Harmon, Smith Win ITF Grade 5 Titles; Osaka Grade A Underway; ITF Junior Finals Fields Set; Ngounoue Wins USA Les Petits As Playoff, Spot in WTA Future Stars Event

While I was covering the ITF Grade B1 Pan American Closed last week, there were no fewer than 18 other tournaments scheduled on the ITF Junior Circuit and despite most of the Americans being in Nicholasville Kentucky for the Grade B1, American juniors captured four titles elsewhere.

At the ITF Grade 5 in the Dominican Republic, 13-year-old Alexia Harmon of Las Vegas won her first title, with the No. 8 seed winning all five of her matches in straight sets. In the final, Harmon defeated No. 2 seed Tanisha Kashyap of India 6-3, 6-0.

Colton Smith swept the titles at the Grade 5 in British Columbia, with the unseeded 16-year-old from Washington beating No. 2 seed Noah Gampel 6-4, 7-6(4) in the all-USA singles final. Smith and Nate Bonetto won the doubles title, with the unseeded pair beating top seeds Hanamichi Carvajal Suazo of Chile and Keita Duclos of Canada 6-4, 6-2 in the final. Smith was playing in only his second ITF event after reaching the singles semifinals of his first, also a Grade 5 in Canada, in June.

Jennifer Kida won the doubles title at the Grade 3 in New Zealand last week, partnering with Manami Ukita of Japan, who also won the singles title. Kida and Ukita, the No. 2 seeds, beat top seeds Roopa Bains and Mia Repac of Australia 6-1, 6-2 in the final.

Kida is on the other side of the international date line again this week, at the ITF Grade A Osaka Mayor's Cup in Japan. One of only three US girls in the draw, Kida will play her first round match on Tuesday.  Rebecca Lynn lost her first round match to Talia Gibson of Australia 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, and Skyler Grishuk, the No. 12 seed, won her first round match, beating Ai Yamaguchi of Japan 3-6, 6-0, 6-1. The only US boy in the draw was qualifier Karl Kazuma Lee, and he lost his first round match to No. 14 seed Ryuhei Azuma of Japan 7-6(5), 7-5.

The top seeds in Osaka are France's Diane Parry and Valentin Royer, both of whom are playing the tournament in advance of the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals, formerly known as the Junior Masters, which takes place from October 23-27 in Chengdu China. Although four American boys--Martin Damm, Emilio Nava, Toby Kodat and defending champion Brandon Nakashima--qualified as participants, none elected to make the trip, which allowed No. 12 Royer to gain entry. (No. 14 Bu Yunchaokete of China received a wild card, meeting the Top 25, no other Chinese player ahead of him criteria). Also participating are three of the four boys 2019 slam champions, with Wimbledon's Shinto Mochizuki of Japan, French Open's Holger Rune of Denmark and US Open's Jonas Forejtek of the Czech Republic leading the field. Thiago Tirante of Argentina, Liam Draxl of Canada and Harold Moyer of France complete the boys field.

The US does have a girls representative, with Hurricane Tyra Black receiving entry with an ITF ranking of 12.  Unlike the boys, only one 2019 girls slam champion is participating: Wimbledon's Daria Snigur of Ukraine. Parry, Qinwen Zheng of China, Kamilla Bartone of Latvia, Natsumi Kawaguchi of Japan, Elsa Jacquemot of France and Oksana Selekhmeteva of Russia complete the girls field.  The ITF Junior website is publishing features of each of the 16 participants leading up to the event, with five articles already up.

The USA Playoffs for January's Les Petits As were held last week in Delray Beach Florida, with four girls and four boys earning their places in the prestigious 14-and-under tournament in Tarbes France (top three are in main, fourth place player is in qualifying). The US girls who advanced are: Clervie Ngounoue, Maya Joint, Brooklyn Olson and Lexington Reed. The US boys who advanced are: Alexander Razeghi, Mitchell Lee, Nikita Filin and Kaylan Bigun. Ngounoue was the overall winner in the girls draw (unfortunately, only round robin results are available on the Les Petits As website NOTE: quarterfinal draws and results now available), so she will be included in the upcoming WTA Future Stars event at the end of this month in China, in conjunction with the WTA Finals.

I've heard that the boys did not finish their tournament due to rain, so the USTA will need to bring them together again in January to determine which three of the four qualifiers will make the main draw. The USTA used to organize these playoffs, but for the past several years they have been handled by a French company.