Lucky Loser Blanch Beats Top Seed Brown at ITF J5 in Texas; Qualifying Complete, Main Draw Underway in Fayetteville and Ft Worth USTA Pro Circuit Events; Adam Peterson Fighting Cancer

 A day after the top seed Sophie Williams lost in the first round at the ITF J5 in McKinney Texas, the top seed in the boys draw, Kalamazoo 16s finalist Lucas Brown, was upset by 13-year-old lucky loser Darwin Blanch.

Blanch, the 2021 USTA 14s Clay Court champion, defeated Brown  6-3, 6-4 and will face another lucky loser, 14-year-old Maxwell Exsted, in the quarterfinals. Exsted and Blanch, who turns 14 next week, met in the Les Petits As USA qualifying tournament in July, with Exsted winning 6-2, 7-6(1). Blanch reached the semifinals at Les Petits As earlier this month in France, with Exsted advancing to the quarterfinals. 

The No. 2 seed in the boys draw, Omar Suarez Berrezueta of Ecuador, also lost today, falling to Alex Cairo 6-1, 6-4. All eight quarterfinalists are Americans, with just two seeds remaining: No. 3 seed Adhithya Ganesan and No. 5 seed Marko Mesarovic.

In the girls draw, qualifier Ava Bruno, who beat Williams yesterday, advanced to the quarterfinals, as did No. 2 seed Emma Charney and No. 3 seed Bridget Stammel. 

In addition to the combined WTA 125 and ATP Challenger 80 tournaments in Columbus Ohio this week, there are two smaller USTA Pro Circuit events, with a $25,000 women's tournament in Fort Worth Texas and a $15,000 men's tournament in Fayetteville Arkansas.

Although she would have easily been accepted into the draw in Columbus, the top seed in Fort Worth is Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, currently No. 68 in the WTA rankings. She defeated Sophie Chang 6-1, 5-7, 6-1 in today's first round.  NCAA champion Emma Navarro of Virginia, the No. 6 seed, also advanced to the second round, as did Quinn Gleason(Notre Dame) and Catherine Harrison(UCLA).

Qualifying concluded today, with all qualifiers current or former collegians Alexa Graham(UNC), McCartney Kessler(Florida), Anna Hertel(Georgia), Tiphanie Fiquet(Ole Miss), Katarina Jokic(Georgia), Sara Daavettila(UNC), Rasheeda McAdoo(Georgia Tech) and Adriana Reami(North Carolina State) making the main draw.

Wild cards went to Haley Giavara(Cal), who lost to Gleason today, TCU's Mercedes Aristegui and Ashley Lahey(Pepperdine).

In Arkansas, the qualifiers included three players from the University of Virginia: Inaki Montes-De La Torre, Jeffrey Von Der Schulenburg and Gianni Ross. Finn Bass(Baylor), Florian Broska(Mississippi State) and Henry Patten(UNC-Asheville) are the other three qualifiers with collegiate ties that I'm aware of. (I've been alerted that qualifier Radu Papoe is a freshman at Cornell).

US Open boys finalist Juncheng Jerry Shang won his first main draw match on the Pro Circuit today, beating Nathan Ponwith(Arizona State) 6-0, 3-6, 7-5. The 16-year-old, who is No. 1 in the ITF Junior Circuit rankings, used the ITF's junior reserved method for entry this week. 

Sekou Bangoura is the top seed in Fayetteville, with Champaign champion Martin Damm seeded No. 5. Paul Jubb, South Carolina's 2019 NCAA champion, is back in the US after winning back-to-back $25K titles in Spain the past two weeks and is the No. 2 seed.

Wild cards were given to Tyler Zink(Oklahoma State) and three Arkansas players: Aleksa Bucan, Nicolas Rousset and Alexandre Reco. 

Sad and startling news this week about Adam Peterson, a longtime USTA National Coach and former University of Southern California star. Peterson, who is 47 years old, took ill suddenly this summer and has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Burkitt Lymphoma, according to the gofundme page set up to help with his medical expenses. Peterson worked with many top US pros on the women's side, but also was involved with the juniors, which is how I got to know him. The photo above is from the 2015 North American qualifying for Junior Fed Cup competition, with Peterson the captain of the team of Kayla Day, Cici Bellis and Michaela Gordon.

If you can help, please consider a contribution. I know he will appreciate hearing from anyone who knew him from his many years playing, coaching and teaching tennis.