Qualifying Complete, ITA All-American Championships Begin Wednesday; Tien and Basavareddy Advance at Tiburon Challenger; Teens Hamilton and Grant Qualify at Redding $25K

The ITA All-American Championships begin Wednesday, with the final two rounds of singles qualifying concluding today, for the women, in Cary NC and for the men, in Tulsa OK. 

The qualifiers for the women's 32-player draw include just one player who was seeded to advance: South Carolina's Sarah Hamner, the 2021 ITA All-American champion. With North Carolina failing to advance anyone into the main draw(Elizabeth Scotty withdrew from her final round qualifying match due to illness), NC State and Michigan are the only two schools with three players in the main draw, thanks to the Wolfpack's Sophie Abrams, who advanced through pre-qualifying into the main draw. 

Women's ITA All-American qualifiers: 

Florencia Urrutia[9], Oklahoma

Jessica Alsola, Cal

Sarah Hamner[3], South Carolina

Mai Nirundorn, Georgia (pre-qualifier)

Dana Guzman, Oklahoma

Sophie Abrams, NC State (pre-qualifier)

Casie Wooten[9], Wake Forest

Ange Oby Kajuru[9], Oklahoma State

The seeds in the women's main draw:

1. Fiona Crawley, North Carolina

2. Mary Stoiana, Texas A&M

3. Alexa Noel, Miami

4. Reese Brantmeier, North Carolina

5. Dasha Vidmanova, Georgia

6. Ayana Akli, South Carolina

7. Anastasiya Komar, Oklahoma State

8. Amelia Rajecki, NC State

The men have 16 qualifiers in their 64-player main draw, with two players projected by seed to advance: USC's Wojtek Marek and Mississippi State's Petar Jovanovic.

Hats off to Indiana sophomore Sam Landau, who has won seven matches to reach the main draw, four in pre-qualifying and three in qualifying.

ITA Men's ITA All-American qualifiers:

Jack Anthrop[17], Ohio State
Hunter Heck[17], Illinois
Raul Dobai, Auburn
Oliver Tarvet, San Diego
Luciano Tacchi, Wake Forest
Jay Friend[17], Arizona
Carl Overbeck, Cal
Jeremy Jin, Florida

Magnus Johnson[17], Florida
Sam Landau, Indiana (pre-qualifier)

Wojtek Marek[11], USC
Samuel Sippel, Boise State
Robin Catry, NC State
Petar Jovanovic[14], Mississippi State
Lodewijk Weststrate, USC
Cleeve Harper, Texas

The seeds in the men's main draw:

1. Eliot Spizzirri, Texas

2. Chris Rodesch, Virginia

3. Murphy Cassone, Arizona State

4. Sebastian Dominko, Notre Dame

5. Inaki Montes, Virginia

6. Alex Bernard, Ohio State

7. Karlis Ozolins, Illinois

8. JJ Tracy, Ohio State

9. Michael Zheng, Columbia

9. Jeffrey von der Schulenburg, Virginia

9. Ryan Fishback, Virginia Tech

9. Pedro Rodenas, Duke

9. Pierre-Yves Bailly, Texas

9. Geronimo Busleiman, Utah

9. Peter Makk, USC

9. Micah Braswell, Texas

Cracked Racquets will begin their Cross-Court coverage tomorrow, for both men and women, via their YouTube channel. 

For a preview of the event, listen to John Parsons and Ethan Moszkowski discuss the favorites and dark horses on the No-Ad, No-Problem podcast.

2023 Kalamazoo 18s champion Learner Tien(USC) and 2023 Kalamazoo 18s semifinalist Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) have advanced to the second round of the ATP Challenger 75 in Tiburon with wins today.  

Seventeen-year-old wild card Tien picked up his first main draw victory at a Challenger, coming from 4-2 down in the second set to defeat Duke fifth-year Garrett Johns, a qualifier, 6-2, 6-4.

Stanford sophomore Basavareddy, who qualified yesterday, was drawn against Charleston South Carolina Challenger champion Abdullah Shelbayh(Florida) of Jordan, but Shelbayh was obviously struggling with the short turnaround and cross-country trip and he retired trailing 6-0, 4-2. 

It's the second Challenger main draw victory for the 18-year-old Basavareddy, who earned his first this summer in Chicago.

Top seed Alex Michelsen survived against qualifier Brayden Schnur(UNC) of Canada, coming from 4-2 down in the third set to steal a 6-7(2), 6-3, 6-4 victory.

Two US juniors advanced to the main draw of the women's $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament this week in Redding California.  Fifteen-year-old Tyra Grant defeated top qualifying seed Maria Kononova(North Texas) of Russia 6-4, 6-4 in the final round of qualifying today, while 16-year-old Alanis Hamilton defeated No. 6 seed Paris Corley(Arizona/LSU). Sixteen-year-old Monika Ekstrand lost a three-hour match, unheard of when playing a match tiebreaker in lieu of a third set, to Luiza Fullana of Brazil 7-6(6), 6-7(3), 10-8 in the final round of qualifying.

Other Americans advancing to the main draw are: Ellie Douglas(TCU), Kylie Mckenzie, Katja Wiersholm(Cal) and Maribella Zamarippa(Texas).

Eighteen-year-old Sayaka Ishii of Japan defeated top seed Panna Udvardy of Hungary in the first round today 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.  Wild cards were awarded to juniors Valerie Glozman, Iva Jovic and Aspen Schuman, along with Cal senior Hannah Viller Moeller of Denmark.

Taylor Townsend is again the top seed at the women's $60,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Rome Georgia, and in the first round she will face Mccartney Kessler(Florida), who pushed Townsend in their semifinal last week in Templeton California before falling 7-5, 6-4. Hailey Baptiste was the No. 2 seed, but she wihdrew, so a lucky loser will take her place at the bottom of the draw.

Qualifying for the main draw in Rome today are Rasheeda McAdoo(Georgia Tech), Sofia Sewing(Miami), 16-year-old Ena Koike of Japan, Victoria Flores(Georgia Tech/Pepperdine), Christina Rosca(Vanderbilt), Mallaurie Noel of France, Anna Rogers(NC State) and Connie Hsu(Penn) of Taiwan. 

Wild cards were given to Chloe Beck(Duke), Dalayna Hewitt, 16-year-old Mia Yamakita and Alana Smith(NC State).

The fourth USTA Pro Circuit event this week is a $15,000 tournament for men in Ithaca New York, where Liam Draxl(Kentucky) is the top seed and looking for his third straight title at the $15K level in the United States. Cornell junior Radu Papoe of Romania is the No. 2 seed.

Americans who qualified today are Perry Gregg(Holy Cross), Gabriel Evans(Incarnate Word) and Andrew Fenty(Michigan).

Wild cards were given to Cornell freshmen Adhithya Ganesan and Felipe Pinzon, Cornell sophomore Aman Sharma and Ryan Dickerson(Duke/Baylor).

Junior reserved spots went to Alex Frusina(who plays Fenty in the first round), Danil Panarin of Russia, who recently committed to Vanderbilt, and Kaylan Bigun. Bigun lost his first round match today, in just short of three hours, to Matt Kuhar(Bryant) 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(6).