TCU Sweeps Texas for Back-to-Back Division I ITA Men's Team Indoor Titles; Johnston Claims ITF J60 Singles Championship in Mexico; J500 in Cairo Underway; Four Americans Qualify for Rome GA Challenger, Wild Card Michelsen Advances to Second Round

The TCU Horned Frogs became the first team to take back-to-back ITA Division I Men's Team Indoor titles since Virginia's four straight from 2008-2011, beating Texas 4-0 in less than two hours Monday at the XS Tennis Village in Chicago.

The No. 3 seeds took the doubles point, with wins at lines 1 and 2, with Jake Fearnley and Luc Fomba beating Cleeve Harper and Eliot Spizzirri 7-5 at 1 and Sander Jong and Jack Pinnington Jones defeating Pierre-Yves Bailly and Siem Woldeab 6-4 at 2.

Without the doubles point, Texas was looking at an uphill battle, although the Longhorns had managed to scale that mountain against top seed Ohio State in the quarterfinals, that was two 4-3 matches ago. In a fourth match in four days, No. 8 seed Texas was bound to be less fresh, while TCU had had a tough test in its 4-2 semifinal against No. 2 seed Kentucky, that may have been ideal preparation for today's final.

Texas started well enough in singles to give hope that they might be able to earn their third straight upset and first Indoor title, with break leads in three first sets. But that was early, and the Longhorns gave those breaks back, with TCU ultimately taking five first sets.

TCU went up 2-0 before Texas got their sole first set at line 6, with freshman Pinnington Jones defeating Micah Braswell 6-4, 6-0 at line 3. Pinnington Jones, who just became eligible on February 8, hadn't been particularly impressive in his first four dual matches, but today he showed why his eligibility status was so significant in assessing TCU's prospects this spring. 

The bright spots for Texas were few and they dimmed considerably when Spizzirri lost the first set to Fearnley at line 1 and TCU's other freshman, Sebastian Gorzny, came from 4-1 down in the first set to win and take a break lead in the second set over Harper at line 5. 

Jong made it 3-0 TCU with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Woldeab at line 4 and the suspense at the end was who would clinch: Fearnley at line 1, or Gorzny at line 5. Spizzirri had saved a match point in the second set to force a tiebreaker, before Jong closed out Woldeab, but he still had to win that tiebreaker. He did, putting all eyes on Gorzny, who was up 6-4, 5-1, with Harper serving. All the experience edge was all on Harper's side, the momentum was all with Gorzny, and four points later, TCU had its second national team title in program history.

Five teams--Ohio State, Kentucky, TCU, Michigan and South Carolina--had entered the Team Indoor Championships undefeated, but now the only one without a loss is TCU, who will meet Texas again, in Fort Worth, in less than two weeks in a non-conference match.

TCU[3] 4, Texas[8] 0

Doubles
1. Jake Fearnley and Luc Fomba(TCU) d. Cleeve Harper and Eliot Spizzirri(TEX) 7-5
2. Sander Jong and Jack Pinnington Jones(TCU) d. Pierre-Yves Bailly and Siem Woldeab(TEX) 6-4
3. Sebastian Gorzny and Pedro Vives(TCU) v Chih Chi Huang and Micah Braswell(TEX) 6-5, unfinished

Order of finish: 2, 1

Singles
1. Jake Fearnley(TCU) v Eliot Spizzirri(TEX) 6-1, 6-7(5), unfinished
2. Luc Fomba(TCU) v Pierre-Yves Bailly(TEX) 6-4, 3-4, unfinished
3. Jack Pinnington Jones(TCU) d. Micah Braswell(TEX) 6-4, 6-0
4. Sander Jong(TCU) d. Siem Woldeab(TEX) 6-2, 6-3
5. Sebastian Gorzny(TCU) d. Cleeve Harper(TEX) 6-4, 6-1
6. Evin McDonald(TEX) v Tomas Jirousek(TCU) 7-6(5), 1-1, unfinished

Order of finish: 3, 4, 5

The ITF Junior Circuit report for last week includes two titles for American juniors in addition to the doubles title claimed by Kaitlin Quevedo at the J300 in Peru and the four titles for Americans at the J30 in New Jersey.  

Noah Johnston won his first ITF Junior Circuit singles title at the J60 in Mexico, with the unseeded 15-year-old from South Carolina taking out the No. 5, 11, 3 and 1 seeds, in that order, to reach the final, where he defeated No. 2 seed Andres Delgadillo of Mexico 6-2, 6-2. 

At the J60 in Guatemala, 16-year old Vessa Turley won her sixth ITF Junior Circuit doubles title and second with partner Deborah Dominguez Collado of Guatemala. The top seeds defeated No. 3 seeds Ece Gencer of Turkey and Jelena Vico of Canada 6-3, 6-4 in the final. 

The second of the two indoor J30s in the United States is this week in Eau Claire Wisconsin. Isabella Chhiv is the top girls seed, with 14-year-old Thea Frodin, who won a J100 in Mexico two weeks ago and the J30 in New Jersey last week, is the No. 2 seed. The boys top seed is Aaron Yu of Hong Kong, with Mikael Arseneault of Canada the No. 2 seed. 

Most of the US juniors have returned to the US after three or four weeks in Central and South America, but a few are in Paraguay for the J300 this week: Max Exsted and Roy Horovitz[2] in the boys draw and Sage Loudon and Quevedo[2] in the girls draw. The top seeds in Paraguay are Sara Saito of Japan and Adriano Dzhenev of Bulgaria. 

The big ITF junior tournament this week is the J500 in Cairo Egypt, which had little US presence to begin with and none of the three Americans competing in singles advanced out of the first round. No. 14 seed Alexander Frusina, who reached the semifinals of the J300 warmup event last week in Cairo, lost in the first round today at the J500. Abishek Thorat and qualifier Lucy King Oyebog Atang also went out in the first round. The fields are not generally strong--the qualifying fields did not come close to filling--but the top seeds are among the best juniors in the world, with 2023 Australian Open finalist Mirra Andreeva of Russia No. 1 in the girls draw and Australian Open semifinalist Yi Zhou of China No. 1 in the boys draw. 

The ATP Challenger Tour resumes in the United States this week with a 75-level tournament in Rome Georgia; qualifying concluded today and four first round matches were on Monday's schedule.

Americans qualifying for the main draw are Patrick Kypson(Texas A&M), Keegan Smith(UCLA), Toby Kodat and Georgia Tech sophomore Gabriele Brancatelli. The 19-year-old Brancatelli received a wild card into qualifying and beat No. 9 seed Murphy Cassone(Arizona State) in the first round and No. 6 seed Shinji Hazawa of Japan in today's final round. Both Cassone and Hazawa are inside the ATP Top 550, while Brancatelli has never played in the main draw of any ITF Pro Circuit event, at any level.

Eighteen-year-old Alex Michelsen, who received a wild card into the main draw, beat No. 7 seed Dominik Koepfer(Tulane) of Germany 6-3, 6-1 tonight to advance to the second round. The other wild cards this week went to Ryan Harrison and Nathan Ponwith(Georgia/Arizona State). Jordan Thompson of Australia is the top seed, with former North Carolina star Rinky Hijikata the No. 2 seed.