February Aces; Navarro, Montgomery Receive BNP Paribas Open Main Draw Wild Cards; Douglas Reaches Semis at Arcadia $60K; Florida Men Blank South Carolina in Top Ten Battle

My monthly Aces column for the Tennis Recruiting Network was published today, with February's five ITA Team indoor Champions, eight former collegians and five junior players featured for their performances last month. Three of February's standouts managed to win not one but two singles titles during the month.

Qualifying for the BNP Paribas Open begins Monday in Indian Wells, so most of the wild cards not already awarded were announced today. The previously announced main draw wild cards went to Naomi Osaka, Sofia Kenin and Andy Murray. Today the tournament distributed this release, revealing main draw wild cards for Nick Kyrgios of Australia and Americans Jack Sock and Sam Querrey. One more men's wild card remains to be distributed. Brandon Nakashima is next in the main draw, so if he doesn't get in, I would imagine he would be in line for that last wild card.

The women's main draw wild cards were given to 2021 NCAA champion Emma Navarro, 2021 US Open girls singles and doubles champion Robin Montgomery, Claire Liu, Hailey Baptiste, Katie Volynets and Elvina Kalieva. 

Qualifying wild cards were also announced today, with spots in the men's draw going to Brandon Holt(USC), Emilio Nava, Bruno Kuzuhara, Sebastian Sec and Jerry Shang of China. Holt, one of the former collegians featured in February's Aces column, is currently playing in the $25,000 ITF men's World Tennis Tour event in the Dominican Republic, where he has advanced to the semifinals with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over No. 4 seed Aleks Kovacevic(Illinois). He'll play another former collegiate star, North Carolina's Rinky Hijikata of Australia, for a place in the final. Govind Nanda(UCLA) is also through to the semifinals. In the women's $25K in the Dominican Republic, recent North Carolina State graduate Adriana Reami is through to her first semifinal at the $25K level after defeating No. 2 seed Anastasia Tikhonova 6-2, 6-1. She'll play former Georgia star Maria Carle of Argentina, the No. 3 seed, Saturday.

Back to the BNP Paribas qualifying, where wild cards into the women's qualifying were given to Caty McNally, Ashlyn Krueger, Reese Brantmeier, Elli Mandlik, Theadora Rabman and Alycia Parks.

Parks is currently playing 16-year-old wild card Liv Hovde in the quarterfinals of the $60,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Arcadia California, with Hovde taking the second set in a tiebreaker after trailing 6-3, 3-0. The match is currently interrupted, I assume due to rain, with the winner scheduled to face top seed Chloe Paquet of France in Saturday's semifinal.

Qualifier Ellie Douglas(TCU) is through to the semifinals after defeating Priscilla Hon of Australia 6-2, 6-2 and will play No. 5 seed Rebecca Marino of Canada It's Douglas's second semifinal on the Pro Circuit and her first at the $60,000 level, with Marino the player who kept her from her first Pro Circuit final last year at a $25K in Evansville Indiana.

It's another big weekend in Division I college tennis, with conference play beginning for the SEC and ACC. In the only match between two Top 10 teams today, the fifth-ranked Florida men hosted No. 6 South Carolina and ran away with the match, taking a 7-0 decision. The Gators will not have much time to enjoy that win as they'll be called upon to play in the only other all-Top 10 match of the weekend on Sunday, when they travel to No. 9 Kentucky. 

For the schedule, times, results and links to scoring and streaming, see collegetennisranks.com.  For the Cracked Racquets SEC RedZone coverage (Friday only), click here. Their Big Ten coverage on Sunday can be found at their YouTube Channel.