Recaps of Clay Court 12s Titles for Thorat and Payne; Korda Leads US Open Wild Card Challenge; ITA Collegiate All Star Team Announced

The Tennis Recruiting Network is providing articles on all of last week's USTA Clay Court Championships, with the two published today looking back on the 12s division. Abhishek Thorat won the boys singles title in Orlando and Bella Payne won the girls singles title in Boca Raton. Tomorrow the coverage will move on to the 14s, followed by the 16s on Thursday and the 18s on Friday. I have not been able to attend the Clay Courts since Wimbledon was pushed back a week, so I appreciate the coverage that TRN provides and encourage everyone to read it.

The USTA sent out a release today on the Clay Court Championships, which can be found here. It includes a rundown of the wild cards awarded to those competing in the 14s, 16s and 18s divisions.

I am still waiting for the list of wild cards for the Nationals, but I did notice that both Hailey Baptiste and Hurricane Tyra Black are now among the competitors in the Girls 18s in San Diego; they were not among the original acceptances. Tennis Channel will again be broadcasting the 16s and 18s singles finals in San Diego, and new this year, the tournament will provide live streaming on Stadium Court throughout the tournament on the tournament website ustagirlsnationals.com. Kalamazoo expects to have live streaming back for this year, although possibly not until the quarterfinals.

Three weeks remain in the USTA's US Open Wild Card Challenge, with Usue Arconada retaining the lead she had from winning the Week 1 $80K in Hawaii, while adding 8 points from Week 2 in Berkeley.  The American men got off to a slow start in Week 1, but 19-year-old Sebastian Korda took the lead in Week 2 after reaching the final of the WTA Challenger 110 in Kazakhstan. Although he lost to top seed Evgeny Donskoy of Russia 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-4, Korda collected 65 ATP points for his effort. The next three weeks will provide a big increase in points opportunities, with the US Open Series ATP and WTA tournaments all counting, as well as the Challengers and $60Ks.  The current standings can be found here.

The Intercollegiate Tennis Association revealed its 2019 Collegiate All- Star team last week, with 30 players from all divisions receiving recognition for their performances in the 2018-19 season. In the past, members of the All-Star team were honored with a luncheon at the start of the US Open and some participated in Arthur Ashe Kids Day, but I don't think that is still happening. At any rate, it's a good opportunity to see a list of all the major champions, although it does not include the ITA All-American tournament champions, which I've always thought odd.