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Sunday, April 28, 2019

Osuigwe, Li Claim Titles; Big 10, Pac-12 Tournament Champions Crowned; Sell and Jain Capture Ojai Open Titles; Catanzarite Wins Second Straight ITF Grade 5

No. 8 seed Whitney Osuigwe, who turned 17 earlier this month, claimed her second pro title, both at the $80,000 level, with a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 win over No. 2 seed Madison Brengle today in Charlottesville Virginia. Osuigwe held for a 3-1 in the third set, the last hold of serve in the match, with Osuigwe breaking Brengle for a third straight time to secure the championship. With the title the 2017 ITF Junior World Champion will move to a WTA career-high ranking around 140 and takes the lead in the USTA's French Open Wild Card Challenge, which has two more weeks left. Osuigwe is among those entered in next week's $100,000 event in Charleston, as is Lauren Davis, who reached the final at the $80,000 tournament in Dothan last week.

In the Charlottesville doubles final, top seeds Taylor Townsend and Asia Muhammad won their first title together since 2016, beating No. 4 seeds Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic and Kataryna Kawa of Poland 4-6, 7-5, 10-3.

At the $25,000 tournament in Osprey Florida, 18-year-old Ann Li won the other all-US singles final today, with the No. 3 seed beating unseeded Usue Arconada 6-3, 7-5.  It's Li's second career title and her first above the $15,000 level. The 2017 Wimbledon girls finalist is 11-2 this month in three $25,000 tournaments and will improve on her current career-high WTA ranking of 254 when the points are added next month.

The doubles title in Osprey went to No. 2 seed Pam Montez(UCLA) and Belinda Woolcock(Florida) of Australia, who beat the unseeded team of Arianne Hartono(Ole Miss) of the Netherlands and Alexandra Perper(Mississippi State) of Moldova 7-6(6), 6-3.

Former USC star Emilio Gomez of Ecuador won his first ATP Challenger title today in Tallahassee, ending the winning streak of Tommy Paul, who had won last week's Challenger in Sarasota. The unseeded 27-year-old, who had reached an ATP 125 Challenger final in Mexico earlier this month, picked up his fifth win over a seed this week, beating No. 9 Paul 6-2, 6-2. With the title, the son of 1990 French Open champion Andres Gomez will move into the ATP Top 200 for the first time.

The doubles title in Tallahassee went to No. 4 seeds Roberto Maytin(Baylor) of Venezuela and Fernando Romboli of Brazil, who beat unseeded Thai Kwiatkowski(Virginia) and Noah Rubin(Wake Forest) 6-2, 4-6, 10-7.

At the ATP level, former collegians also claimed both title this week. At the ATP 500 in Barcelona, No. 3 seeds Robert Farah(USC) and Juan Sebastian Cabal of Colombia earned their 12th ATP title, beating No. 2 seeds Jamie Murray of Great Britain and Bruno Soares of Brazil 6-4, 7-6(4) in the final.  And at the ATP 250 in Budapest, brothers Ken and Neal Skupski of Great Britain, both alumni of LSU, won their second title as a team. The No. 3 seeds defeated unseeded Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands and Marcus Daniell of New Zealand 6-3, 6-4 in the final.

At the ITF World Tennis Tour 15K this week in Cancun, former UCLA No. 1 Gage Brymer advanced to his first pro final, but the 24-year-old qualifier fell to No. 2 seed Hugo Grenier of France, who has now won back-to-back 15Ks in Mexico, 6-3, 6-2.  The doubles final was an all-collegiate affair, with unseeded George Goldhoff(Texas) and Julian Cash(Oklahoma State) of Great Britain beating No. 4 seeds Austin Rapp(UCLA) and Julian Bradley(North Florida) of Ireland 6-3, 6-7(8), 10-6.

The Pac-12 determined its conference champions Saturday in Ojai, with the Stanford women beating UCLA 4-2 in the afternoon and the USC men shutting out Cal. Saturday evening.

The Big 10 finals were today, with Ohio State beating Illinois 4-1 for its fourth straight men's tournament title and Michigan beating Illinois 4-1 for their second straight women's tournament title.

See the Slam tennis site for all the results from the conference tournaments. The Division I draw will be revealed on Monday beginning at 6:00 p.m. at ncaa.com.

The Men's and Women's Open titles at the Ojai were determined today at Libbey Park, with former UCLA Bruin Karue Sell[3] beating former USC star Raymond Sarmiento 6-4, 6-2. In the women's final No. 2 seed Mahak Jain defeated USC recruit Eryn Cayetano  6-4, 6-4. Sell and Jain will each receive $5300.00, with Sarmiento and Cayetano earning $2600.

For links to all the results from this year's Ojai, see the tournament website.

In addition to the Grade 1 in France this week, won by Holger Rune of Denmark and Elsa Jacquemot of France, there were 15 other tournaments on the ITF Junior Circuit, including three Grade 2s. Will Grant[8] reached the singles final of the Grade 2 in Slovakia, losing to top seed Jiri Lehecka of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-1, and won the doubles title, with Oscar Weightman of Great Britain. The No. 3 seeds defeated No. 2 seeds Cezar Cretu of Romania and Peter Makk of Hungary 2-6, 6-4, 10-8 in the final.

At the Grade 5 in Martinique, Ava Catanzarite swept the titles for the second week in a row. The unseeded 16-year-old defeated unseeded Rose Alix Vidal of France 6-2, 6-4 in the singles final and paired with Maryam to claim the doubles title in an all-US final. The No. 3 seeds defeated top seeds Artemis Pados and Gabriella Soliman 6-2, 6-4. Catanzarite began the month with no ITF Junior titles and now has four.

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