Top Seeds Survive as Division I Singles Play Begins in Lake Nona; 27 Americans in French Open Qualifying; Two American Champions on ITF Junior Circuit
The top seeds in the Division I men's and women's singles were slow off the mark in their quest for an NCAA individual title, but both Sara Daavettila of North Carolina and Liam Draxl of Kentucky survived in three sets.
Draxl was expected to be challenged by Ohio State's John McNally, and the sophomore from Canada had to save a match point in order to post a 2-6, 6-1, 7-6(4) victory. Draxl netted a forehand serving at 5-6, 40-30, giving McNally his opportunity, but a good first serve that McNally sent long put the match into a deciding tiebreaker. McNally held on to an early mini-break lead until serving at 4-3. Suddenly the Ohio State senior's forehand went missing, and three errors later Draxl had two match points, converting the first. Draxl, who had gotten the benefit of an overrule by the chair on a ball near the baseline serving at 1-4, fell on the court near the baseline in celebration of McNally's forehand going long.
Daavettila also dropped the first set, but the fifth-year senior was able to recover with less drama than Draxl, defeating Solymar Colling of San Diego 3-6, 6-1, 6-3.
The No. 2 seeds also advanced, with defending champion Estela Perez-Somarriba of Miami defeating Salma Ewing of Southern California 6-2, 6-3 and Daniel Rodrigues of South Carolina beat Dimitri Badra of East Tennessee State 6-3, 6-4.
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| Eliot Spizzirri of Texas photo credit: USTA/Manuela Davies |
Most of the first round seeding casualties were in the 9-16 seeding groups, with just one player from the top eight seeds falling in both men's and women's play.
No. 5 seed Kenya Jones of Georgia Tech lost to Selin Ovunc of Auburn 7-5, 6-3 and No. 7 seed Johannus Monday went out to Eliot Spizzirri of Texas 6-4, 7-5.
Other men's seeds to lose today were Georgia's Trent Bryde, TCU's Alastair Gray, Baylor's Matias Soto, and Wake Forest's Henri Squire. All but Soto were in the bottom half.
The women's 9-16 seeds falling today were Wake Forest's Carolyn Campana, Georgia Tech's Victoria Flores, Syracuse's Viktoriya Kanapatskaya and Florida State's Giulia Pairone.
Resetting after playing in the team championship match the night before is always a challenge, but most of those on the courts last night for Pepperdine, Texas, Baylor and Florida came away with wins today. Florida's Duarte Vale, Sam Riffice and Andy Andrade all won, as did Baylor's Adrian Boitan, Pepperdine's Jessica Failla and Texas's Peyton Stearns. Baylor's Matias Soto and Pepperdine's Ashley Lahey lost their first round matches today.
The second round of singles and the first round of doubles are scheduled for tomorrow. Tim Sandkaulen and Finn Reynolds of Mississippi are the men's top seeds, with Kentucky's Akvile Parazinskaite and Fiona Arrese the top women's doubles seeds.
The draws haven't been updated as of yet, so the best way to see the results from all the day's action is to go to the completed section on the Tennis Ticker live scoring. Men's is here, women's is here.
TennisONE has the coverage of all courts during the individual tournament and they are also providing a Match of the Day with commentary by Alex Gruskin and Andy Katz. Streams are available here.
Qualifying begins Monday at Roland Garros with seven Americans in action.
The 11 US men in qualifying are Brandon Nakashima[24], Christopher Eubanks, Thai Kwiatkowski, Mackenzie McDonald[9], Denis Kudla[10], Jenson Brooksby, Michael Mmoh, Mitchell Krueger, Bjorn Fratangelo, Maxime Cressy and Ernesto Escobedo. Cressy and Escobedo are playing each other in the first round.
The 16 US women in qualifying are Hailey Baptiste, Claire Liu[20], Robin Anderson, Sachia Vickery, Caty McNally[6], Asia Muhammad, Whitney Osuigwe, Varvara Lepchenko, Usue Arconada, Francesca Di Lorenzo, Caroline Dolehide, Louisa Chirico, Danielle Lao, Kristie Ahn, Coco Vandeweghe and Grace Min. It's surprising to see Chirico in the draw, as the 25-year-old has not played since July of 2019.
Today at the USTA Women's $25,000 Pro Circuit event in Pelham Alabama, Panna Udvardy won her second title of the month, with the unseeded Hungarian beating No. 2 seed Jamie Loeb(North Carolina) 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3 in just under three hours.
At the USTA Men's $25,000 Pro Circuit tournament in Pensacola Florida, qualifier Nicolas Kicker of Argentina defeated No. 8 seed Adrian Andreev of Bulgaria 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-2 in another final that took just short of three hours to decide.
There were no ITF Junior Circuit events this week in North or Central America, but two Americans did pick up titles in locations far from home. Sixteen-year-old Maximilian Wuelfing won his first career singles title at the J5 in Kyrgyzstan, with the No. 4 seed defeating unseeded Goran Zgola of Poland 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-2 in the final.
2 comments:
Seems the BIG 10 Women got the shaft. 1 Doubles Team and only 4 Singles players? May not have been the best year but they had 2 Teams make the Sweet 16, and those 4 singles players ALL won their first round. 2 Beat players from the GREAT UNC Team. Honestly the bias shows and I'm not a BIG 10 fan, but see the West Coast, ACC & SEC bias.... Their should've been at least 3-4 more players and 1-2 more DBLS Teams.
there was a 'bias' AGAINST West Coast teams due to extremely limited schedule; for example Kozyreva should've been in, also Cayetano and Bolton, etc.
As I've said ad nauseum this season, ACC had a massive ranking inflation.
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