Qualifier Anderson Moves on at Dow Tennis Classic; Kingsley Defeats Michelsen at Charlottesville Challenger; Qualifying Complete at USTA Pro Circuit $15Ks; US Junior Davis Cup Team Wins Again; ITA National Fall Championships Begin Wednesday

My brief visit to the WTA 125 Dow Tennis Classic in Midland ended today, and my drive home was just like old times, when the tournament, then an ITF event, was held in February. Snow on Halloween isn't all that rare in Michigan, but heavy accumulation is, and several stretches of the trip were indistinguishable from a January blizzard.

I did get to see Ashlyn Krueger play her first round match, with the 19-year-old Texan back to working with Michael Joyce. Krueger, who won her first WTA tournament last month in Tokyo looked sharp against qualifier Vavara Lepchenko, who at 37, has been playing pro tennis since before Krueger was born. Lepchenko returned well and was in most of the points, but missed more routine shots than Krueger. Krueger's considerable power is always impressive to watch, but her best shot of the match might have been on her second set point serving at 5-1 in the first. Down two break points, Krueger was hitting her deep and penetrating ground strokes, despite the score, so her drop shot caught Lepchenko completely off guard, barely able to take a step before the point was over.

Lepechenko told the chair she felt ill, and after the first game, when she dropped serve at love, a medical timeout led to a quick retirement. 

Krueger will face Katherine Sebov of Canada in the second round, after Sebov defeated qualifier Lulu Sun(Texas) of Switzerland 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 in two hours and 34 minutes. Sun served for the match at 5-4, but after five consecutive breaks of serve previously, it was no surprise that she was broken, losing four straight points after taking a 15-0 lead in the game. Sebov finally ended the series of breaks with a hold, then broke Sun, who had a game point for a tiebreaker, with some excellent returning.

No. 4 seed Taylor Townsend got off to a slow start, but recovered to beat Raluka Serban 1-6, 6-3, 6-2. Townsend didn't serve well in the opening set and couldn't find the range on her groundstrokes, but eventually her variety and spins proved too much for the 26-year-old from Cyprus.

Wild card Katrina Scott, 19, won a three-hour marathon with Renata Zarazua of Mexico 7-6(8), 4-6, 6-2; she will play the winner of Wednesday's first round match between Mccartney Kessler(Florida) and No. 7 seed Emina Bektas(Michigan). Bektas is in Midland, after winning the WTA 125 in Tampico Mexico Sunday night; she practiced today at the Greater Midland Tennis Center.

With Victoria Hu's 7-5, 7-5 loss to Hailey Baptiste, only one qualifier remains, but that is a formidable one.  Robin Anderson(UCLA), who reached the Midland final in 2016 and 2021, defeated Elvina Kalieva 6-2, 6-2 to advance to the second round, where she'll play the winner of Wednesday first round match between top seed Emma Navarro(Virginia) and lucky loser Chloe Beck(Duke). Baptiste's second round opponent is No. 2 seed Peyton Stearns, who was named to the United States Billie Jean King Cup team today, replacing Madison Keys.

With my trip to Midland, I didn't have much time to follow the qualifying for the ATP Challenger 75 in Charlottesville Virginia, but noted that two of the qualifiers, 2023 NCAA champion Ethan Quinn(Georgia), and Virginia senior Inaki Montes of Spain, won their first round matches today. Quinn defeated Mitchell Krueger 3-6, 7-6(2), 6-4, while Montes saved three match points late in the third set to beat No. 6 seed Adam Walton(Tennessee) of Australia 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(4).

Cannon Kingsley(Ohio State) earned his best win on the Pro Circuit today in Charlottesville, defeating No. 2 seed Alex Michelsen 7-5, 6-3. Kingsley is taking the fall off to play professional tournaments, but has a fifth season of eligibility remaining, so he can return to the Buckeyes in January. He has improved from 560 to his current live ATP ranking of 419 since the end of the 2022-23 school year. Kingsley's second round opponent in Charlottesville will be Brandon Holt(USC), who defeated another former Trojan, Emilio Gomez of Ecuador, 6-2, 6-2.

Martin Damm ended the Challenger winning streak of No. 4 seed Zachary Svajda, who had won the previous two Challengers in the United State. The 20-year-old lefthander, who won the Kalamazoo 16s title in 2018, beat the two-time Kalamazoo 18s champion 2-6, 6-3, 7-6(3) in first round action Monday.

The other two USTA Pro Circuit tournaments this week are $15,000 events, with the women in Norman Oklahoma and the men in Fayetteville Arkansas. 

