Basavareddy Wins Grade A Banana Bowl; Shang, Corwin Meet Sunday for Naples $15K Title; Ngounoue Captures $15K Doubles Title; Chicago and Case Western Advance to Men's D-III Team Indoor Final

Sixteen-year-old Nishesh Basavareddy has now run his winning streak in Brazil to 13 matches with his 6-1, 6-4 victory today over No. 6 seed Bor Artnak of Slovenia in the final of the ITF Grade A Banana Bowl in Criciuma Brazil. 

The Carmel Indiana resident, who is a senior in high school and has verbally committed to Stanford for the fall, started his winning streak in qualifying at the Grade 1 warmup tournament in Brazil two weeks ago. After three victories to make the main draw, Basavareddy added five more to take that title, and because he was still playing in that event and could not play in qualifying for this week's Grade A, he received a special exemption into the main draw. 

Because he had been sidelined by injuries most of last year, it wouldn't have been a surprise if he had run out of gas by now, after 13 singles and four doubles matches in the past two weeks, but Basavareddy held up physically, which has to give him great confidence for the rest of the spring and summer. With the 500 points he receives for winning this Grade A, he will move into the Top 25, assuring himself a place in the junior slams this summer.

No. 7 seed Lucia Havlickova of the Czech Republic won the girls singles title, defeating No. 8 seed Annabelle Xu of Canada 6-2, 6-2. Havlickova was a late entry, so the 16-year-old had to play qualifying, meaning she won eight matches for the title, all in straight sets.

The finals are set at the $15,000 USTA men's Pro Circuit tournament this week in Naples Florida, with 17-year-old Juncheng Jerry Shang of China taking on Felix Corwin, the former Minnesota star. 

Shang, who has won three USTA Pro Circuit $15Ks since losing in the final of the US Open Junior Championships in September, defeated No. 7 seed Timo Stodder (Tennessee) of Germany 6-2, 7-5 in today's semifinals. The unseeded Corwin, who defeated Pedro Boscardin Dias of Brazil 6-2, 6-1 today, is in his first final since he won his only title back in the fall of 2020.

Evan Zhu(UCLA) and Zeke Clark(Illinois) won the doubles title today, with the No. 2 seeds defeating Blu Baker of Great Britain and Jesse Witten(Kentucky), last week's Naples $15K champions, 3-6, 6-3, 10-8. Clarke and Zhu had lost to Baker and Witten in last week's final.

In other doubles results, 15-year-old Clervie Ngounoue won her first ITF World Tennis Tour women's title today in doubles, at the $15,000 tournament in Tunisia. Ngounoue and her partner, 17-year-old Hanne Vandewinkel of Belgium, who received entry as wild cards, defeated fellow teens Mara Guth and Mia Mack of Germany, also unseeded, 6-1, 6-2 in the final. 

Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula won the WTA 1000 doubles title in Doha, with the unseeded pair defeating No. 3 seeds Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium 3-6, 7-5, 10-5 in the final. It's their first title as a team, and the biggest of Gauff's career. The 17-year-old had won three WTA 250 titles with Caty McNally, while also reaching last year's US Open women's final with her. For more on their title, see this recap from the WTA website.

Vanderbilt's Christina Rosca and North Carolina State's Anna Rogers, two former collegians who completed their college eligibility last year, won their second consecutive ITF World Tennis Tour women's $25,000 title today in the Dominican Republic. Rosca and Rogers, who won the doubles title last week in Cancun, defeated Jasmijn Gimbrere and Isabella Haverlag of the Netherlands 6-2, 6-2 in today's final. 

Michael Venus(LSU) of New Zealand and Tim Puetz(Auburn) of Germany won the ATP 500 title in Dubai, saving three match points in a 6-3, 6-7(5), 16-14 win over No. 1 seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic of Croatia. Venus and Puetz now have three ATP titles since teaming up last summer. For more on the final, see this article from the ATP website.

This is a good place to call attention to the work of Chris Halioris of CollegeTennisRanks.com, which has recently provided updated lists of all the current and former collegiate players with ATP and WTA singles and doubles rankings that can be sorted by school. See the rankings tab for the links to the four lists.

Sunday's ITA Men's Division III Team Indoor final is set, with No. 6 seed Chicago facing top seed and host Case Western Reserve. Unlike yesterday, when Chicago eked out a 5-4 win over No. 3 seed Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, they had little trouble in today's semifinals, beating No. 7 seed Washington-St. Louis 8-1. Case Western got its second straight 8-1 win, beating No. 4 seed Trinity in the semifinals. For more on today's matches, see this ITA recap. Live scoring and live streaming links for Sunday's final can be found here.