Thirty-three Americans in Wimbledon Draws; Roehampton J1 Qualifying Underway; USTA Wild Card Challenge Set for July; Collegians Advance to Semifinals at USTA Pro Circuit Tournaments

The Wimbledon draws were released this morning, with the United States leading all nations with 33 participants: 15 men and 18 women. Six US men are seeded, the most in the 32-seed era (2001), and seven US women are seeded, the most since 8 were seeded in 2004.

Here are the Americans competing; I'll post the matchups for Monday's first round in my Sunday post. The women's draw is here; the men's draw is here.

Reilly Opelka[15]
John Isner[20]
Christian Harrison[Q]
Frances Tiafoe[23]
Steve Johnson
Tommy Paul[30]
Jenson Brooksby[29]
Brandon Nakashima
Maxime Cressy
Jack Sock[Q]
Marcos Giron
Taylor Fritz[11]
Mackenzie McDonald
Denis Kudla
Sam Querrey

Claire Liu

Catherine Harrison[Q]

Sloane Stephens

Emina Bektas[Q]

Shelby Rogers[30]

Jessica Pegula[8]

Louisa Chirico[Q]

Coco Gauff[11]

Madison Brengle

Lauren Davis

Amanda Anisimova[20]

Christina McHale[Q]

Serena Williams[WC]

Danielle Collins[7]

Ann Li

Allison Riske[28]

Madison Keys[19]

Bernarda Pera

The doubles draws were also released today, with Rajeev Ram(USA) and Joe Salisbury(GBR) No. 1 in the men's draw and Elise Mertens(BEL) and Shuai Zhang(CHN) the top seeds in the women's draw.

Qualifying at the ITF Grade 1 in Roehampton began today, with the main draw beginning on Sunday. Four Americans have advanced to Saturday's final round of qualifying: Jelani Sarr, Jonah Braswell, Kaitlin Quevedo and Theodora Rabman.  Aidan Kim was initially in qualifying, but he is playing the J1 in Nottingham and is into the boys doubles final, with Nicholas Godsick, and either moved into the main draw or got a special exemption, as he's not able to play qualifying. 

No. 2 seed Qavia Lopez, the last American remaining in the Nottingham singles, lost to unseeded Ela Nala Milic of Slovenia 6-7(6), 6-3, 6-1 in today's semifinals. Milic will play No. 3 seed Taylah Preston of Australia in the final. The boys final features No. 4 seed Bor Artnak of Slovenia and No. 5 seed Martin Landaluce of Spain. Top seed and Roland Garros boys champion Gabriel Debru of France lost to unseeded William Jansen of Great Britain in the quarterfinals. 

The USTA today announced the return of its US Open Wild Card Challenge, which was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. As with the recent Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge, the points accumulated at any hard court event at the $25K level and above will be counted, with the best three results comprising a player's total. The men's race begins July 11 and runs for five weeks; the women's race begins July 18 and runs for four weeks. 

College players have fanned out across the country this month after the NCAA tournament and they've had a lot of success on the USTA Pro Circuit the past three weeks.  That has continued this week, with two wild cards reaching the semifinals of the $25,000 men's tournament in Tulsa.  It comes as a surprise to me that USC rising senior Stefan Dostanic didn't have an ATP point until this week, but the 20-year-old Southern Californian hasn't played all that many USTA Pro Circuit events and was usually in qualifying when he did. This week in Tulsa, he has defeated Donald Young, No. 4 seed Yunseong Chung of Korea, both by retirements, and today got a 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over No. 6 seed Omni Kumar(Duke). He will face No. 5 seed Sho Shimabukuro of Japan in the semifinals.

Wild card Andres Martin, a rising junior at Georgia Tech, defeated qualifier Murphy Cassone(Arizona State) 6-0, 6-2 and will play No. 3 seed Govind Nanda(UCLA) in the semifinals. Martin, also 20, reached the final of the $25K in East Lansing two weeks ago as a qualifier, and he is 7-1 on the Pro Circuit since losing to Stanford's Arthur Fery in the second round of the NCAA singles competition last month. Martin had not played a Pro Circuit event until East Lansing.

JJ Tracy, the rising junior at Ohio State, is into the semifinals at the $15,000 tournament in South Bend after defeating No. 8 seed Patrick Kypson(Texas A&M) 3-6, 6-2, 6-1. It's the third three-set victory for Tracy this week. He will play No. 5 seed Sekou Bangoura(Florida), while in the bottom half, 2015 NCAA champion Ryan Shane(Virginia) will face Tennessee rising junior Johannes Monday of Great Britain.

The only collegian still competing at the women's $25,000 tournament in Wichita is former North Carolina State star Adriana Reami. The unseeded 24-year-old, who has yet to drop a set, beat No. 2 seed Ana Sofia Sanchez of Mexico in the second round and defeated No. 5 seed Ashlyn Krueger, the 2021 USTA National 18s champion, 6-2, 6-2 today. Reami will play No. 4 seed Elli Mandlik, who beat No. 7 seed and 2022 NCAA singles champion Peyton Stearns(Texas) 6-4, 6-1. In the top half, No. 1 seed Kayla Day will play unseeded Samantha Crawford, a meeting between two former US Open girls champions, with Day winning in 2016 and Crawford in 2012.

At the $15,000 women's tournament in Colorado Springs, Texas A&M rising sophomore Gianna Pielet defeated top seed Connie Hsu(Penn) of Taiwan 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the semifinals of a USTA Pro Circuit event for the first time. Pielet will play No. 3 seed Katarina Kozarov(Furman) of Serbia, who beat No. 5 seed Ivana Corley(Oklahoma) 6-0, 6-3. In the bottom half, Virginia rising junior Hibah Shaikh continued her run, beating No. 8 seed Paris Corley(LSU) 1-6, 6-3, 6-4. The 19-year-old, who earned her first WTA points this week, will face wild card Veronika Miroshnichenko(Loyola Marymount) for a place in the final.