Three USTA Pro Circuit Tournaments Underway, with Quinn Defending Wichita $25K Title; Men's ITA Kickoff Weekend Draft Wednesday; Lipka Named Men's Head Coach at Penn State; ACC Women's Conference Awards

The USTA Pro Circuit has three events this week, with another joint SoCal Pro Series tournament in San Diego, this one at the University of San Diego, not Barnes Tennis Center, and a $25K in Wichita Kansas.

Due to a delay today, I assume weather-related, the San Diego matches are still going on, and final round qualifying results have not been posted. 

In the women's $15,000 tournament in San Diego, Fiona Crawley(North Carolina) is the top seed, with Haley Giavara(Cal) the No. 2 seed. 

Wild cards were given to rising high school junior Alexandra Wolf, Easter Bowl 18s champion Tianmei Wang, Anne Christine Lutkemeyer(UCLA) and rising San Diego senior Filippa Bruu-Syversen. 

In the men's $15,000 tournament in San Diego, Leo Borg of Sweden in the top seed, with Strong Kirchheimer(Northwestern) the No. 2 seed. Wild cards were given to rising high school sophomore Tyler Lee, who lost 6-1, 6-3 in the first round to Jack Anthrop(Ohio State), Anders Matta(Stanford), Blake Kasday(San Diego) and Bryce Nakashima(Ohio State). Nikita Filin received entry via the ITF's junior reserved program for players in the Top 100.

At the $25,000 USTA Men's Pro Circuit tournament in Wichita Kansas, qualifying concluded today, with six Americans, all current or former collegians reaching the main draw.

Alex Kotzen(Columbia,Tennessee), Sebastian Gorzny(TCU, Texas), Micah Braswell(Texas), Nick Kotzen(Columbia), Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State) and Chad Kissell(Valparaiso). This tournament had a rare 48-player draw in qualifying for a 32-player main draw; Nick Kotzen, who wasn't seeded in qualifying, had to win three matches to advance to the main draw, and he will play his older brother Alex in the first round.

Australian Bernard Tomic, presumably recovered from his bout with Covid during the Little Rock Challenger, is the top seed, with Ethan Quinn(Georgia), the defending champion at this event, seeded No. 2. 

Wild cards were given to Govind Nanda(UCLA), Aidan Kim(Florida), Samir Banerjee(Stanford) and Alejandro Jacome Jaramillo(Wichita State) of Ecuador. Adhithya Ganesan(Florida) received entry via the ATP ITF Junior Accelerator Program; his 2023 year-end ranking of 27 qualifies him for eight main draw acceptances for $15K or $25K tournaments.

All 16 first round matches are scheduled for Wednesday.

The NCAA tournament ended barely two weeks ago, but preparation for next season's ITA National Team Indoor Championships begin tomorrow, with the Kickoff Weekend Draft for men. Next year, with SMU and Baylor co-hosts of the men's Team Indoor, the top 14 teams in last month's final rankings will host the January regionals that will decide who competes for the National Team Indoor Title in February. The draft, which begins at 9 a.m. (Pacific time) Wednesday with No. 15 South Carolina selecting which host it wants to travel to, can be monitored at the Slam tennis page.

The women's draft is Thursday, with Northwestern and Illinois, the dual hosts next February, getting direct entry into the 16-team field. The women's draft page is here.

Penn State announced its new head coach, with Bruce Lipka selected to lead the Nittany Lions' men's program. Lipka is taking over for Jeff Zinn, announced his retirement in April. The director of tennis at Woodmont Country Club in Maryland the past 24 years, Lipka was the head coach at Miami of Ohio from 1989-1996.

The last of the conference awards were finally released, with the ACC women announcing theirs last week, more than a month after the other conferences, including the ACC men. 

Player of the Year: Alexa Noel, Miami

Coach of the Year: Sara O'Leary, Virginia

Freshman of the Year: Savit Kimchin, Duke

For all complete list of all the conference award winners, click here.