Ohio State Heads Field for ITA Division I Men's Team Indoor; USTA Announces Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge; Gorzny Advances to Main Draw at Naples $15K; ATP Delray Beach Update

With North Carolina's third straight ITA Women's Team Indoor Championship now in the books, this weekend's Men's Team Indoor takes center stage, with the draw released today. Top-ranked Ohio State, who has defeated four top 10 teams in the last two weeks, is the favorite going into the tournament and they are, of course the No. 1 seed. Baylor is seeded No. 2, followed by Tennessee at 3 and Florida at 4. Florida lost to TCU last month in Fort Worth, but is back ahead of the Horned Frogs, at least for this week.  Unlike the women's field, which had just eight seeds, the men are seeded 1-16. Friday's first round matchups:

Men's Team Indoor Round of 16, Friday February 18:

Ohio State[1] vs. Washington[16]
Baylor[2] vs. Mississippi[15]
Tennessee[3] vs Texas A&M[14]
Florida[4] vs. Texas[13]
TCU[5] vs Virginia[12]
Stanford[6] vs. South Carolina[11]
Kentucky[7] vs Southern Cal[10]
Wake Forest[8] vs. Georgia[9]

With the tournament in Seattle, coverage of the 6:30 PM Pacific time matches won't be feasible for me, but Cracked Racquets will again be onsite for their RedZone coverage at their YouTube Channel. They will also have a preview of the tournament in a live broadcast on their weekly Deciding Point show Thursday.

Yesterday the USTA announced it was reestablishing its Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. 

Both the men's and women's wild cards will be awarded to the Americans with the most ranking points earned at a maximum of three clay-court tournaments during a five-week window for the women and a four-week window for the men. All red-clay and Har-Tru events at the 25 level and above, including WTA and ATP Tour events, will be included in the Challenge.

 

The men's and women's challenges begin with tournaments on the week of April 4. The last week of the men's challenge is April 25. The last week of the women's challenge is May 2.

The full USTA press release is available here.

It's another week with two men's events in the United States--an ATP 250 and a Pro Circuit $15K--and no women's tournaments.

Qualifying concluded today at the $15,000 tournament in Naples Florida, with TCU recruit Sebastian Gorzny earning his way into the main draw in his first Pro Circuit tournament. The 18-year-old, who won his first ITF Grade 1 tournament last month in Costa Rica, will play Ozan Colak in the first round Wednesday. The 17-year-old Colak, who recently committed to Michigan State, received entry via the ITF's junior reserved program, as did Columbia recruit Michael Zheng. Wild cards were given to Alexander Bernard, an Ohio State recruit, Fletcher Scott(Illinois), Aidan Mayo and No. 2 seed Cristian Rodriguez of Colombia. The tournament's top seed is Yu Hsiou Hsu of Taiwan.

The first round of the Delray Beach Open will wrap up tonight, with wild card Jack Sock taking on Daniel Altmaier of Germany. So far, eight Americans are through to the second round, including No. 2 seed and last week's Dallas Open champion Reilly Opelka, who received a bye. Tommy Paul, who took a wild card into the tournament, is the No. 4 seed, and also has a bye into the second round. Jenson Brooksby, the Dallas Open finalist who would have been seeded No. 6, withdrew due to illness. Lucky loser Emilio Gomez(USC) of Ecuador took his place; qualifier Stefan Kozlov defeated Gomez 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 today. Other Americans advancing to the second round: No. 5 seed Sebastian Korda, Steve Johnson(USC), qualifier Mitchell Krueger, Brandon Nakashima(Virginia) and Marcos Giron(UCLA).

Former TCU All-American Cameron Norrie of Great Britain is the top seed; he will face Oscar Otte of Germany in the second round.