US Open Wild Card Challenge Standings; Tien Stretches Win Streak to 27; Ngounoue Receives WTA 500 Washington DC Wild Card; Gauff Chosen as Olympic Flag Bearer; Samson Reaches WTA Semifinal in Prague

The USTA provided the latest US Open Wild Card Challenger standings today, with the first week of women's results producing a tie at the top, with three weeks to go.

Maria Mateas(Duke) and Sophie Chang, who both won ITF W75s last week in Granby Canada and Evansville Indiana are leading, with Evansville finalist Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M) in third Both Chang and Stoiana are in this week's W50 in Dallas and have advanced to the second round. Alycia Parks is playing a WTA 125 in Poland on hard courts, so is earning points there by qualifying and reaching the quarterfinals.

Learner Tien(USC) continues to lead the men's standings, with the points from his Bloomfield Hills Challenger victory three weeks ago, with Eiliot Spizzirri(Texas) and Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) in second and third.  

Tien, who won a $15K two weeks ago, which doesn't count in the WC Challenge, defeated qualifier Aidan Mayo 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-3 this afternoon at the ATP Challenger 75 in Chicago to reach Friday's quarterfinals, with Basavareddy playing his second round match against No. 3 seed Hugo Grenier of France Thursday. Tien, who now has won 27 consecutive matches, is up to 249 in the ATP live rankings. Results from the Lexington Kentucky and Lincoln Nebraska Challengers will also count, as will any results from the ATP/WTA 500s next week in Washington DC.

The current standings from the USTA release:

Three weeks remain in the Challenge for both men and women. The current top of the men's and women's standing (player's current ranking in parenthesis)

MEN
1. Learner Tien (258) -- 75
2. Eliot Spizzirri (343) -- 47
3. Nishesh Basavareddy (303) -- 46
4. Stefan Kozlov (365) -- 30

WOMEN
T1. Sophie Chang (260) -- 75
T1. Maria Mateas (206) -- 75
3. Mary Stoiana (463) -- 49
4. Hina Inoue (355) -- 23
5. Jada Robinson (672) -- 19

The men's wild card will go to the American with the highest cumulative total of ATP singles ranking points earned from their best four results over six weeks. The Men's Challenge counts outdoor and indoor hard-court events at the 25-level and above around the world.

The women's wild card will go to the American with the highest cumulative total of WTA singles ranking points earned from their best three results over four weeks. The Women's Challenge counts outdoor and indoor hard-court events at the 35-level and above around the world.

Speaking of the Washington DC Mubadala Citi Open next week, it was announced today that Clervie Ngounoue, the 2023 Wimbledon girls and USTA National 18s champion, would be receiving a main draw wild card, as will 2021 US Open girls champion Robin Montgomery, both of whom are from the DC area.

The wild card release:

The Mubadala Citi DC Open, the fifth largest professional tennis event in the United States and the only combined ATP-WTA 500 level tennis tournament in the world, has announced its main draw wildcards ahead of the highly-anticipated 55th edition of the tournament, July 27 - August 4. The event, which annually takes place in Washington D.C. at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park, has awarded main draw wild cards to World No. 9, 2024 Madrid champion and Olympic Gold medalist Andrey Rublev, 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu, former World No. 2 and 2021 Roland Garros quarterfinalist Paula Badosa, 2021 Wimbledon semifinalist and 2022 Australian Open quarterfinalist Denis Shapovalov, four-time ATP champion Reilly Opelka and Washington, D.C. natives and teenagers Robin Montgomery and Clervie Ngounoue. Two additional ATP main draw wild cards will be announced at a later date.

Montgomery, 19, is an alumnus of the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park, Maryland. She currently sits at a career-high WTA Ranking of No. 133. Montgomery concluded her junior career in 2021 by sweeping the US Open girls' singles and doubles titles. This year, she reached the third round in Madrid and took a set off World No. 3 Aryna Sabalenka, recorded her first WTA quarterfinal in ’s-Hertogenbosch and advanced through the qualifying draw at Wimbledon before winning her maiden Grand Slam main draw singles match at the professional level.

Ngounoue, 18, grew up playing on the courts at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center. She made her WTA debut last year in DC and defeated top seed Anna Blinkova in the opening round of qualifying, two weeks after winning the Wimbledon girls' singles title. In the time since, Ngounoue captured her first career ITF singles title, advanced through qualifying at the WTA Tour event in San Diego and teamed with Montgomery to reach the third round in last year's US Open women's doubles draw.

In addition, the men’s and women’s singles qualifying draws will feature recent Wimbledon doubles champion Taylor Townsend, former World No. 9 Roberto Bautista Agut and 2021 Roland Garros quarterfinalist Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. 2019 Roland Garros finalist Amanda Anisimova and Louisa Chirico have accepted qualifying wild cards. Other notable names in the qualifying draws include last year’s DC quarterfinalist J.J. Wolf and D.C. native Hailey Baptiste, who defeated former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova last year at Rock Creek Park.

Ngounoue, who qualified at this week's Dallas W50 and has advanced to the second round, will travel from coast-to-coast next week, with the USTA Nationals starting Sunday August 3 in San Diego.

The Washington DC 500s have good fields considering that the Olympic tennis competition begins this Saturday at Roland Garros and run until Sunday August 4.  For more about the Olympic tennis competition, see these articles from the WTA and the ATP websites.

Americans competing are Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Danielle Collins(Virginia), Emma Navarro(Virginia), Desirae Krawczyk(Arizona State), Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Chris Eubanks(Georgia Tech), Marcos Giron(UCLA), Austin Krajicek(Texas A&M) and Rajeev Ram(Illinois).

The draws will be released on Thursday.

Coco Gauff has been selected by her fellow USA Olympic competitors to be a flag bearer at the opening ceremony, which is Friday in Paris, joining Lebron James in leading the Team USA delegation. For more on Gauff's selection, see this article.

Laura Samson, who was the No. 2 seed, lost in the third round earlier this month at the Wimbledon Junior Championships, but the 16-year-old Czech quickly put that disappointment behind here this week after receiving a wild card into the WTA 250 in Prague. After defeating qualifier Tara Wurth of Croatia 6-0, 6-2 in the first round, the 2024 Roland Garros girls finalist beat No. 2 seed Katerina Siniakova 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 for her first top 50 win. She had not played anyone in the Top 200 before facing Siniakova. Today Samson, No. 3 in the ITF junior rankings, defeated qualifier Oksana Selekhmeteva of Russia 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 to reach the semifinals, where she'll face No. 6 seed Magdalena Frech of Poland. 

See this article from the WTA website for all the "youngest since" milestones Samson has accomplished with this run.