Korda Breezes to Quimper Challenger Title; Min Falls in Rome $60K Final; No. 3 TCU Drops No. 6 Baylor; Women in Red Wikipedia Project

Korda at Delray Beach earlier this month

Sebastian Korda decided not to play the Australian Open qualifying in the Middle East this month, opting instead for the ATP Delray Beach Open, where he reached the final. Returning to the Challenger level this week at the 100 in Quimper France, the 20-year-old from Florida won his second consecutive Challenger today with a 6-1, 6-1 decision over unseeded Filip Horansky of Slovakia.

Korda, the No. 2 seed, saved a match point in the first round against qualifier Tristan Lamasine of France and had another nail-biter in the second round, but he came through with a tight straight-sets win over Benjamin Bonzi of France in Saturday's semifinal. The turning point in today's final came early, with Korda breaking Horansky in a seven-deuce game to take a 2-1 lead, and Korda had no trouble holding serve the rest of the way, with Horansky seemingly resigned to his loss by early in the second set. 

Korda is now projected to rise to 88 in Monday's ATP rankings, but will be confined to Challengers for at least the next three weeks, before ATP tournaments resume outside of Australia.  For more on Korda's win today, see this article from the ATP website. 

At the $60,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit tournament in Rome Georgia, Grace Min lost to qualifier Irene Burillo Escorihuela of Spain 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-1.  After a 28-minute first set, with Min continuing the dominance she had displayed in the semifinals against Emina Bektas, the match turned around in the second set, with Burillo Escorihuela taking the 81-minute set and riding that momentum through to her first title above the $15K level. 

A host of Top 25 Division I men's teams were in action today, and several came down to the wire, although others were clinched earlier and played out to look closer than the score might indicate. Second-ranked North Carolina  won the first four points of their match against Virginia Tech, but the final score was 4-3. Fourth-ranked Texas clinched over Arizona State at 4-1, but the Sun Devils brought the final back to 4-3. And No. 16 Wake Forest clinched over No. 20 South Carolina at 4-2, with South Carolina winning the last match for another 4-3 decision. 

No. 12 Georgia 4-3 win over No. 14 North Carolina State did come down to the last match, with graduate transfer Billy Rowe defeating Robert Turzak 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 at line 6 to clinch the win for the Bulldogs. 

In the only match between Top 10 teams, which was an evening match, No. 3 TCU travelled to No. 6 Baylor and came away with a 4-1 decision. TCU lost the doubles point but got wins at the top three singles lines and line 5 for the win.

If you are inclined to assist Wikipedia in providing biographies of current or former women's tennis players who do not have pages on the site, they are asking for help as part of a new project called Women in Red. A list of women's tennis players who are in need of biographical pages can be found here. If college athletic information staff could contribute the information they have, that would be a great start to getting recognition for some of their best women's athletes.