Tien and Basavareddy Defeat Seeds to Advance at Fairfield Challenger; Trio of 16-year-olds Qualify at Florence $25K; All Rancho Santa Fe $60K Qualfiers Have College Ties; Korda and Shelton Meet in Shanghai Masters Quarterfinals

Two-time Kalamazoo 18s champion Learner Tien(USC) won his first main draw Challenger match as a wild card last week in Tiburon. This week in Fairfield, as a qualifier, Tien posted his second main draw Challenger victory, beating No. 2 seed Nicolas Moreno De Alboran(UC-Santa Barbara) 6-2, 6-7(9), 6-4. 

It's the best win by ATP ranking for Tien, with Moreno de Alboran, who is just returning to Challenger competition after a serious illness he contracted after the US Open, currently ranked 152. Tien, the 17-year-old Australian Open and US Open boys finalist, served for the match at 5-4 in the second set and had a match point with Moreno De Alboran serving at 8-9, but he trailed 2-0 in the third before claiming the final three games of the match.

Tien will face Mitchell Krueger next, who defeated qualifier Alfredo Perez(Florida) 7-6(6), 6-2.  Tiburon champion Zachary Svajda, the other two-time Kalamazoo champion in the Fairfield draw, defeated qualifier Stefan Dostanic(USC) 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(4); Brandon Holt(USC) defeated No. 5 seed Alexis Galarneau(NC State) of Canada 7-6(9), 6-0; Thai Kwiatkowski(Virginia) beat fellow wild card Ozan Baris 6-4, 6-4; Christian Harrison earned a 6-4, 6-4 victory over qualifier August Holmgren(San Diego) of Denmark; Christian Langmo(Miami) beat Strong Kirchheimer(Northwestern) 6-4, 6-4, and top seed Alex Michelsen completed his match with Aziz Dougaz(Florida State) of Tunisia, which had been called after two sets last night due to darkness with a 6-0 third set.

In an evening match that closed out the first round, 18-year-old Nishesh Basavareddy defeated Tiburon finalist and No. 6 seed Adam Walton(Tennessee) of Australia 6-3, 7-5. The Stanford sophomore broke Walton at 4-all to serve for the match and had two match points at 40-15, but Walton played four incredible points to break, with both players rushing to get to the net throughout that game. Basavareddy, who reached the quarterfinals last week in Tiburon, didn't show any signs of frustration after failing to close; he broke Walton on his third chance in the next game to get another opportunity to serve it out, and this time Basavareddy tempered his aggression and Walton obliged with errors rather than the winners he hit in the previous game, converting his fourth match point with a good first serve.

Basavareedy will face lucky loser Federico Agustin Gomez(Louisville) of Argentina next, after Gomez defeated Sunday's ITA All-American champion Eliot Spizzirri(Texas) 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Three 16-year-old qualifiers will join three teenage wild cards in the main draw of this week's women's $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Florence South Carolina. 

Mia Yamakita, Alanis Hamilton and Monika Ekstrand won their final round qualifying matches today, with Yamakita taking out top qualifying seed Sara Daavettila(UNC) 1-6, 6-3, 10-8. Hamilton defeated Florida Atlantic freshman Panna Bartha of Hungary 6-0, 4-6, 10-6 and Ekstrand defeated University of Virginia sophomore Annabelle Xu of Canada 6-1, 2-6, 11-9. Ekstrand had beaten NCAA semifinalist Amelia Rajecki of NC State 6-4, 6-1 in the first round of qualifying Monday.

That trio joins main draw wild cards Tyra Grant, Valerie Glozman and last week's $25K champion in Redding Iva Jovic in the main draw. The fourth wild card went to Kallista Liu, a junior at Maryland, who lost today to No. 5 seed Raveena Kingsley 6-4, 6-2.

Panna Udvardy of Hungary is the top seed, with Jamie Loeb(UNC), the No. 2 seed. 

There is something weird going on with the designations in the women's draws this week, with both 2023 NCAA singles finalists-- Layne Sleeth(Florida/Oklahoma) of Canada and UCLA sophomore Fangran Tian showing as JE entries in Florence and Rancho Santa Fe respectively. They are both well past their junior days, so I think that is a stand-in for the ITF Accelerator Program for college women, which both qualified for and could begin using as of last month.

Tian lost her first round match today at the $60,000 tournament in Rancho Santa Fe, with Makenna Jones getting the 7-5, 6-4 victory.

All eight women who qualified today are current or former college players: UCLA junior Kimmi Hance, USC's Snow Han of China and Eryn Cayetano, Texas sophomore Nicole Rivkin of Germany and Megan McCray(Oklahoma State), Maria Kozyreva of Russia(St. Mary's), Paris Corley(LSU) and Savanna Ly-Nguyen(Washington State).

Wild cards were given to Ellie Douglas(TCU), Madison Sieg(USC) and Kylie McKenzie with both Sieg and McKenzie dropping their opening round matches today.

US Open girls champion Katherine Hui was announced originally as a wild card, but a leg injury forced her to withdraw. Redding finalist Sayaka Ishii of Japan received a special exemption into the main draw, which I didn't realize was possible given that Redding was a $25K and Rancho Santa Fe is a $60K.

The top seed is Julia Riera of Argentina; Elvina Kalieva is the No. 2 seed.

The ATP Masters 1000 in Shanghai will feature two young Americans in the quarterfinals, with No. 19 seed Ben Shelton(Florida) and No. 26 seed Sebastian Korda advancing to face each other in their next match.

Shelton defeated Jannik Sinner of Italy 2-6, 6-3, 7-6(5) to earn his first win over an ATP Top 5 player. Korda, who had beaten No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia in the third round, took out No. 20 seed Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina 7-6, 7-6(5) today. 

Two other Americans are still alive in the top half, playing their round of 16 matches tomorrow: JJ Wolf faces No. 32 seed Ugo Humbert of France, and No. 12 seed Tommy Paul plays No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev of Russia.