National Signing Day; Qualifying Complete at Orlando $25K; Kudla and Eubanks Advance to Quarterfinals at Cary Challenger

With all the things that have changed in college tennis since early March, it's reassuring that the Division I National Signing Day for 2021-22 took place today as scheduled. While I've seen quite a few more announcements on Twitter than are included below, I do like to wait until an article goes up on the school's athletic website. Those announcements include much more information, and it's also a chance to look at the current roster once you are there, although with the extra year of eligibility, that's a little bit trickier than it used to be.

Here are the major Division I announcements I found today; if there is no country mentioned they are from the US. As I've done in the past, I'll add several more posts in the next couple weeks with additional announcements.

Women:

Raphaelle Lacasse of Canada has signed with Kansas.

Dinara Alloyarova of Russia has signed with Kansas State.

Emma Staker has signed with Oklahoma.

Allie Gretkowski, Sarah Hamner and Misa Malkin have signed with South Carolina. (I'll have more about Hamner for Tennis Recruiting Network next week).

Kylie Collins has signed with Texas.

Men:

Colton Smith has signed with Arizona. (Tennis Recruiting Network has this article about Smith's signing today).

Justin Braverman and Ethan Muza have signed with Baylor.

Thomas Navarro has signed with Nevada-Las Vegas.

Alex Stafford and Eli Susser have signed with SMU.

Louis Cloud and Ireland's Conor Gannon have signed with Tennessee.

Luke Casper and Italy's Giulio Perego have signed with Texas A&M.

Takeyasu (Take) Sekiguchi has signed with Texas Tech.

Rain disrupted first round play again today at the $25,000 women's Pro Circuit tournament at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona, but they did manage to complete the final round of qualifying today. None of the juniors who won their first round matches yesterday advanced to the main draw, but Pepperdine fifth-year seniors Ashley Lahey and Jessica Failla both earned places in the main draw, as did University of Georgia junior Katarina Jokic of Serbia. In addition to Lahey and Failla, two other Americans advanced to the main draw: top seed Alycia Parks and No. 10 seed Hurricane Tyra Black, both of whom received wild cards into qualifying.  Robin Montgomery defeated wild card Reese Brantmeier 7-6(6), 6-2 in a battle of 16-year-olds, but the only other main draw to finish was Catherine Harrison's(UCLA) 6-4, 7-5 win over No. 4 seed Ankita Raina of India. Partial scores are available on Thursday's order of play.

There were also intermittent problems with weather at the ATP Challenger 80 in Cary North Carolina, although they were able to complete their schedule by moving indoors. In the second round of singles No. 2 seed Denis Kudla defeated wild card Garrett Johns of Duke 6-2, 6-1, and Chris Eubanks advanced to the quarterfinals via walkover, with No. 6 seed Michael Mmoh withdrawing due to a shoulder issue. No. 7 seed Dmitry Popko of Kazakhstan downed Mitchell Krueger 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the other second round match featuring an American.  In the first round of doubles tonight, North Carolina teammates William Blumberg and Brian Cernoch advanced, with the wild cards beating No. 3 seeds Hans Hach Verdugo(Abilene Christian) and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela(Texas) of Mexico 6-4, 7-5.  Brandon Nakashima and Jack Sock are on Thursday's schedule for their second round matches.