Top Seeds Habib and Failla Advance to ITA Summer Nationals Finals; Brady Claims First WTA Victory Since February in Kentucky; Baptiste Awarded US Open Wild Card

After an ITA Summer Circuit that featured many a junior champion, the ITA National Summer Championships have come down to four collegians, including both top seeds and the defending champion.

After the quarterfinals and semifinals were played today at the George Mitchell Tennis Center at Texas A&M, top seeds Jessica Failla of Pepperdine and Hady Habib of Texas A&M advanced to Tuesday morning's final. Failla, who is returning for a fifth year, dropped a set in the second round, but she has been dominant since, picking up wins today over Leyden Games and Maria Kononova.  She will face No. 6 seed Solymar Colling, a red shirt sophomore at San Diego, who reached the final with a straight-set quarterfinal win over No. 3 seed Rhiann Newborn and a 3-6, 7-6(0), 13-11 win over No. 2 seed Adriana Reami(North Carolina State).  

Top seed Habib, a rising senior, has won all five of his matches in straight sets, beating teammate Noah Schachter, the No. 6 seed, in the quarterfinals and No. 5 seed Zeke Clark(Illinois) in the semifinals. Habib will take on the defending champion, No. 7 seed Jonathan Sheehy, who is transferring as a graduate student from Abilene Christian to Oklahoma for the 2020-21 season. Sheehy took out No. 2 seed and ATP professional Austin Krajicek in the quarterfinals and beat No. 13 seed Andrew Rogers(Tennessee) in three sets in the semifinals. 

The finals, which provide $2500 in prize money for the winners and $1250 for the runners-up, are scheduled for 9 a.m. Central time Tuesday, and can be viewed via Playsight. For more on today's action, see the ITA recap.

Rain in the Lexington Kentucky area set the WTA Top Seed Open schedule back considerably, with some matches in the final round of qualifying moving indoors.  Three Americans qualified for the main draw: top seed Kristie Ahn, who beat Jovana Jovic of Serbia 2-6, 6-4, 6-2; Caroline Dolehide, who defeated wild card Jamie Loeb 6-2, 7-5 and wild card Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who downed Robin Anderson 6-3, 4-6, 7-5. 

Former UCLA star Jennifer Brady, who has been active in exhibition events and World Team Tennis during the shutdown, picked up her first win since late February, beating Heather Watson of Great Britain 6-2, 6-1 in just over an hour. Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic, who won the 2014 US Open girls title, beat No. 3 seed Johanna Konta of Great Britain 6-4, 6-4.  

All of today's results are available here.

The other WTA International event on this week's calendar is in Prague, and rain was also a problem there, with play canceled for the day with only one main draw match completed. Qualifying is also not quite finished but former Pepperdine All-American Maiar Sherif Ahmed Abdelaziz of Egypt is into the main draw after a 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over Switzerland's Leonie Kung in the final round of qualifying. Abdelaziz won a $25,000 ITF World Tennis Tour title in Turkey right before the pandemic closed down the circuit.

Another official announcement from the USTA regarding two withdrawals from the women's field provides another wild card opportunity for an American, with Ann Li getting in on her own ranking. Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic and 2018 US Open girls champion Xiyu Wang of China withdrew, with Li and Australian Priscilla Hon moving into the main draw. Li's wild card was awarded to 18-year-old Hailey Baptiste, who lost yesterday in the first round of qualifying at the Top Seed Open.

Caroline Dolehide, who received a wild card earlier, is just two out, so another women's wild card should be available in the next week or so.

The updated US Open women's entry list is here.