USO Girls Champion Hui Earns First $80K Victory; Teens Rack Up Wins at Men's USTA Pro Circuit Tournaments; Pan American Games Update

US Open girls champion Katherine Hui received a wild card into the main draw of this week's $80,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Tyler Texas and the 18-year-old Stanford freshman now has her first victory at a tournament above the $15,000 level after a 6-3, 6-3 win over qualifier Eryn Cayetano, a fifth-year at USC.

Although Hui lost both her matches at the ITA All-American Championships this month and had to pull out of the $60,000 tournament in Rancho Santa Fe two weeks ago with an injury, she is back on track now with a convincing win over Cayetano, the 2021 ITA National Fall champion. Hui will get another test from a D-I major champion on Thursday, when she takes on 2023 NCAA singles champion Fangran Tian(UCLA) of China.

Hui and Tian are joined in the second round by three other current collegians: wild card Abigail Rencheli of NC State, and qualifiers Amelia Rajecki of NC State and Ayana Akli of South Carolina. Rajecki defeated qualifier DJ Bennett of Auburn 6-3, 6-2, while Akli picked up a 6-0, 6-4 win over qualifier Maria Kononova(North Texas) of Russia.

With three men's USTA Pro Circuit tournaments this week, two of them on college campuses, there are numerous opportunities for juniors and collegians this week.

At the $15,000 tournament at Florida State's indoor facility in Tallahassee, top seed Jeremy Jin of Australia, a freshman at Florida won his opening match yesterday. With the talent spread over three events this week, no junior reserved spots were allocated in the $15Ks, but Rei Sakamoto of Japan, No. 18 in the current ITF junior rankings, got into the main draw on his ATP ranking of 1263 and defeated Mwendwa Mbithi 6-3, 6-2 today to reach the second round.  Nineteen-year-old Will Mayew, a sophomore at Louisville, received a wild card and earned his second ATP point today, beating qualifier Pranav Kumar(Texas A&M/SMU) 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-4. Mayew is the only wild card to advance to the second round.

As I noted last night, Wake Forest's Filippo Moroni(Italy) did not make it to Tallahassee, so the No. 2 seed's place was taken by a lucky loser. Moroni won the Carolina Regional title yesterday to punch his ticket to the ITA National Fall Championships next week.

Kalamazoo 18s champion Learner Tien took a wild card into the other $15,000 tournament this week at the indoor facility on the University of Oklahoma's campus, and is the top seed. The 17-year-old Californian needed over three hours to get past Oklahoma State fifth-year Alejandro Garcia of Spain 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(4). 

All three players who received entry in Norman via the ITF's junior reserved program--Kaylan Bigun, Alex Razeghi and Russia's Danil Panarin--won their first round matches today. Bigun defeated lucky loser Siphosothando Montsi (Illinois/Oklahoma) of South Africa 7-6(1), 3-6, 6-4 to set up a meeting with Razeghi, who beat 19-year-old Asahi Harazaki of Japan, a freshman at Oklahoma, 6-3, 6-2. Bigun and Razeghi split their ITF junior matches this year, with Razeghi beating Bigun in the Ecuador J300 final and Bigun avenging that loss in the semifinals of the J300 in San Diego two months later.  Panarin, who recently committed to Vanderbilt, defeated lucky loser Arman Zamani(Baylor) 6-3, 6-3.

Teens Rudy Quan, Ritesh Patil, Kyle Kang and Ozan Baris picked up wins today at the $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Harlingen Texas. Seventeen-year-old qualifier Quan, a UCLA recruit, defeated Georgia Tech senior Andres Martin, who just missed being seeded, 6-3, 6-4; Texas A&M's Patil, a 19-year-old qualifier, beat wild card Ethan Silva 6-4, 6-1 for his first ATP point; Stanford freshman Kang, seeded eighth, defeated LSU freshman Alessio Vasquez Gehrke of Germany, a qualifier, 6-3, 6-1 and Michigan State sophomore Baris took out Texas Regional champion Micah Braswell(Texas) 2-6, 7-6(8), 6-3. Kang and Baris will play each other on Thursday; their only meeting on the ITF junior circuit came four years ago at a J60, but last year in the quarterfinals of the 18s Nationals in Kalamazoo, Baris defeated Kang 6-1, 6-7(6), 6-4.

The Pan American Games are underway in Santiago Chile, with two of the four Americans participating still in singles and mixed doubles.

Evan Zhu(UCLA) and Omni Kumar(Duke) lost their first matches in singles and doubles, but Tristan Boyer(Stanford) and Jamie Loeb(UNC) are through to the round of 16 in singles and the quarterfinals in mixed doubles.

Several current collegians are still alive as well, with Texas A&M freshman and Roland Garros girls finalist Lucciana Perez Alarcon of Peru into the round of 16, as are Ohio State's Justin Boulais of Canada and Tennessee's Blaise Bicknell of Jamaica. 

Draws can be found here and the schedule here; the tennis competition concludes Sunday.