Jovic, Grant and Glozman Reach Redding $25K Quarterfinals; Kessler Advances at Rome $60K; Miller Upsets Top Seed and Defending Champion Crawley at ITA All-American Championships, Men's All-American's Top Seeds Move On

The $25,000 women's USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Redding California this week has proven fertile ground for the young Americans in the draw, with three already in the quarterfinals and another still with an opportunity to join them.

Fifteen-year-old Iva Jovic, who returned to competition at the US Open Junior Championships after being out five months with an injury, received a wild card this week and has recorded two tough two-set victories, beating qualifier Ellie Douglas(TCU) 7-6(7), 6-4 in the first round and No. 5 seed Maria Mateas(Duke) 7-6(4) 6-3 in today's second round. 

Sixteen-year-old wild card Valerie Glozman, who was a teammate of Jovic's on the USA's 2022 Junior Billie Jean King Cup champions, defeated No. 4 seed and 2022 Wimbledon girls champion Liv Hovde 6-1, 6-2.  Glozman will face qualifier Tyra Grant in the quarterfinals, with the 15-year-old Grant defeating WTA 396 Johanne Svendsen of Denmark 6-4, 6-1. Sixteen-year-old Aspen Schuman, who also received a wild card, won her first round match yesterday and is playing No. 6 seed Hanna Chang in this evening's match.

Former University of Florida All-American Mccartney Kessler has had a great first full year on the Pro Circuit and she continues to put up impressive results. After losing to top seed Taylor Townsend in the semifinals at last week's tournament in California, Kessler, playing much closer to home this week at the $60,000 tournament in Rome Georgia, defeated Townsend in the first round yesterday 6-2, 6-4. Today Kessler, up to 272 in the WTA live rankings, beat Sahaja Yamalapalli of India 6-4, 6-2. Kessler now has two WTA Top 100 wins, over Yue Yuan of China in the first round of qualifying at the US Open, and now Townsend.

Kessler faces No. 8 seed Anastasia Tikhonova of Russia in the quarterfinals; the other quarterfinal in the top half features No. 4 seed Elsa Jacquemot of France and Renata Zarazua of Mexico.

In the bottom half, all four quarterfinalists are American, with Grace Min facing No. 3 seed Ann Li, and Jamie Loeb(UNC) playing Victoria Hu(Princeton).

A huge upset today in the round of 16 at the ITA All-American Championships in Cary North Carolina, with top seed and defending champion Fiona Crawley of North Carolina going out to Michigan senior Kari Miller 7-5, 7-5. Miller is one of four unseeded quarterfinalists, and there will be a semifinalist who came through qualifying, with 2021 All-American champion Sarah Hamner facing Jessica Alsola of Cal. Both Hamner, who beat No. 8 seed Amelia Rajecki of NC State 6-3, 6-3, and Alsola, a 6-2, 6-2 winner over Stanford's Angelica Blake, have now won five matches in four days.

No. 3 seed Alexa Noel of Miami, the 2021 All-American finalist, will face Carolina Gomez Alonso of Arkansas, after Noel defeated Alexandra Yepifanova of Stanford 7-6(4), 6-2 and Gomez beat qualifier Casie Wooten of Wake Forest 6-1, 6-2.

No. 2 seed Mary Stoiana of Texas A&M barely survived her second round contest with qualifier Ange Oby Kajuru of Oklahoma State, needing two and a half hours to earn a 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 victory. She will play No. 5 seed Dasha Vidmanova of Georgia, who defeated qualifier Dana Guzman of Oklahoma 7-5, 6-4.

At the men's All-American Championships in Tulsa Oklahoma, nine seeds have advanced to Friday's round of 16, including the Top 5 seeds. No. 1 Eliot Spizzirri of Texas defeated friend and occasional doubles partner Tyler Zink of Oklahoma State 6-4, 6-3 and will face No. 9 seed Michael Zheng of Columbia next.

No. 2 seed Chris Rodesch of Virginia defeated Adam Neff of SMU 7-6(7), 6-4 and will play No. 9 seed Micah Braswell of Texas.

Virginia, Texas and Michigan State are the schools with two players in the round of 16, with Inaki Montes joining Rodesch and Ozan Baris and Ronnie Hohmann the two Spartans. Baris defeated No. 9 seed Ryan Fishback of Virginia Tech 6-2, 6-1; the other match with an unseeded player beating a seeded player was Gavin Young of Michigan over No. 8 seed JJ Tracy of Ohio State.

Two qualifiers are into the last 16: Arizona's Jay Friend and Ohio State's Jack Anthrop, who ended the run of pre-qualifier Sam Landau of Indiana 7-5, 6-2.

There was a major upset in men's doubles in today's second round, with Virginia's Montes and James Hopper defeating No. 2 seeds Baris and Max Sheldon of Michigan State 6-3, 3-6, 10-8. Top seeds Spizzirri and Cleeve Harper of Texas play unseeded Dhakshineswar Suresh and Holden Koons of Wake Forest in the quarterfinals Friday afternoon. 

The men will play both the round of 16 and the quarterfinals in singles Friday beginning at 9 a.m. CDT.

The women's quarterfinals begin at 10 a.m. EDT.

Cracked Racquets will provide their Cross CourtCast coverage of both at their YouTube Channel.