August Aces; Seven Americans Qualify for US Open Junior Championships; Bigun and Jovic Win First Round of Mixed at USO; Tiafoe Beats Sheldon; Top Seeds Reach Finals at ITF J300 Repentigny

My monthly Aces column for the Tennis Recruiting Network is up again before the month is quite over, with the 20th US Open Junior Championships that I've covered coming up Sunday requiring an early look at the top performances this month.  Former college players are, as always, a major focus, and this month current college players prominent, with 14-year-old juniors also in the spotlight.

Seven US players qualified for the US Open Junior Championships today at the Cary Leeds Center in the Bronx, and an eighth got in as a lucky loser.

The five girls from the United States, who will join the 14 other American girls already receiving entry, are all seeded.

No. 2 seed Christasha McNeil defeated No. 10 seed and USC freshman Jana Hossam Salah of Egypt 6-2, 6-4; No. 11 seed Monika Ekstrand beat No. 3 seed Hikari Yamamoto of Japan 6-2, 6-3; UCLA freshman Kate Fakih, seeded No. 6, beat Leena Friedman 6-4, 6-2 in one of the two all-American final round qualifying matches; in the other one, No. 7 seed Maya Iyengar defeated 13-year-old Raya Kotseva 6-4, 1-6, 10-7.

Capucine Jauffret, the No. 16 seed, saved two match points in her 7-6(2), 4-6, 12-10 win over No. 4 seed Nellie Taraba Wallberg of Sweden. I know I mention this often, but I believe the junior slams should all have the same format for qualifying and it should be a full third set, which Australia and Roland Garros do. 

The two US boys who qualified, both unseeded, are 16-year-old wild card Keaton Hance, who beat Rethin Pranav Senthil Kumar of India 7-5, 6-2 and 15-year-old Jack Secord, who beat wild card Jordan Reznik in an all-US contest. Virginia freshman Stiles Brockett, who lost to No. 14 seed Luis Guto Miguel of Brazil 6-4, 4-6, 10-8, got in as a lucky loser, as did Karim Bennani of Morocco. 

I'm not sure which two boys have withdrawn, but I did notice that Wimbledon champion Nicolas Budkov Kjaer of Norway didn't play either hard court warm-up event. That doesn't mean much, as the very top juniors occasionally skip the warmups, but it is rare to have two lucky losers; in the past five years, the boys main draw has had no lucky losers twice and one lucky loser three times.

The draws will be out Saturday; I will be in transit to New York, but will try to post a link to them on Twitter as soon as I can.

Juniors Iva Jovic and Kaylan Bigun received a wild card into US Open mixed doubles and in their first round today, they advanced over Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine and Max Purcell of Australia 6-4, 6-4 in a tiday 58 minutes. They will play their second round match Saturday against two formidable doubles players, No. 4 seeds Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Matt Ebden of Australia. 

NCAA champions Robert Cash and JJ Tracy of Ohio State battled for two hours and 19 minutes with No. 16 seeds Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni of Argentina in the second round of men's doubles. The wild cards split tiebreakers with Gonzalez and Molteni before finally getting broken with Cash serving at 4-5 down in the third set. Cash and Tracy had only one break chance in the entire match, which they did not convert. Gonzalez and Molteni had a total of three, converting the last one.

The men's third round match everyone had circled once the draw came out, Ben Shelton(Florida) versus Frances Tiafoe, lived up to expectations Friday afternoon. No. 20 seed Tiafoe avenged his quarterfinal loss last year to No. 13 seed Shelton, staying committed to moving forward and volleying well to earn a 4-6, 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3 victory. Shelton had 23 aces, including one of 143 mph on set point in the third set tiebreaker, but Tiafoe had 17 more winners than unforced errors, which is a good indication of his level throughout the match. He will likely face No. 2 seed Novak Djokovic in the fourth round Sunday.

Friday's third round results of Americans:

Coco Gauff[3] d. Elina Svitolina[27](UKR) 3-6, 6-3, 6-3
Emma Navarro[13] d. Marta Kostyuk[19](UKR) 6-4, 4-6, 6-3
Elise Mertens[33](BEL) d. Madison Keys[14] 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-4 
Donna Vekic[24](CRO) d. Peyton Stearns 7-5, 6-4

Frances Tiafoe[20] d. Ben Shelton[13]  4-6, 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3

Brandon Nakashima d. Lorenzo Musetti[18](ITA) 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(4)

Taylor Fritz[13] d. Franciso Comesana(ARG) 6-3, 6-4, 6-2

Saturday's third round matches featuring Americans:

Jessica Pegula[6] v Jessica Bouzas Maneiro(ESP)

Ashlyn Krueger v Liudmila Samsonova[16](RUS)

Tommy Paul[14] v Gabriel Diallo[Q](CAN)

The singles finals are set for Saturday at the ITF J300 in Repentigny Canada, outside Montreal, with top seeds Mees Rottgering of the Netherlands and Hannah Klugman of Great Britain hoping to head into the US Open Junior Championships with hard court titles.  

Rottgering, the 2024 Wimbledon boys finalist, defeated No. 8 seed Thomas Faurel of France 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in today's semifinal, and will face No. 2 seed Maxim Mrva of the Czech Republic, who beat No. 4 seed Theo Papamalamis of France 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-1.

Rottgering and Mrva played in the second round of the Australian Open this year, with Rottgering winning 6-1, 6-3. 

Top seed Hannah Klugman of Great Britain has dropped only seven games in her first four matches, beating No. 5 seed Vittoria Paganetti of Italy 6-1, 6-0 in today's semifinal. She will play another Italian in the final, unseeded Noemi Basiletti, who advanced to the championship match when No. 3 seed Mingge Xu of Great Britain retired up 5-2 in the first. 

I don't know what happened, but that doesn't sound good for her prospects at the US Open, where she would be one of the contenders. She is an Ace this month(see the TRN column above) after winning the singles and doubles titles at a W35 in London.

Basiletti took the doubles title, with Paganetti; the No. 3 seeds defeated No. 4 seed Reina Goto of Japan and Lea Nilsson of Sweden 6-0, 6-3. Goto and Nilsson advanced to the final with one victory; they received walkovers in the quarterfinals and semifinals.