Americans qualifying today in Norman include, three juniors: 14-year-old twins Annika and Kristina Penickova and 15-year-old Alexis Nguyen. Three more juniors received ITF Junior Reserved spots in the main draw: Alexia Harmon, Ashton Bowers and Tatum Evans. Evans is already through to the second round, beating Sophia Biolay(UCF) of France 7-5, 6-2 today. Fifteen-year-old Shannon Lam got into the main draw on her own ranking.

Wild cards were given to Amiya Bowles, a blue chip high school sophomore from Ohio, and three Oklahoma players: junior Emma Staker, sophomore Julia Garcia Ruiz of Mexico, and UCLA transfer, junior Ava Cantanzarite.

The top seed in Norman is Jessica Failla(USC/Pepperdine), who won her first round match today, beating Tiziana Rossini of Argentina 6-1, 6-2.

In Fayetteville, the American qualifiers are Jake Van Emburgh(Oklahoma/Ohio State), Tyler Stice(Auburn) and Alex Petrov(Illinois). Keshav Chopra(Georgia Tech) received a lucky loser spot in the main draw.

Three Arkansas players received wild cards: sophomore Benedikt Emesz of Austria, sophomore Gerard Planelles Ripoll of Spain and senior Melvin Manuel of France. Morgan State junior Mikeal Carpenter received the fourth wild card. 

Junior reserved spots went to Vanderbilt recruit Danil Panarin of Russia and Kaylan Bigun. 

There is no No. 1 seed after a late withdrawal. Duarte Vale(Florida) of Portugal, a finalist at the Norman $15K last week, is the No. 2 seed in Fayetteville.

The US Junior Davis Cup team won their second round robin group match in Spain, by the same 3-0 score as the first, beating Thailand today. Jagger Leach played No. 2 singles today, defeating Teerapat Khantiweerawat 6-3, 7-5. Darwin Blanch beat Phopthum Sriwong 6-1, 6-3 at No. 1 singles followed by Leach and Maxwell Exsted's 6-1, 6-0 win over Khantiweerawat and Sriwong in doubles. The final match in the USA's round robin group is against Japan, which is 1-1, as is Canada. The US will likely advance regardless of the outcome of their match with Japan, as the top two teams make the quarterfinals and the US can finish no worse than 2-1.

I finally found the usual Junior Davis Cup results site. The Live Scoring site also has team and individual results for each day. Live streaming can be found here.

The ITA National Fall Championships begin tomorrow in San Diego with Arizona State's Murphy Cassone and Miami's Alexa Noel the top seeds. Draws are available by clicking on the headings.

The men's singles seeds:

1. Murphy Cassone, Arizona State

2. JJ Tracy, Ohio State

3. Micah Braswell, Texas

4. Michael Zheng, Columbia

5. Ozan Baris, Michigan State

5. Jack Pinnington Jones, TCU

5. Peter Makk, USC

5. Colton Smith, Arizona

The women's singles seeds:

1. Alex Noel, Miami

2. Reese Brantmeier, North Carolina

3. Ange Oby Kajuru, Oklahoma State

4. Ayana Akli, South Carolina

5. Anastasiya Komar, Oklahoma State

5. Kari Miller, Michigan

5. Irina Cantos Siemers, Ohio State

5. Sarah Hamner, South Carolina

The men's doubles seeds:

1. Hunter Heck and Karlis Ozolins, Illinois

2. Robert Cash and JJ Tracy, Ohio State

3. Ozan Baris and Max Sheldon, Michigan State

4. Andrew Zhang and Michael Heller, Duke

5. Tyler Zink and Isaac Becroft, Oklahoma State

5. Dhakshineswar Suresh and Holden Koons, Wake Forest

5. Nikola Slavic and Lukas Engelhardt, Mississippi

5. Pedro Vives and Sebastian Gorzny, TCU

The women's doubles seeds:

1. Elizabeth Scotty and Reese Brantmeier, North Carolina

2. Janice Tjen and Savannah Broadus, Pepperdine

3. Kari Miller and Jaedan Brown, Michigan

4. Dana Guzman and Alina Shcherbinina, Oklahoma

5. Metka Komac and Avelina Sayfetdinova, Texas Tech

5. Melodie Collard and Annabelle Xu, Virginia

5. Ange Oby Kajuru and Anastasiya Komar, Oklahoma State

5. Eryn Cayetano and Emma Charney, Southern California

Play begins at noon Eastern at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego. Links to live streaming and Cracked Racquets CrossCourt coverage can be found on the ITA event page.