Another Five USTA Pro Circuit Tournaments on This Week's Schedule; ITA Tracks Collegiate Champions on Pro Circuit; Mobile Tennis Center's Expansion Plans

It's another busy week on the USTA Pro Circuit, with five tournaments on the calendar for the second straight week. Unlike last week, when the women competed in a $60,000 tournament, this week's events are all at the $25K and $15K levels.

As the men vacate the premises in Wichita, the women arrive for their $25,000 tournament, with many of the same players who competed in last week's $25K tournament in Colorado Springs. Champion Katarina Kozarov(Furman/Texas Tech) is unseeded this week, with Karman Thandi of India and Stacey Fung(Washington) of Canada the top two seeds. Fung was No. 1 last week in Colorado Springs and Thandi No. 2; they reversed positions this week.

Main draw wild cards went to former Pepperdine All-American Ashley Lahey[4], rising North Carolina sophomore Reese Brantmeier and Joelle Kissell(NC State), currently the assistant coach of the Wichita State women.

Some of the top women in college tennis last season received wild cards into qualifying: ITA Player of the Year Fiona Crawley of North Carolina, Alexa Noel of Miami and Ivana Corley of Oklahoma all qualified for the main draw with wins today, having won both their qualifying matches in straight sets. 

Other American qualifiers are Paris Corley(LSU), Ohio State rising freshman Luciana Perry, and recent North Carolina recruit Susanna Maltby.  Next Monday, my article on Maltby's commitment to the Tar Heels for 2024 will be published at the Tennis Recruiting Network. The 17-year-old from Illinois, who has been mentored by one of the world's most famous tennis players, told me she was looking to move beyond USTA Junior competition this summer to prepare for college, so this is obviously an encouraging start for her. She has drawn Thandi in the first round; all first round matches are Wednesday.

The men's $25,000 tournament in Tulsa has completed its qualifying,  with seven of the eight qualifiers, all with collegiate ties, from the United States: Daniel Milavsky(Harvard), Karl Poling(Princeton/UNC), Alejandro Moreno(Auburn), Hank Trondson(Oklahoma), Brayden Michna(Texas A&M), Liam Krall(SMU), Gabrielius Guzauskas(Illinois).  Braden Shick(NC State), who lost to Moreno, received entry as a lucky loser.

Last week's champion Ethan Quinn(Georgia) is the No. 7 seed this week; the top seeds are Adam Walton(Tennessee) of Australia and Nick Chappell(TCU), who played the ATP Challenger in Puerto Rico last week and opted to play a $25K, which is the highest level available this week on hard courts. 

Wild cards were given to Hunter Heck(Illinois), Adam Neff(SMU), Noureldin Adam(Florida A&M) and Pierce Rollins(Texas A&M). Heck lost to No. 6 seed Alfredo Perez(Florida) in first round action today, with Adam also eliminated, by No. 8 seed Cannon Kingsley(Ohio State) . Neff won his first round match today, beating No. 4 seed Colin Sinclair(Cornell) of the Northern Mariana Islands 4-6, 7-5, 7-5.  Walton defeated Gianni Ross(Virginia) 6-0, 6-1 in his first round match today. 

Ozan Baris, last week's finalist in Wichita, received entry via the ITF's junior exempt program.

The $15,000 men's tournament in South Bend completed qualifying today, but no main draw matches are scheduled until Wednesday.

The top seeds are Strong Kirchheimer(Northwestern) and Pepperdine rising freshman Edward Winter of Australia, with wild cards given to three Notre Dame players--Chase Thompson, a rising freshman, Nil Giraldez of Spain, a grad transfer, and Brian Bilsey, a rising junior. The fourth wild card went to Virginia Tech's Ryan Fishback.

Qualifiers from the United States are Loren Byers(Penn State), Colton Smith(Arizona) and Connor Bruce(Dayton).

Junior reserved spots in the main draw went to Micah Bigun and Adhithya Ganesan(Cornell).

The $15,000 men's and women's tournaments at the Jack Kramer Club in Los Angeles, part of the SoCal Pro Series, will be difficult to follow this week for those of us in the Eastern time zone, with matches scheduled to start as late as 9 p.m. here. But the draws are out, and twelve first round matches are on the schedule today, so I'll provide what information I have as of now.

The top two seeds in the women's draw are Maria Fernanda Navarro of Mexico and Savanna Ly-Nguyen(Washington State) of Vietnam.

NCAA singles champion Fangran Tian, the UCLA rising sophomore, finally took a week off last week, but she is back this week as the No. 5 seed. She won her first round match today over Zara Larke(Virginia) of Australia 6-2, 6-2. 

Wild cards were given to Parker Fry(Arizona), Amelia Honer(UC-Santa Barbara), Mika Ikemori(UC-Davis) and 14-year-old Thea Frodin.

Anya Murthy received a junior reserved spot in the main draw.

For the men, the top seeds are Nathan Ponwith(Georgia/Arizona State) and Alafia Ayeni(Cornell/Kentucky). 

Wild cards were given to Maxwell McKennon(Arizona State), Ethan Schiffman(Cal), Colter Smith(USC) and 2023 18s Easter Bowl champion Cassius Chinlund.

Nicholas Godsick received a main draw spot via the ITF junior reserved program.

Keeping track of all the current and former collegians flooding the tournament draws in the summer is no easy task, but I was delighted to see that the ITA has begun tracking those results. I know from my own monitoring, for my Aces column, that there are more and more champions from the collegiate ranks with each passing month, demonstrated by the fact that there have been 79 singles and doubles professional titles by former or current collegians in this month alone.

And that doesn't include the two biggest titles, at Roland Garros: Tim Puetz of Auburn's mixed doubles title and Austin Krajicek of Texas A&M's men's doubles title. Those are not included because the tournament began in May. 

That impressively long list can be found here and given all the collegians in this week's tournaments, it will no doubt continue to grow before the month is over.

The Mobile Tennis Center, site of the USTA National Spring Team Championships and the USTA Boys 12s and 14s National Championships, as well as many other big college and junior events, is one of the biggest and most active facilities in the country. One reason for that is the commitment to improvement and there are many of those coming according to this article from usta.com. 

... the center has ambitious expansion plans, including the addition of 30 clay tennis courts, 12 indoor tennis courts, and eight indoor and 12 outdoor pickleball courts.

The article also mentions bid preparation for live streaming on all courts.