Top 16s Singles Seeds, Top 18s Doubles Seeds Advance with Indoor Victories Tuesday at Kalamazoo Nationals; Cincinnati Open Announces Wild Cards; Anisimova and Tien Lead US Open Wild Card Race

©Colette Lewis 2024--
Kalamazoo MI--

The rain began at 7 a.m. and persisted through late afternoon Tuesday at the USTA Boys 16s and 18s National Championships, so all 32 of the third round 16s singles matches and all 16 of of the third round boys 18s doubles matches began and ended indoors at various sites around Kalamazoo.

The seven of the top eight 16s seeds were in action at the Markin Tennis Center on the Kalamazoo College campus to start the day, and advanced, although most matches were close and two went to three sets.

No. 5 seed Ryan Cozad needed nearly three hours to get past No. 33 seed Safir Azam 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, and No. 8 seed Andrew Johnson had to battle from behind to defeat No. 33 seed Muyang Yi 1-6, 7-5, 6-1.

Top seed Gus Grumet defeated No. 33 seed Vihaan Reddy, a wild card, 6-3, 6-2, and No. 2 seed Gavin Goode overcame a serious challenge from No. 33 seed Bryan Assi 6-3, 7-5.

No. 3 seed Jack Secord defeated unseeded Dhakshish Aryan 6-4, 6-2 and No. 4 seed Yannik Alvarez beat No. 33 seed Maksim Nekrasov 7-5, 6-2.  Keaton Hance, the No. 6 seed, who originally received acceptance into the 18s, but took a wild card into the 16s, edged No. 33 seed and fellow Southern California Benjamin Berger 6-4, 6-4 in a Court 1 match that featured big hitting and lengthy rallies. Hance, who trailed in the first set and led in the second, ended up needing late breaks in both sets to claim the win.

The only Top 8 seed who did not play at Markin, No. 7 seed Zavier Augustin, won his third round match over No. 33 seed Joseph Nau 6-2, 6-0 at the West Hills Athletic Club's indoor courts.

The only Top 16 seed who did not make the round of 32 was No. 11 Arjun Prabhakar, who lost 6-2, 7-5 to Adrien Abarca.

The third round of 16s doubles was again canceled due to the rain, so they are officially now a day behind schedule and whether both the third and fourth rounds will be played Wednesday is still to be determined.

The good news is that the weather forecast for the remainder of the tournament is excellent, so all the radar monitoring and the  transitions from outdoor to indoor courts should be a thing of the past beginning Wednesday.

The third round of 18s doubles managed to stay on schedule, with seven of the Top 8 seeds advancing to the round of 16 on Wednesday.

Top seeds and defending champions Alex Frusina and Adhithya Ganesan had a bit of a rocky start to their title defense on Sunday, going down 5-3 in their first match in the second round, but they won ten straight games to close out that victory, then started their third round match today at the Markin Tennis Center against Nav Dayal and Saahith Jayaraman by taking six consecutive games in their 6-0, 6-3 victory.

"We just hadn't played together since December," said Ganesan, a rising sophomore at Florida. "So it took a little bit of time to kind of get used to playing together again, but now we're in that rhythm."

"We haven't really haven't talked about it too much, but I think we kind of know the confidence we have from last year, and we're using it this time around," said Frusina, who begins his collegiate career at Auburn later this month.

Dayal and Jayaraman broke their string of 16 straight games stayed in the second set by winning three deciding points.

"They started serving better, they held three times," Ganesan said of more competitive second set. "We lost three no-ad points, they played good points, in the tight situations, they played better in those games, but overall, we played solid."

After winning the title last year as the No. 7 seeds, Ganesan and Frusina haven't given much thought to their postion as No. 1 seeds this year, in a field that includes three current junior slam doubles champions in Alex Razeghi(Wimbledon) and Max Exsted and Cooper Woestendick(Australian Open).

"I don't think we've thought too much about the seeding," Frusina said. "Personally I haven't thought about the 1 next to our names; we're just having fun in our one last time playing here."

Although they are likely to encounter each other in SEC play next year, there's no obvious opportunity to play together again after this tournament, unless of course they win another US Open main draw wild card.

"If we end up playing some Futures, I'd be down to play together, but it depends," Frusina said. "But if he's available, I'd totally message him."

Frusina has mixed feelings about playing against Ganesan in dual matches next spring.

"We will play against each other, which is a bit unfortunate, but I'm kind of looking forward to that one."

No. 2 seed Woestendick and Exsted defeated Charlie Burdell and Blake Hilsen 7-5, 6-1, while No. 4 seeds Nikita Filin and Razeghi beat Jack Mountford and Bassil Touban 6-2, 6-4.  No. 3 seeds Noah Johnston and Benjamin Willwerth, who did not play at Markin, got past Braeden Gelletich and Karan Raghavendra 7-6(4), 4-6, 10-3.

The fourth round of 16s singles will begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Stowe Stadium, with the fourth round of 18s singles scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. The annual Dinner at the Nats evening schedule features the 18s doubles fourth round, beginning at 5 p.m.

See the ustaboys.com website for updated information and links to live streaming(Stowe) and live scoring(Stowe and WMU).

The Cincinnati Open begins with qualifying this coming Sunday, and wild cards for both main draw and qualifying have been announced.

The women's main draw wild cards were awarded to Bianca Andreescu of Canada, Caroline Wozniacki, Caroline Dolehide and Peyton Stearns(Texas). The only two qualifying wild cards announced are for Taylor Townsend and Marina Stakusic of Canada.

The men's main draw wild cards were awarded to Marcos Giron(UCLA), Matteo Berrettini of Italy, Max Purcell of Australia and Reilly Opelka. Qualifying wild cards were given to JJ Wolf(Ohio State), Zachary Svajda, Brandon Holt(USC) and Mackenzie McDonald(UCLA).

The USTA's US Open Wild Card Challenge is now into its last week, with the leaders listed below:

US Open Wild Card Challenge Standings Update   Orlando, Fla., August 6, 2024 – Amanda Anisimova finds herself atop of the women's US Open Wild Card Challenge standings after reaching the quarterfinals of the WTA 500 event in Washington, D.C., last week as a qualifier. Learner Tien extended his lead in the men's standings as his impressive summer continued with a run to the quarterfinals at the USTA Pro Circuit's Lexington Challenger.   This is the final week of 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 (232) -- 109 2. Nishesh Basavareddy (295) -- 52 3. JJ Wolf (162) -- 50 4. Eliot Spizzirri (353) -- 47 5. Colton Smith (631) -- 41   WOMEN   1. Amanda Anisimova (132) -- 133 2. Alycia Parks (99) -- 131 3. Robin Montgomery (107) -- 108 4. Sophie Chang (246) -- 102 5. Maria Mateas (209) -- 75