Team Indoor Champion Oklahoma State Takes Over Top Ranking; Few Americans Enter ITF J500 Banana Bowl; Forbes Earns First ATP Point; Hui Awarded WTA 500 Qualifying Wild Card; Kypson Reaches ATP Delray Beach Quarterfinals

The Oklahoma State women's program continues to make history, earning the No. 1 ranking for the first time after winning their first national title Monday in the ITA Women's Team Indoor Championships in Seattle.

These are the last rankings that are done by a poll of the 13 regional ranking chairs, with the computer algorithm taking over, but with their impressive record against top teams this year, the Cowgirls are likely to stay on top no matter what method is used. 

Team Indoor finalists Michigan moved to No. 2, which is also a program high, and North Carolina, a prohibitive favorite before this year began, is now at No. 5. There is a long way to go before the next opportunity for a national team title at the NCAAs in May, but with their two losses over the weekend, North Carolina has opened the door to challengers in the coming months.

As this is the last ranking done by poll, I'm displaying all 25 teams, and all who received votes. When the first computer rankings come out next week, the rankings will extend to the Top 75.  There are no men's rankings this week in advance of the ITA Division I Men's Team Indoor Championships, which begin Friday in New York.

Division I Women's Top 25, February 14, 2024
(first place votes in brackets, previous ranking in parentheses)

1. Oklahoma State[13] (3)
2. Michigan (5)
3. Stanford (2)
4. NC State (4)
5. North Carolina (1)
6. Texas (10)
7. Virginia (11)
8. Georgia (4)
9. Ohio State (12)
10. Pepperdine(6)
11. Texas A&M(9)
12. Auburn (14)
13. Florida (8)
14. Cal (15)
15. Duke (17)
16. San Diego (20)
17. Southern California (16)
18. UCLA (13)
19. Oklahoma (18)
20. Tennessee (19)
21. Vanderbilt (22)
22. Washington (21)
23. Miami
24. South Carolina
25. Arizona State (24)

Receiving votes: Baylor, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Wisconsin

The acceptances for the J500 Banana Bowl in Brazil were released yesterday, with just five US boys and six US girls in the 64-player draws.

One of the reasons for the lack of Americans is undoubtedly the March 4-10 dates, which is the week before the ITF J300 at Indian Wells. Going from clay to hard and from Brazil to Southern California will be a challenge, and with the ITF J300 North American Closed the following week in San Diego, many of the top Americans will be focusing on those two weeks, rather than the two clay events in Brazil the two weeks prior. The chance to be at the BNP Paribas Open during the second week is bound to be an attractive option, and now that the tournament, in its second year, is open to all international players, the fields may end up being stronger there than at the J500 in Brazil.

As of now, these are the American boys entered: Maxwell Exsted, Jagger Leach, Noah Johnston, Maximus Dussault and Jordan Reznik. Calvin Baierl is just two spots out of the main draw.

The American girls entered are: Katie Rolls, Mia Slama, Kate Fakih, Olivia Center, Maya Dutta and Trinetra Vijayakumar.

The fields are not strong for a 500, especially for the girls, with the cutoff for main draw 180 and the qualifying 337.  The boys cutoffs are 112 and 190 respectively. There are no current Top 10 players in either field, with No. 11 Alena Kovackova of the Czech Republic the highest ranked girl and No. 16 Amir Omarkhanov of Kazakhstan the highest ranked boy.

Seventeen-year-old Matthew Forbes, who has signed with North Carolina for this fall, earned his first ATP point today at the $15,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Palm Coast

 Florida. Forbes, who received a wild card into qualifying, defeated fellow qualifier Ryan Dickerson(Duke, Baylor) 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Last week's $15K in Sunrise was Forbes' first USTA Pro Circuit event, which he entered via the ITF's Top 100 Junior Reserved program, and he drew top seed Toby Kodat in his first attempt at collecting an ATP point. Forbes, the brother of UNC's Abbey Forbes, will play No. 6 seed Alex Rybakov(TCU), who was a finalist last week in Sunrise, Thursday.

University of Virginia recruit Roy Horovitz, who received his main draw entry this week via a Junior Reserved slot, defeated qualifier Evan Bynoe(Cornell) 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 to earn his second ATP point; the 17-year-old had earned his first point last spring at a $15K in Vero Beach. He will face top seed Kodat in the second round. 

Nineteen-year-old wild card Aidan Kim, a freshman at the University of Florida, defeated No. 7 seed Marlon Vankan of Germany 6-3, 6-3 to reach the second round.

US Open girls champion Katherine Hui has been awarded a qualifying wild card for the WTA 500 Cymbiotika Open in San Diego later the month. Hui, a freshman at Stanford playing at line 5 singles and line 3 doubles, is from San Diego and reached the final of the USTA National 18s Championships at the Barnes Tennis Center, site of the WTA tournament, last year. The full release on Hui's wild card can be found here.

Two days after winning his first ATP level match, 24-year-old wild card Patrick Kypson has added another, defeating Constant Lestienne of France 6-4, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals at the ATP 250 in Delray Beach Florida. The former Texas A&M All-American now moves up to 143 in the ATP Live rankings with the victory. Former North Carolina All-American Rinky Hijikata is also through to the quarterfinals, beating No. 6 seed Matteo Arnaldi of Italy 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 earlier today.