My Look at ITA's Fall Tour; Just Three Division I ITA Regionals Survive; Koepfer Through to Quarterfinals in Italy; Juniors Jimenez Kasintseva and Rune Plus Columbia's Kotzen Reach Pro Circuit Semis

The Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Fall Tour by UTR begins today at seven sites across the country, with four more starting Saturday, in Week 1 of the ten-week series of regional competitions. I wrote about this new initiative for the Tennis Recruiting Network and in today's article I explain how the Fall Tour is similar to the long-running Summer Circuit and how it's different. With a reduced number of college and junior events on the horizon due to the pandemic, these events are an important source of competition, with over 170 tournaments scheduled over the next ten weeks at a wide variety of sites.  The Sunday prior to the start of the tournament is the deadline for entry, which is based on UTRs. Next week there are 20 events on the calendar; see the ITA page for registration information.  This ITA article has links to the Playsight streaming that is available this week.

When I spoke to Tim Russell about the Fall Tour earlier this week, he mentioned that a few Division I regionals would still be played. It turns out only three, one women's and two men's, out of the usual 24, have survived. The men's Southern regional will be held at Southern Mississippi October 16-19, and the men's Texas regional will be held at Baylor at a date to be determined  The Central women's regional will be held at Arkansas October 23-25. 

Former Tulane star Dominik Koepfer ended the run of 18-year-old Lorenzo Musetti of Italy today, making his way into the Italian Open quarterfinals with a 6-4, 6-0 win over his fellow qualifier. It's the 26-year-old German's first ATP quarterfinal; in order to reach his first semifinal, he'll have to defeat ATP No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who beat Filip Krajinovic 7-6(7), 6-3 today.

A lot of ITF World Tennis Tour events are going on in Europe and Northern Africa right now, 13 by my count, so it's been tough to keep up with all the results this week, but I did want to call attention to a couple of high profile ITF juniors who are having good tournaments. Australian Open girls champion and ITF World No. 1 Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva of Andorra is warming up for the French Open Juniors next month in Spain, where she has reached the semifinals of the $15,000 tournament in Melilla. The 15-year-old, who used her junior exemption for entry, beat the No. 2 seed in the second round and 18-year-old Alina Charaeva of Russia, the No. 7 seed, today.  Jimenez Kasintseva is playing in just her fourth professional tournament this week; she had not won a match in her first three.  She takes on 16-year-old Matilda Mutavdzic of Great Britain, who also received entry based on a junior exemption, in Saturday's semifinals. Mutavdzic has an ITF junior ranking of 28.

Seventeen-year-old Holger Rune of Denmark, the 2019 French Open boys champion, has advanced to the semifinals of the $25,000 ITF WTT tournament in Switzerland, his second career semifinal in professional competition, with both coming since the shutdown. Also using his junior exemption for entry, Rune avenged his loss to No. 2 seed Dimitar Kuzmanov of Bulgaria in a $25,000 semifinal last month in Austria in a second round match this week, and today he defeated 18-year-old wild card Dominic Stricker 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Rune faces unseeded Gonzalo Lama of Chile in the semifinals.

And at the $15,000 tournament in Tunisia, Columbia sophomore Alex Kotzen has advanced to the semifinals after making it through qualifying. The 20-year-old from New Jersey had not won a main draw match on the Pro Circuit prior to this week.