Quinn and Godsick Win US Open First Round Men's Doubles Match; Brooksby and Nakashima Advance in Men's Singles; US Open Junior Qualifying Begins Friday with 21 Americans Competing

Yesterday it was USTA Girls 18s National Champions Reese Brantmeier and Clervie Ngounoue earning a win in the first round of the women's doubles; today, Ethan Quinn and Nicholas Godsick followed suit, with the Kalamazoo champions defeating Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia and Hans Hach Verdugo of Mexico 7-6(1), 6-4.

There were only six break points total in the match, with each team having three chances; Quinn and Godsick converted the only one, breaking Hach Verdugo at 4-4 in the second on a Quinn return winner. Quinn then served it out at love, with, as Brantmeier did Wednesday, an ace on match point.

Reporter Michael Lewis spoke with Quinn after the match and provided me with these quotes:

Ethan Quinn:

It's very exciting; definitely something that not a lot of Kalamazoo winners do, come here and win their first round. It's pretty special to be in that group of people who come here after winning Kalamazoo and win their first round. It feels great.

"We saw Reese and Clervie in the hallway and gave them a fist-bump, happy for them too.

ON HIS EXPERIENCE PLAYING QUALIES (he lost in 2nd round to Federico Delbonis, in a 3-setter): It definitely helped me, getting used to the speed of the court, off the ground I felt really good and didn't feel pressure. I felt really good out there today, wasn't worried about the pace coming at me, because I'd seen it.

Last week I had a lot of confidence, and hitting with Andy Murray the last few days has been great. My rhythm is really good, and I have a lot of confidence with my game. When you have confidence you can play free and loose. I had some big returns in the tiebreaker (in the first set) and that was big.

ON DISAPPOINTMENT OF NOT QUALIFYING: It was a little disappointing, definitely. I had such a good first set against Delbonis; I knew he'd come up with something. Just disappointing I wasn't able to physically stay with him in the second and third sets.

It's crazy; you don't see that on TV, just the preparation before matches, and the physicality all these guys have, it's next level.

So the few days after kinda stung.

I knew that I was a lot closer (to the pro level) than I had thought; the pace of my ball was good, I wasn't getting blown off the court, now I just know the physicality of pro tennis, when you're being pushed you have to be strong.

ON HIS PARTNER'S FAMOUS PARENTS (Mary Joe Fernandez and Tony Godsick) AND KNOWING ROGER: Roger facetimed us once after a tournament, and that was pretty cool. One time Nico texted me after a match and was like "Roger says congrats" like it was no big deal. And I was like, whoa. 

ON NEXT ROUND: We got our first win; we got to take a picture in the locker room and got one of our match balls, so that was pretty cool. We can play free and loose again in our next round.

Quinn and Godsick will play No. 6 seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic of Croatia next. Mektic and Pavic won the Wimbledon men's doubles title in 2021 and lost in the final there this year.

Wimbledon boys champions Sebastian Gorzny and Alex Michelsen fell short in their upset bid in their first round doubles match, falling to 2019 US Open champions and No. 13 seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah of Colombia 7-5, 6-2.

Another wild card team, Ben Shelton and Christopher Eubanks, are through to the second round after saving two match points and going on to beat Stefanos and Petros Tsitsipas of Greece 3-6, 7-6(8), 6-2. 2019 NCAA doubles champion Keegan Smith(UCLA) and partner Nick Monroe(UNC) also advanced as did Robert Galloway(Wofford) and Alex Lawson(Notre Dame). That means four of the eight men's wild card teams won their opening match.

Jenson Brooksby and Brandon Nakashima both took out seeds today in the second round of men's singles, with Brooksby beating No. 25 seed and  Cincinnati Masters 1000 champion Borna Coric of Croatia 6-4, 7-6(10), 6-1 and Nakashima defeating No. 17 seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria 7-6(5), 7-5, 6-3.

Below are the results from today's second round and matchups for Friday's third round.

Thursday second round results of Americans:

Iga Swiatek[1](POL) d  Sloane Stephens 6-3, 6-2

Jessica Pegula[8] d. Aliaksandra Sasnoivch(BLR) 6-4, 6-4

Danielle Collins[19] d. Cristina Bucsa(ESP) 6-2, 7-5

Lauren Davis d. Ekaterina Alexandrova[28](RUS) 0-6, 6-4, 7-6(5)

Jenson Brooksby d. Borna Coric[25](CRO) 6-4, 7-6(10), 6-1

Frances Tiafoe[22] d. Jason Kubler(AUS) 7-6(3), 7-5, 7-6(2)

Jannik Sinner[11](ITA) d. Christopher Eubanks[Q] 6-4, 7-6(8), 6-2

Brandon Nakashima d. Grigor Dimitrov[17](BUL) 7-6(5), 7-5, 6-3

Holger Rune[28](DEN) d. John Isner walkover

Friday third round matches featuring Americans:

Madison Keys[20] v Coco Gauff[12]

Serena Williams v Ajla Tomljanovic(AUS)

Shelby Rogers[31] v Ons Jabeur[5](TUN)

Alison Riske-Amritraj[29] v Xiyu Wang(CHN)

Tommy Paul[29] v Casper Ruud[5](NOR)

JJ Wolf[WC] v Nick Kyrgios[23](AUS)

The draws are out for the US Open Junior qualifying, which begins at 10:00 a.m. Friday at the Cary Leeds Tennis Center in the Bronx. Twenty-one Americans, 11 boys and 10 girls, are in the fields, with five of each gender receiving wild cards.  Meecah Bigun, who originally received a qualifying wild card, ended up getting in on his own, so Hudson Rivera was given that available wild card.

The US boys:

Stiles Brockett[WC]

Sean Daryabeigi

Calvin Baierl[WC]

Yannik Rahman[WC](3)

Felipe Pinzon Moreno

Meecah Bigun[15]

Marko Mesarovic

Kurt Miller

Preston Stearns

Hudson Rivera[WC]

Cooper Woestendick[WC]

The US girls:

Julieta Pareja[WC]

Alanis Hamilton[WC]

Theadora Rabman[12]

Akasha Urhobo[WC]

Christasha McNeil[WC]

Katherine Hui[WC]

Ahmani Guichard

Valeria Ray

Tatum Evans

Ava Krug[7]

The girls draw is here; the boys draw is here. Live scoring will be available via usopen.org.