Schuman
13. Catherine Goldman
14. Tianna Rangan
15. Chelsie Son
16. Anika Paul

Girls 14s:
1. Stephanie Yakoff
2. Aubrey Nisbet
3. Tsehay Driscoll
4. Salma Farhat
5. Kinaa Graham
6. Sia Chaudry
7. Madison Weekley
8. Maeve Thornton
9. Ria Bhakta
10. Teja Tirunelveli
11. Ireland Simme
12. Ariel Madatali
13. Karsyn Evans
14. Alexia Harmon
15. Liza Tankimovich
16. Adella Castaner

The USTA National Open Championships began today at the USTA's Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York, with defending champions Julia Elbaba and Blaine Boyden the No. 1 seeds. Boyden, who has already won his second round match after a bye in the first round of the 256-player draw, is a senior on the University of North Carolina's team.  Elbaba, a former All-American at the University of Virginia, will play her first round match in the 64 draw on Thursday. Alexa Graham, a junior at North Carolina and runner-up to Elbaba last year, is the No. 2 seed.  The No. 2 seed in the men's draw is University of Pennsylvania senior Kyle Mautner, who lost to Boyden in last year's semifinals.

Peter Bodo wrote a feature last week for ESPN.com on the two current ATP Top 10 players who played college tennis: South Africa's Kevin Anderson, No. 6, who played three years at Illinois, and John Isner, No. 10, who played four years at Georgia.  Bodo notes the similarities--and the differences--between the two, and suggests they may be having their best results in their early 30s due to their college tennis experience.