ITF J300 College Park Begins Monday with Eight American Qualifiers; Tiafoe Practice Scheduled for JTCC Stadium Court; Gauff Wins Cincinnati Title

©Colette Lewis 2023--
College Park MD--

The final day of qualifying for the ITF J300 Wayne K. Curry Prince George's County International Junior Tennis Championships presented by Laurel Spring School meant another full day of tennis at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park.

Two of the boys qualifiers and all six of the girls qualifiers played two matches Sunday, and will be back on the courts for their first round singles on Monday, but fortunately, the weather cooperated, with temperatures in the 80s and little humidity.

Four of the six qualifiers in each gender are Americans: Aspen Schuman, Monika Ekstrand, Leena Friedman[4] and Sydney Jara, with Raphaelle Leroux[6] and Gian Octo of Canada the other two girls reaching the main draw.

The four US boys winning three qualifying matches over the weekend are: Mitchell Lee, Meecah Bigun[8], Nikita Filin[3] and Joseph Oyebog. The other two qualifiers are from Canada: Junghee You and Nicholas Arseneault.

A lucky loser also moved into the main draw, Canada's Connor Church[7], who lost to Lee 6-2, 6-3 in the final round of qualifying. Church replaces Cooper Woestendick, who withdrew with an illness.

Although no seeds will play until Tuesday, the schedule will again be packed, with all 32 first round singles matches; first round doubles matches are also expected to be played in the afternoon, with the sign-up closing Monday at noon.

There will be a special treat for those at JTCC Monday morning, with Frances Tiafoe, who grew up training there, returning for a practice session on Stadium Court. Tiafoe, currently No. 10 in the ATP rankings, is expected to work out after the match between wild card Cyrus Mahjoob and Nicolas Oliveira of Brazil, which begins at 9 a.m.

The welcome dinner for players, coaches and parents turned into a Cincinnati Masters 1000 watch party for the final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, with the attention of most of the players focused squarely on the big screen TV in the banquet room. Once Djokovic won the match, 5-7, 7-6(7), 7-6(4), attention turned to the trivia game, which had teams identify top current ATP and WTA competitors from photos of their junior days playing the tournament. One of the players who was most quickly identified by all teams was Coco Gauff, who made the final here in 2017, when she was 13 years old.

Six years later, Gauff is a Masters 1000 champion, beating Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-4 in today's Cincinnati final. For more on Gauff's title, her second of the month, after winning the WTA 500 in Washington DC, see this article from the WTA website.

It was an all-American sweep of the women's titles in Cincinnati, with Taylor Townsend and Alycia Parks taking the doubles title with a 6-7(1), 6-4, 10-6 win over No. 3 seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Ellen Perez. Townsend and Perez, playing together for the first time, beat four of the Top 5 seeded teams en route to the first Masters title for either.  For more, see this article from the WTA website.