Jovic Among 18 Americans in Action Monday at US Open; US Open Doubles Draws; Lammons and Withrow Defend Another ATP Title; Spizzirri Credits College Tennis Atmosphere with Assist in US Open Qualifying Run

USTA National 18s champion Iva Jovic is among 18 Americans on Monday's schedule as the 2024 US Open main draw gets underway at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows New York. The 16-year-old Jovic, currently 387 in the WTA rankings, will face 32-year-old Magda Linette of Poland, who is No. 40, as the third match scheduled for court 15. Coco Gauff begins her title defense on Arthur Ashe second on in the day session, with Ben Shelton opening play on Ashe against 2020 US Open champion Dominic Thiem of Austria.

Monday's first round matches featuring Americans:
Ben Shelton[13] v Dominic Thiem[WC](AUT)
Taylor Fritz[12] v Camilo Ugo Carabelli(ARG)
Aleks Kovacevic v Frances Tiafoe[20]
Reilly Opelka v Lorenzo Musetti[18](ITA)
Chris Eubanks[WC] v Arthur Rinderknech(FRA)
Mitchell Krueger[Q] v Hugo Grenier[Q](FRA)
Brandon Nakashima v Holger Rune[15](DEN)

Coco Gauff[3] v Varvara Gracheva(FRA)

Sloane Stephens v Clara Burel(FRA)

Amanda Anisimova[WC] v Qinwen Zheng[7](CHN)

Madison Keys[14] v Katerina Siniakova(CZE)

Emma Navarro[13] v Anna Blinkova(RUS)

Peyton Stearns v Lesia Tsurenko(UKR)

Ann Li[Q] v Ajla Tomljanovic(AUS)

McCartney Kessler[WC] v Marta Kostyuk[10](UKR)

Iva Jovic[WC] v Magda Linette(POL)

Taylor Townsend v Martina Trevisan(ITA)

The doubles wild cards were announced Friday, and, unlike the singles wild cards, all went to Americans:

Women's
Jessie Aney and Jessica Failla
Hailey Baptiste and Whitney Osuigwe
Carmen Corley and Ivana Corley
Tyra Grant and Iva Jovic
McCartney Kessler and Sabrina Santamaria
Robin Montgomery and Clervie Ngounoue
Anna Rogers and Alana Smith

Men's
Tristan Boyer and Emilio Nava
Robert Cash and JJ Tracy
Nikita Filin and Alex Razeghi
Christian Harrison and Vasil Kirkov
Mitchell Krueger and Reese Stalder
Alex Michelsen and Mackenzie McDonald
Ryan Seggerman and Patrik Trhac

Although doubles matches will not begin until Wednesday, the draws have been released, with Marcel Granollers of Spain and Horatio Zeballos of Argentina the top men's seeds, and Gabby Dabrowski of Canada and Erin Routliffe(Alabama) of New Zealand the top women's seeds.

Ohio State's NCAA champions Robert Cash and JJ Tracy will face Sumit Nagal of India and Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan in the first round.

Kalamazoo 18s champions Alex Razeghi and Nikita Filin will play Nicolas Barrientos of Colombia and Skander Mansouri of Tunisia in the first round.

San Diego 18s champions Jovic and Tyra Grant also drew an unseeded team in Anna Danilina(Florida) of Kazakhstan and Irina Khromacheva of Russia for their first round match.

Speaking of doubles, No. 13 seeds at the US Open, Jackson Withrow(Texas A&M) and Nathaniel Lammons(SMU), defended their title at the Winston-Salem Open yesterday, with the No. 4 seeds beating unseeded Julian Cash(Mississippi St, Oklahoma St) of Great Britain and Robert Galloway(Wofford) 6-4, 6-3 in the final. It's the third title of this summer's hard court season for Withrow and Lammons, who also defended their title in Atlanta and claimed their biggest title at the ATP 500 in Washington DC.

For more on their most recent title, see this article from the ATP website.

Alex Michelsen advanced to his first ATP final not on grass in Winston-Salem, but the 20-year-old from Southern California lost to Lorenzo Sonego of Italy 6-0, 6-3.

Michelsen's opponent in the US Open Tuesday will be qualifier Eliot Spizzirri, the two-time ITA National Player of the Year, who just completed his eligibility at Texas in May. A wild card into qualifying, Spizzirri defeated Gregoire Barrere of France, Joris DeLoore of Belgium and 2023 US Open boys champion Joao Fonseca of Brazil to reach the main draw for the first time in three attempts. 

This article from the US Open website quotes Spizzirri's reference to his college experience as helping him cope with the pro-Fonseca crowd, which. if you saw any of Fonseca's junior matches last year, you would agree is loud, passionate and formidable.

My colleague Michael Lewis(no relation), who was onsite covering the qualifying, also provided a quote from Spizzirri on the time he spend as a young junior at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, with a reference to 2013 Kalamazoo champion Collin Altamirano(Virginia), who played the US Open main draw that year and the qualifying tournament the following year.

Yeah it's crazy, I used to sneak around here all the time, I knew the entrances and exits to all the gyms; I've been going to this tournament since as young as I can remember.

Even my first-round qualies this year playing on 17; probably my most ingrained memory of watching US Open qualies was watching (Collin) Altamirano on that court when I was super young; And just being in awe of that level of tennis, and how badly I wanted to do that.

So for my first round here this year, to get a chance to do that, was already fulfilling a huge dream of mine. To make the main draw is surreal. I'm going to try to enjoy it.

Most special thing is my friends and family being here also.