Brenda Fruhvirtova Claims First Pro Title; Stricker, Maria Win Cleveland Challenger, Rome $60K; Another Cancun $15K Title for Holt; Ohio State Cruises Past Virginia, Wake Forest Beats Georgia

After just three professional tournaments, 14-year-old Brenda Fruhvirtova of the Czech Republic has her first title, defeating No. 5 seed Caroline Alves of Brazil 6-3, 6-3 in today's final of the $25,000 ITF Women's World Tennis Tournament in Argentina. After two WTA Top 200 wins in the quarterfinals and semifinals, both in three sets, the ITF World No. 4 junior had an easier time today against No. 240 Alves, needing just 75-minutes to collect the title. With the WTA's age restrictions, Fruhvirtova has some limitations, with a 14-year-old allowed only eight tournaments and three wild cards, but due to her Top 5 finish in the juniors in 2021, she gets merited increases in that number. When she turns 15 in April, that reboots, so she should have plenty of opportunities to compete in ITF Women's events in the next few months, and can also take a wild card into a 250 during that time.

Dominic Stricker
photo courtesy Scott Gerber/OhioTennisZone.com

At the USTA Pro Circuit events this week two players at widely varying places in their careers claimed titles, with unseeded 19-year-old Dominic Stricker of Switzerland winning the ATP Challenger 80 title in Cleveland and 34-year-old qualifier Tatjana Maria of Germany taking the title at the $60,000 Pro Circuit tournament in Rome Georgia.

Stricker avenged his final loss to Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan in last week's Challenger in Columbus, taking out the No. 3 seed 7-5, 6-1 for his second Challenger title. The 19-year-old Stricker, who won the French Open boys title in 2020, will move up to around 163 in the ATP rankings with the win.

Maria, who was at a career-high of 46 in the WTA rankings in November of 2017, had her second child last spring, so she is in the process of rebuilding her ranking which fell to 311 recently. Today, she defeated wild card Alycia Parks 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 for her seventh consecutive win; that second set was the only one she lost all week.

Americans won three titles outside of the United States today, with Hurricane Tyra Black, Chiara Scholl and Brandon Holt collecting titles at $15,000 tournaments.

Black, the No. 2 seed, had to win two matches today in Turkey, where she was on court for more than four hours. The 20-year-old Floridian defeated No. 3 seed Naho Sato of Japan 7-6(7), 1-6, 6-3 in the semifinals and No. 6 seed Ilay Yoruk of Turkey 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in the final. It's Black's fourth ITF women's singles title and her second this year.

In Tunisia, Scholl, who has 11 career singles title on the ITF Circuit, won her first title since 2019 today. The 29-year-old, seeded No. 5, defeated No. 2 seed Haruna Arakawa of Japan 6-2, 6-4 in the final.

Brandon Holt, the former USC All-American, won his third consecutive title in Cancun today, running his 2022 record to 15-0. The unseeded 23-year-old defeated former Georgia standout Emil Reinberg, a wild card, 7-5, 6-0 in the final. Holt, who has been using a protected ranking for entry, missed the last half of 2021 with an injury. He has five Pro Circuit singles title now.

There were two Top 10 non-conference men's Division I matches today, with No. 5 Ohio State beating No. 6 Virginia 4-0 and No. 10 Wake Forest defeating No. 8 Georgia 4-3.

Ohio State's 4-0 win over Tennessee on Friday night in Columbus was impressive, serving notice that the Buckeyes were serious contenders for the NCAA title this year. But how they handled a match less than 48 hours later against an excellent Virginia team was going to go a long way in determining just how high expectations should be.  

If anything, Ohio State's win over Virginia was even more convincing; most of the first sets in singles in the Tennessee match were extremely close before the Buckeyes pulled away. But Virginia never really got into the match; after dropping the doubles point, which was not unexpected, given Ohio State's success there, they were not able to put any pressure on the Buckeyes and, as was the case against Tennessee, Ohio State had match point on another court when Matej Vocel clinched at line 2.

Ohio State again got a quick 6-3, 6-2 win from James Trotter over Jeffrey von der Schulenburg, this time at line 4, and Cannon Kingsley, moving up to line 1 today, got the third point with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Chris Rodesch. Vocel took out Bar Botzer 6-3, 6-3 at line 2 to clinch, with JJ Tracy at match point at line 5.

I anticipate after these two wins this weekend, Ohio State will move to No. 1 in the rankings. They will continue to play top competition, with No. 11 Kentucky and No. 10 Wake Forest both coming to Columbus next weekend. 

There was much more drama in Wake Forest's home win over Georgia, with five of the six singles matches going to three sets, and the match coming down to a third set at line 6. After Wake had taken the doubles point and gotten a win from Melios Efstathiou at line 2, Georgia's Blake Croyder countered at line 5. Wake took a 3-1 lead with Eduardo Nava's win at line 3, but Georgia's Philip Henning at line 1 and Tristan McCormick at line 4 made it 3-all. Jakob Schnaitter was the hero from the Demon Deacons, defeating Georgia freshman Miguel Perez Pena 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 6-3 to clinch the win.