Kalieva Reaches Grade A Banana Bowl Final; Liu Advances to Final at Lexington $100K; Ohio State Survives Wake Forest in Thriller to Reach ITA Men's Team Indoor Semifinals

Elvina Kalieva is through to Sunday's singles final at the ITF Grade A Banana Bowl in Brazil. The 16-year-old, whose previous best showing at a Grade A event was a quarterfinal, again won in straight sets, beating unseeded Sabina Zeynalova of Ukraine 6-2, 6-0. In her five victories this week, the eighth-seeded Kalieva has lost just 13 games, with seven of those in the quarterfinals against No. 3 seed Julia Garcia of Mexico.  Kalieva will again face an unseeded opponent Sunday, after Leyre Romero Gormaz of Spain prevented an all-US final with a 7-6(8), 2-6, 6-4 win over No. 6 seed Madison Sieg.

In the boys semifinals, top seed Natan Rodrigues of Brazil defeated American Dali Blanch, the No. 4 seed, 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-3. Rodrigues will face No. 3 seed Hanwen Li of China, who beat No. 6 seed Roman Burruchaga of Argentina 6-4, 6-3.

Blanch also fell in the doubles final. He and partner Lorenzo Claverie of Venezuela, the No. 4 seeds, lost to No. 2 seeds Luciano Darderi of Italy and Gustavo Heide of Brazil 6-2, 6-3 in the championship match.

The girls doubles title went to No. 2 seeds Ana Geller of Argentina and Guillermina Grant of Uruguay. They defeated unseeded Mell Reasco Gonzalez of Ecuador and Solana Sierra of Argentina 6-4, 6-4 in the final.

An unseeded champion will emerge from the new women's $100,000 USTA Pro Circuit event in Lexington Kentucky when 19-year-old wild card Claire Liu takes on 31-year-old Olga Govortsova of Belarus Sunday for the title. This is by far the biggest final of Liu's career; her previous finals were all at the $25,000 level or below. Govortosva, who reached a high of 35 in the WTA rankings back in 2008, has made three WTA Tour finals, but her biggest title is the Midland $100K back in 2012. In today's semifinals, Liu defeated lucky loser Francoise Abanda of Canada 6-1, 6-2 and Govortsova beat No. 3 seed Madison Brengle 6-4, 6-3.

The doubles final was also between two unseeded contestants. Catherine Harrison(UCLA) and Quinn Gleason(Notre Dame) defeated Whitney Osuigwe and Hailey Baptiste 7-5, 6-2 in today's championship match.

photo courtesy ITA/Jacob Dye

The only 4-3 match of the day at the ITA Men's Division I Team Indoor Championships came late tonight, with top seed and defending champion Ohio State barely holding off No. 9 seed Wake Forest. After the Buckeyes won a very tight doubles point, they took four first sets in singles, but it was Wake Forest who held on to their advantage, closing out the first two singles points with Taha Baadi winning at line 3 and Bar Botzer at line 1.  Ohio State couldn't close out any of the matches they led in straight sets, and it was nearly three hours into the match before Ohio State finally got two singles points from Cannon Kingsley at line 2 and Kyle Seelig at line 4. Wake's Sid Banthia came all the way back to win in three at line 6, meaning that James Trotter and Eduardo Nava would decide the match at line 5. It was 3-3 in the third when the dual match score went to 3-3, and there were twists and turns yet to come.  Trotter broke for a 5-3 lead, but could not serve out the match, getting broken at love while looking very nervous throughout the game. Nava held for 5-5, followed by Trotter holding on a deciding point for a 6-5 lead. Serving to get to a tiebreaker, Nava went down 30-40, and although he saved one match point with a good first serve, Trotter scrambled around on the deciding point, kept the ball in play and eventually Nava hit a forehand long to end it.

Michigan is the only seed outside the Top 4 to reach Sunday's semifinals. The No. 11 Wolverines' 4-2 win over No. 3 seed and NCAA champion Texas was particularly impressive, because the Wolverines were without their No. 3 player Mattias Siimar. With the doubles point going to Texas, and Michigan short-handed, a victory seemed unlikely, but they got impressive wins from Andrew Fenty, who beat Yuya Ito, the second-ranked player in the country, at line 1 and Ondrej Styler, who beat No. 12 Christian Sigsgaard at line 2. Additional points from Connor Johnston and Nick Beaty at lines 3 and 4 completed the upset for the Wolverines.

No. 2 seed USC had beaten No. 7 seed Stanford 6-1 a couple of weeks ago in Palo Alto, and despite playing without their No. 1 player Brandon Holt, the Trojans again got the better of the Cardinal.

No. 4 seed North Carolina and No. 5 seed Florida was expected to be a dogfight but the Tar Heels never let the Gators into the match, with Will Blumberg at 1, Rinky Hijikata at 3 and Brian Cernoch at 5 getting straight-sets wins, and with the doubles point, getting to four points before Florida could get on the board.

ITA Men's Division I Team Indoor Championships
Quarterfinals, Saturday February 15, 2020:
Michigan[11] d. Texas[3] 4-2
USC[2] d. Stanford[7] 4-0
North Carolina[4] d. Florida[5] 4-0
Ohio State[1] d. Wake Forest[9] 4-3

Semifinals, Sunday February 16, 2020
Michigan[11] v. USC[2] noon
North Carolina[4] v Ohio State[1] 3:30 p.m.