Quan Qualifies, Basavareddy Beats Quinn in First Round at ATP Challenger in Little Rock; Virginia's 2024 Recruiting Class Voted No. 1; Hoo Sweeps Titles at J60 in Canada; Three Americans Advance at ITF J300 in Belgium

Eighteen-year-old Rudy Quan is 10-4 this year on the USTA Pro Circuit, 6-0 in ITF junior competion as the champion at the J300 in Indian Wells, and now can add two Challenger qualifying victories, after reaching the main draw of the ATP Challenger 75 in Little Rock Arkansas today. The UCLA incoming freshman, who received a qualifying wild card, beat No. 10 seed Shintaro Imai of Japan 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the first round of qualifying Sunday and defeated No. 4 seed Filip Peliwo of 6-4, 6-2 in today's final round. Quan will play Stefan Kozlov in a first round match Tuesday.

With its proximity to Stillwater Oklahoma, five players who competed in last week's NCAA singles championship are in the main draw: Arizona State's Murphy Cassone(quarterfinalist), Harvard's Cooper Williams(quarterfinalist), SMU's Trevor Svajda(rd 2), Georgia Tech's Andres Martin(rd 1) and Stanford's Nishesh Basavareddy(rd of 16). Cassone and Svajda received wild cards, Martin qualified, and Williams and Basavareddy used Accelerator Program slots to gain entry.

Only Basavareddy played his first round match today, against 2023 NCAA champion and No. 7 seed Ethan Quinn(Georgia), with the 19-year-old from Indiana coming through in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4. Basavareddy is no stranger to Challenger success, sporting an 11-8 record, including a final last fall in Fairfield California. A No. 9 seed in Stillwater, he lost to unseeded Colton Smith of Arizona 7-6(2), 6-1 in the third round. He will play the winner of Tuesday's match between qualifier Christian Langmo(Miami) and Ramkumar Ramanathan of India.

The Tennis Recruiting Network's rankings of the 2024 recruiting classes will be regular features throughout the month of June; the first edition is today's men's Division I rankings. Virginia, who topped the rankings in January, remained at No. 1 despite the loss of Joao Fonseca due to his recent success on the ATP Tour. But, after Fonseca's removal from consideration, four other teams also received first-place votes: Arizona, UCLA, Pepperdine and North Carolina. 

The Top 10: Virginia, Central Florida, Pepperdine, UCLA, Arizona, South Carolina, North Carolina, Harvard, Auburn and Columbia.  For the complete Top 25, with historical information on which schools are perennials and which are relatively new to the rankings, see today's TRN article.

As busy as I was at the NCAA D-I championships the past couple of weeks, I wasn't able to follow all the ITF Junior Circuit tournaments as much as I usually do, but I did want to mention that 15-year-old Carrie Ann Hoo swept the titles at last week's J60 in New Brunswick Canada. The blue chip from New York won her first title in February at the J30 in Wisconsin; these are the second and third titles of her career.  In the singles final, Hoo, seeded seventh, defeated fellow New Yorker Anastasia Pleskun, an unseeded 14-year-old, 6-4, 6-2.  Hoo and Canada's Bianca Ceroni, the No. 4 seeds, defeated unseeded Natasha Rajaram and Sophie Dement 6-4, 3-6, 10-5 in the final.

With the Roland Garros Junior Championships starting on Sunday, most American juniors are not competing in this week's ITF J300 in Belgium. Two top 4 seeds who did elect to play the Astrid Bowl, No. 3 seed Alexander Razeghi and No. 4 seed Thea Frodin lost in the first round, as did Christasha McNeil, one of four US girls in the draw. Katie Rolls in the top seed, and she won her first round match, as did Claire An. Matisse Farzam is the only US boy remaining in the 32-player draw.

Boys top seed Hoyoung Roh of Korea lost in the first round to Denis Petak of the Czech Republic 7-5, 6-0.