Syracuse, Minnesota Name New Assistants; Five Former Collegians on ATP Cup Team Rosters; Khan Advances at Delray Beach Qualifying, Turati Wins in Abu Dhabi

Two Division I women's programs announced new assistant coaches recently, with former Syracuse star Maddie Kobelt returning to her alma mater and University of Virginia alum Meghan Kelley joining the University of Minnesota.

Kobelt, who played at Syracuse from 2011-14, had been an assistant at Division III Kenyon since 2018. Kelley, who played at Virginia 2015-19, was a graduate assistant at Ball State last season.

A couple of other Division I notes, with Salma Ziouti going from Drexel to Arizona as a graduate transfer, Sandeep Mohandoss of India signing with South Florida, and Anton Arzhankin of Russia signing with Western Michigan.

The rosters for the ATP Cup, which will take place February 1-5 in Melbourne, have been announced, and among the 48 players scheduled to compete for the 12 countries in the competition, five are former collegians, and most are doubles specialists.  Greece features Michail Pervolarakis(Portland), Germany has Andreas Mies(Auburn), Japan has Ben McLachlan(Cal) and Toshihide Matsui(BYU-Hawaii) and Australia has John Peers(Middle Tennessee State/Baylor). The United States is not in the competition, with the size of the field reduced from 24 countries to 12 due to logistics surrounding the pandemic.

The complete list of ATP Cup rosters is available here.

Five of the eight players in the ATP Delray Beach final round of qualifying Wednesday are from the United States, with two of them certain to make the main draw.

Eighteen-year-old Zane Khan advanced when Alexander Ritschard(Virginia) retired trailing Khan 6-3, 3-1. Khan will face Christian Harrison, who defeated top qualifying seed Marcelo Tomas Barrios Vera of Chile 6-4, 6-4.  Donald Young will play Stefan Kozlov in the other all-US final round qualifying match. Young beat Pedro Sakamoto of Brazil 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 and Kozlov advanced when Johannes Haerteis of Germany retired down 5-0 in the first set. Kevin King(Georgia Tech) defeated Benjamin Lock(Florida State) of Zimbabwe 6-2, 6-3.  

University of Kentucky sophomore Liam Draxl of Canada lost to Goncalo Oliveira of Portugal 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. Oliveira will face King for a place in the main draw. 

The only qualifying match Wednesday without an American will be between Roberto Quiroz(USC) of Ecuador and Viktor Galovic of Croatia.

The qualifying at the WTA tournament in Abu Dhabi will also conclude Wednesday, with eight women advancing into the 64-player main draw. In today's opening round, Texas All-American Bianca Turati of Italy, who decided last May not to return to Austin for a fifth year, defeated former UCLA star Catherine Harrison 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-1. Carol Zhao(Stanford) of Canada, playing in her first match since September of 2019, defeated Mirjam Bjorklund of Sweden 6-0, 2-6, 6-2. Former UCLA star Ena Shibihara of Japan also advanced to Wednesday's final round of qualifying. 

The main draw begins Wednesday as well, with 12 first round matches on the schedule.