USA Teams for Junior Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup, World Junior Tennis Qualifying; Five Teenagers Advance to Boca Raton W35 Quarterfinals; ITA Announces Four Sites for 2025, 2026 Team Indoor Championships; UTR Pro Tennis Tour Results

The North and Central American and Caribbean qualifying for the ITF's Junior Davis Cup, Junior Billie Jean King Cup (16-and-under) and World Junior Tennis(14-and-under) competitions begin next Wednesday in Lake Nona, with the USA rosters as follows:

Junior Davis Cup

Jack Kennedy
Carel Ngounoue
Jack Secord
Jose Caballero (captain)

Junior BJK Cup
Thea Frodin
Shannon Lam
Kristina Penickova
Georgi Rumenov (captain)

WJT - Boys
Michael Antonius
Jordan Lee
Teodor Davidov
Sylvain Guichard (captain)

WJT - Girls
Welles Newman
Margaret Sohns
Sarah Ye
Thierry Champion (captain)

Canada and Mexico will also have teams in all four competitions; the list of the three other countries sending teams to the three-day competition can be found here.

Friday's quarterfinals at the USTA Pro Circuit W35 in Boca Raton will feature five teenagers, including two wild cards. The oldest is Katrina Scott, last week's champion at the W35 in Mississippi, who received a special exempt entry into the main draw this week and beat Maria Kozyreva(St. Mary's) of Russia 6-3, 6-3 in the second round today. Scott, who turns 20 in June, will face No. 7 seed Ana Sofia Sanchez of Mexico Friday. Eighteen-year-olds Ashton Bowers and Liv Hovde will face off in the only all-US quarterfinal, with Bowers, a wild card advancing when Jamie Loeb(UNC) retired trailing 2-6, 6-3, 4-2, and No. 5 seed Hovde getting past Alana Smith(NC State) 6-3, 4-6, 6-2.  

In the bottom half, 17-year-old Maya Joint of Australia will face No. 4 seed Vavara Lepchenko, with Joint breezing past qualifier Kayla Cross of Canada 6-1, 6-1. Seventeen-year-old Akasha Urhobo defeated No. 6 seed Maria Mateas(Duke) 6-4, 7-5 and will play qualifier Hiroko Kuwata of Japan. Kuwata, 33, beat No. 2 seed Jana Kolodynska of Belarus 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 today.

After yesterday's announcement of a format change for the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in 2025 and 2026, there was a second release today naming the hosts for the split opening rounds. Baylor and SMU will host the men's championships in 2025 and 2026, Illinois and Northwestern will host the women's championships in 2025 and 2026. For more details and comments from the hosting coaches, see this article.

I had vowed to provide more frequent UTR Pro Tennis Tour updates this year, but the number of events hasn't been quite as large as in years past, so there are only seven results since I posted those from January here. 

WOMEN:

February 11 Boca Raton FL

Maria Kozyreva d. Cadence Brace, walkover

February 26 Long Beach CA

Christina Lyutova d. Ava Markham 6-3, 6-1

March 10 Boca Raton FL

Mia Horvit d. Malkia Ngounoue 6-4, 6-1

April 1 Newport Beach CA

Megan McCray d. Kayla Chung 7-6(1), 6-4

MEN:

February 26 Boca Raton FL 

Noah Rubin d. Vito Tonejc 6-0, 6-0

March 4 Long Beach CA

Sema Pankin d. Alexey Nesterov 7-6(5), 7-5

March 24 Newport Beach CA

Miles Jones d. Thomas Brown 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(2)