My Article on How Juniors Adapt to Latest On-Court Coaching Trials; ITF World Junior Champion Bailly Signs with Texas; ITA National Fall Fields Complete; Akli Moves on at Tyler $80K; Kang, Tien Reach Pro Circuit Semifinals

When I encountered the latest on-court coaching trial for juniors this summer at Wimbledon and then again at the US Open, I was interested in hearing from coaches and players about their impressions. Most of the American juniors I spoke with have grown up with no coaching, with the USTA allowing it only when players split sets. And those who have been playing ITF Junior Circuit events are prohibited from any interaction, ever, with their coach during a match. The US Open has allowed limited coaching at the junior level in the past, but now all the junior slams are on board, so I was curious how the juniors and their coaches view it. Tennis Recruiting Network gave me the green light to explore the issue in this article, published today.

The big news today in college tennis is the University of Texas's announcement that Gilles Bailly of Belgium, the 2022 ITF Junior World champion, would be joining his brother Pierre-Yves, a junior at Texas, in January. Bailly, who reached the Roland Garros and US Open boys finals last year, told me in New York that he was considering college tennis, but would see how his 2023 year on the ITF men's World Tennis Tour went before he would decide. 

He won a $15K in March and a $25K last month, boosting his ATP ranking to 474, but despite that success, he has opted to spend the dual match season at Texas, which was the only school he was considering. Bailly is not the first ITF World Junior Champion to opt for college, with Axel Geller, who also reached two junior slam finals, joining Stanford in 2017. 

Texas now has two accomplished pairs of brothers on the roster, with Jonah Braswell transferring from Florida this fall to join older brother Micah. With Eliot Spizzirri and Siem Woldeab returning for a fifth year and Cleeve Harper in his sixth year, the Longhorns were already a top contender for the 2024 NCAA title and those expectations are now heightened even more with this addition.

The fields for next week's ITA National Fall Championships have been announced, including at-large and wild card selections. There were several notable withdrawals: Texas's Eliot Spizzirri, the All-American champion, who qualified for the Fall Nats on that basis and Harvard's Cooper Williams, who won the Northeastern regional to qualify. 

The women's All-American champion, Mary Stoiana of Texas A&M, is out and defending champions Fiona Crawley of North Carolina and Nishesh Basavareddy of Stanford did not receive wild cards, so the fields are not as strong as the ITA may have hoped. Those who did not make regional finals or All-American semifinals but were added to the fields are: Dana Guzman of Oklahoma, Irina Cantos Siemers of Ohio State, Tanya Sasnouskaya of Texas, Alexandra Yepifanova of Stanford and the ITA Cup Super Bowl winner, Salma Djoubri of Lynn.

The men's last additions are: Jack Anthrop of Ohio State, Peter Makk of USC, Jack Pinnington Jones of TCU, Michael Zheng of Columbia and ITA Cup Super Bowl winner Jean-Baptiste Badon of Glendale Community College.

The link to the men's field is here; the women's field is here.

Play begins Wednesday, with Cracked Racquets providing their CrossCourt coverage at YouTube.

South Carolina's Ayana Akli, an All-American semifinalist who is in the Fall Nats field, has advanced to the semifinals of the $80,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Tyler Texas. A qualifier, Akli defeated Victoria Hu(Princeton) 6-0, 6-4, after taking out No. 4 seed Mccartney Kessler 7-5, 6-3 last night. Akli, who has yet to drop a set in her five wins this week, will play No. 2 seed Kayla Day in the semifinals.  Top seed Emma Navarro(Virginia) won the battle of NCAA champions, with the 2021 winner taking out reigning NCAA champion Fangran Tian(UCLA) of China 6-1, 6-3. Navarro will face unseeded Allie Kiick in the semifinals.

Stanford freshman Kyle Kang is through to his third semifinal at a $25,000 tournament this year in Harlingen, with the 18-year-old Californian, seeded No. 8, beating Karue Sell(UCLA) of Brazil 7-6(3), 7-5 in today's quarterfinals. he will play No. 2 seed August Holmgren(San Diego) of Denmark Saturday. Top seed Federico Agustin Gomez(Louisville) of Argentina was beaten by Jacksonville State graduate student Ivan Marrero Curbelo of Spain, a qualifier, 6-3, 6-1. A qualifier will be in the final, with Marrero Curbelo facing Texas A&M senior Raphael Perot of France, who beat Georgia Tech senior Marcus McDaniel 3-6, 6-1, 6-3.

Top seed Learner Tien(USC) is through to the semifinals of the $15,000 tournament in Norman Oklahoma, after qualifier Arda Azkara(Utah) of Turkey retired trailing 6-2, 4-2. The 17-year-old Californian will face another qualifier, Virginia Tech senior Ryan Fishback, in the semifinals, after Fishback defeated Oklahoma sophomore Luis Alvarez Valdes of Mexico 7-5, 6-2. In addition to Tien, the other junior still alive is Danil Panarin of Russia, who beat Alex Martinez(Oklahoma) 6-3, 6-2.  Alex Razeghi lost to No. 2 seed Duarte Valle(Florida) of Portugal 6-2, 6-1, who plays Panarin in the semifinals Saturday.

Two current and two former collegians have reached the semifinals at the $15,000 tournament in Tallahassee, including Florida State junior James Connel of Great Britain. Connel outlasted No. 5 seed Axel Nefve(Notre Dame/Florida) 5-7, 7-6(6), 7-6(6) in three hours and 36 minutes. He will play No. 8 seed Felix Corwin(Minnesota) in the semifinals. Top seed Jeremy Jin of Australia, a freshman at Florida, will face No. 6 seed Patrick Maloney(Michigan) in the other semifinal.