March Aces; Urhobo and Joint Advance to W35 Semifinals in Mississippi; North Carolina Women Beat No. 4 Virginia; Stanford Women Blank No. 3 Pepperdine

March was packed with great results from former collegians, and as regularly been the case recently, I couldn't feature all of them in my monthly Aces column for Tennis Recruiting Network. But I do highlight several former collegians who either won two titles or claimed their first, along with the juniors who won major ITF Junior Circuit titles and those who captured their first ITF men's and women's titles. Sorting through the results and selecting those to feature seems to get more difficult every week, but that is definitely a good problem to have.

One of the juniors I featured in February, but not in the March Aces column was Australia's Maya Joint, who added a W35 title in Santa Domingo in March after winning a W75 in February in Australia. Joint, who turns 18 later this month, is now into the semifinals of the USTA Pro Circuit W35 this week in Mississippi, and with all the success she's had in the last six months in ITF women's tournaments, she is the No. 2 seed. Joint, who has lost six games in her first three victories, defeated fellow University of Texas signee Ashton Bowers 6-1, 6-3 in today's quarterfinals and will play No. 4 seed Katrina Scott in her bid to reach another ITF women's World Tennis Tour tournament final. 

The other semifinal will feature top seed Jamie Loeb, the 2015 NCAA champion while at North Carolina, and 17-year-old Akasha Urhobo. Loeb defeated No. 7 seed Adriana Reami(NC State) 6-4, 6-2 in today's quarterfinals, while Urhobo, who had beaten No. 3 seed Cadence Brace of Canada in the second round, reached her first USTA Pro Circuit semifinal with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over No. 9 seed Allura Zamarripa(Texas).

Loeb defeated Urhobo in the first round of a $60K in Alabama last spring 6-2, 6-4. Scott and Joint have not played.

The doubles final will feature former Baylor teammates Alicia Herrero Linana of Spain and Melany Solang Krywoj of Argentina, the No. 3 seeds, against No. 4 seeds Victoria Flores(Georgia Tech/Pepperdine) and Hiroko Kuwata of Japan.

The next few weekends will be big ones in college tennis, with Division I teams looking for conference titles as well as seeding positions for the NCAA championships next month in Stillwater Oklahoma. A Top 8 seed is especially prized, as it earns a team the chance at three home matches as host for the Super Regional round prior to the quarterfinals at the finals site.  

The Stanford women took a big step toward that goal today, with the fifth-ranked Cardinal beating No. 3 Pepperdine 4-0 in a non-conference match at Stanford, after losing to UCLA at home last Sunday. 2022 USTA National 18s champion Eleana Yu, who had played very little this year, got her chance at No. 6, with the absence of Alexis Blokhina at line 4, Katherine Hui and Valencia Xu moved up a spot and Yu competed at No. 6. 

After Stanford won the doubles point, in something of an upset, given the Cardinal struggles in that part of a dual match, they took four first sets in singles, and were up 3-0 with straight-sets wins by Alexandra Yepifanova over Savannah Broadus at line 2 and Yu over fellow freshman Vivian Yang at line 6. But Pepperdine had taken the first sets at lines 4 and 5, and Lisa Zaar forced a third at line 1 against Angelica Blake, while Connie Ma was down in her second set with Janice Tjen at line 3. I believe Ma trailed 5-3, but she won the final four games to hand Tjen her first loss since early February after 10 straight victories (and one match unfinished). 

The recap of the match, with box score, is here.

Another of the women's tennis dynasties got an impressive win today, with defending NCAA champion North Carolina avenging their National Team Indoor consolation match loss to Virginia with a 4-1 victory in Chapel Hill. Virginia took the doubles point, but UNC came out with a purpose in singles, taking five first sets in singles and then systematically closing out those matches. The Tar Heels got wins from Fiona Crawley at 1, Anika Yarlagadda at 5, and within seconds of each other, Elizabeth Scotty at 2 and Reilly Tran at 3 to get the win. Virginia, ranked No. 4, and North Carolina, ranked No. 6, each have one loss in conference play, with UVA's final three matches against Duke, Miami and Florida State and UNC's final three matches against Virginia Tech, Louisville and Notre Dame.

The recap, with box score, is here.