Crawley Claims First Pro Singles Title at Florence $25K; Svajda Goes Back-to-Back in NorCal Challengers; Starodubtseva Sweeps at Rancho Santa Fe $60K; Jones, Schwaertzler Osaka J500 Champions; Pegula Wins WTA Title in Korea

University of North Carolina senior Fiona Crawley was unable to defend her ITA All-American title two weeks ago in Cary, but she got back to her winning ways this week at the $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Florence South Carolina. No. 1 in the ITA pre-season rankings, the 21-year-old from Texas was unseeded in Florence, as was her opponent in today's final, recent Duke graduate Chloe Beck. Beck, who finished the 2022-23 season at No. 7 in the national rankings, was playing in her first Pro Circuit singles final, while Crawley had previously reached the final at the $25K in Wichita back in June.  Crawley, who had faced only one seed in her five victories, a 6-1, 7-6(3) win over No. 7 seed Sophie Chang, beat Beck 7-5, 6-1 for her first Pro Circuit singles title. She should move to around 430 in the WTA rankings when the points are added.

Two-time Kalamazoo 18s champion Zachary Svajda, who turns 21 next month, won his second straight ATP Challenger 75 title today in Fairfield California, with the No. 4 seed defeating 18-year-old Stanford sophomore Nishesh Basavareddy 6-4, 6-1. Svajda, who defended his 2022 title in Tiburon last week, will actually see a ranking boost after this title; he is now 139 in the ATP live rankings, up from his previous career-high of 167.  Basavareddy will head back to Stanford at 498 in the ATP rankings, up from 1114 when these two Northern California Challengers began two weeks ago. Fingers crossed that he will compete in next month's ITA National Fall Championships, where he is the defending champion.

At the $60,000 USTA women's Pro Circuit tournament in Rancho Santa Fe California, 23-year-old Yuliia Starodubtseva of Ukraine won her third title at that level this year, defeating former Texas star Lulu Sun of Switzerland, the No. 8 seed, 7-5, 6-3 in today's final. The 23-year-old Old Dominion All-American, seeded No. 4, is up to 175 in the live WTA rankings, and with no points to defend until next February, she is comfortably in the qualifying for the Australian Open even if she doesn't play another tournament this year.

Starodubtseva and her partner Makenna Jones(UNC), the top seeds, closed out the tournament with the doubles title, beating the unseeded team of Madison Sieg(USC) and Tatiana Prozorova of Russia 6-3, 4-6, 10-6. It's the ninth Pro Circuit doubles title for Jones this year; Starodubtseva now has three.

For more on Lulu Sun's connection to Southern California, which involves a sibling also working on breaking into a sport's top echelon, see this Steve Pratt article after Saturday's semifinals.

No. 4 seed Emerson Jones of Australia and No. 2 seed Joel Schwaerzler of Austria claimed their first J500 titles this week at the Osaka Mayor's Cup in Japan.

The 15-year-old Jones, who had won the J300 in College Park in August and the J300 Asian/Oceania Closed in Korea last week, defeated No. 11 seed Kristiana Sidorova of Russia 7-6(5), 7-5 in Sunday's final to run her straight-sets winning streak to 12. 

Schwaerzler, 17, defeated No. 4 seed Nicolai Budkov Kjae of Norway by a similar score in the boys singles final, 7-6(6), 7-5. Schwaerzler now heads to the ITF Junior Finals in Chengdu China; Jones's push into the top 10 came too late for this year's Junior Finals, but she's already in excellent shape for 2024.

Jessica Pegula won her second WTA title of the year and fourth overall at the 250 in Seoul Korea. The top seed, who was a wild card entry, defeated unseeded Yue Yuan of China 6-2, 6-3. Pegula's mother was born in Korea, so capturing a title there had special meaning for her. For more on the final, see this article from the WTA website.