Hovde Beats No. 3 Seed Dart, Eight Americans Qualify at Arcadia $60K; ITF Suspends Russia and Belarus from International Team Competitions; North Carolina Announces $17M Tennis Facility Upgrade; Cracked Racquets Partners with SEC Network for Red Zone Coverage

Liv Hovde hadn't played since reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open Junior Championships in January, but the 16-year-old from Texas has picked up right where she left off today in the first round of the $60,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit tournament in Arcadia California. Hovde, who was given a wild card, defeated No. 3 seed and WTA 121 Harriet Dart of Great Britain 7-6(1), 6-3. Hovde is playing in just her third main draw on the USTA Women's Pro Circuit; she doesn't have a WTA ranking, but that should change next week.

All eight of the qualifiers decided today are from the United States: Quinn Gleason[4](Notre Dame), Robin Montgomery[2], Maegan Manasse[12](Cal), Ena Shibahara[6](UCLA), Reese Brantmeier[8], Ellie Douglas[5](TCU), Kayla Day[1] and Ashlyn Krueger[7].  Day and Krueger will play each other in the first round Wednesday, with Hovde taking on the winner in the second round. 

The International Tennis Federation announced today that it was suspending Russia and Belarus from membership, canceling tournaments there, and blocking participation in international team events due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Belarus's direct support of that invasion. This suspension does not extend to individual players, who may compete in all WTA, ATP and ITF events, but not under the name or flag of those two countries. Here is the joint statement from the sport's governing bodies.

In ITF juniors, this mean that neither country can compete in the European Summer Cups that serve as qualifying for the ITF's U14 World Junior Tennis team competition in August and the U16 Junior Davis Cup and Junior Billie Jean King Cups in September. The Russian boys are the reigning Junior Davis Cup champions, while the Russian girls took the World Junior Tennis title last year. 

The University of North Carolina announced today that six sports would be the focus of an athletics facility upgrade project, including "a new outdoor stadium and practice courts at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center for Men's and Women's Tennis." An artist's rendition of the revamped Tennis Center and more details on the initial $17 million phase of the project can be viewed here. Completion date is expected to be early spring of 2023.

I mentioned Sunday the Cracked Racquets' weekly RedZone coverage of Big Ten(Sunday) and SEC(Friday) dual matches this season; more details have been released on the SEC partnership, which differs from that of the Big Ten. Cracked Racquets' first Big Ten coverage, the Ohio State women's win over Pepperdine last Sunday, was available on their YouTube channel, but the SEC coverage will be available only on each school's website. The explanation from the Tennessee Volunteers about how this partnership will work is here. SEC coverage set to begin on Friday.