Kratzer Beats Top Seed Day to Advance to W35 San Rafael Final; Mississippi State Guaranteed Title at Fayetteville $15K; Trotter Reaches Second Challenger Final in Columbus; Americans Give World Team Lead in Laver Cup

2017 USTA Girls 18s champion Ashley Kratzer has been out of competition for four years, due to a doping suspension, the details of which you can review in Stephanie Myles' July article on her website OpenCourt. Kratzer, a 25-year-old left-hander, reached 200 in the WTA rankings in 2018, but has played only twice this year, since her suspension was lifted in March. That may be due to the fact that she has no WTA ranking and therefore needs wild cards; she received one for the W75 this summer in Evansville and won a round, but needs three tournaments to get a WTA ranking. 

This week she received a wild card into qualifying at the W35 in San Rafael California and she has rolled through her opponents, including top seed and WTA No. 170 Kayla Day, the 2016 USTA Girls 18s champion, whom she defeated 6-2, 6-3 in just over an hour. Kratzer, who has now won six matches without dropping a set, will face No. 6 seed Robin Anderson(UCLA) in what is just Kratzer's fourth Pro Circuit final. Kratzer is 0-3 in finals, so will be looking for her first title against Anderson. Anderson, who beat No. 4 seed Sophie Chang 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(2) in today's semifinals, has split her two previous meetings with Kratzer, but those obviously go way back, to 2017 and 2018.

In today's doubles final, Anderson and partner Alana Smith(NC State) took their first title as a team, with the No. 2 seeds beating No. 4 seeds Jamie Loeb(UNC) and Makenna Jones(UNC) 7-5, 6-2. 

At the $15,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Fayetteville Arkansas, Mississippi State has been flexing its muscle, with three of the four semifinalists currently on the Bulldogs' roster. In the all-Mississippi State semifinal, freshman Niccolo Baroni of Italy defeated junior Mario Martinez Serrano of Spain 6-3, 6-2; qualifier Benito Sanchez Martinez, a junior from Germany, defeated top seed Timo Legout(Texas) of France 6-3, 6-4 in the semifinal in the top half. 

Legout did collect a title this week, in doubles, with Oklahoma State's Isaac Becroft. The unseeded pair defeated top seeds Alfredo Perez and Jack Vance 4-6, 6-4, 10-8 in today's final. 

James Trotter of Japan reached his second ATP Challenger final today in a familiar setting, with the 2023 Ohio State graduate defeating Stanford junior Nishesh Basavareddy 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-0 at the Ty Tucker Tennis Center in Columbus. Trotter, who won his first Challenger in June in Texas, saw his 5-2 lead in the first set slip away, but he immediately took control of the second set and rolled through the third, with his 13 aces and Basavareddy's many unforced errors the key factors in his victory.

Trotter will face alternate Naoki Nakagawa of Japan for the title Sunday. The 27-year-old Nakagawa, who had never reached a Challenger quarterfinal before this week, defeated qualifier Kyle Edmund of Great Britain, a former ATP Top 20 player, 7-6(5), 0-6, 6-2. According to Challenger expert Damian Kust, it's the first Challenger final between two Japanese players outside of Asia.

Trotter, the 2023 NCAA doubles champion, collected his fifth Challenger doubles title of the year in Columbus, his second with Hans Hach Verdugo(Abilene Christian) of Mexico. It may be a good omen for Trotter, who also won the doubles with Hach Verdugo at Tyler to sweep the titles there. Hach Verdugo and Trotter defeated unseeded Christian Harrison and Ethan Quinn(Georgia) 6-4, 6-7(6), 11-9 in this afternoon's final.

The annual Laver Cup team exhibition began on Friday in Berlin, with the score between the World and Europe tied at 2. No Americans played singles for the World Friday, but Frances Tiafoe, Ben Shelton and Taylor Fritz all played singles today. Tiafoe defeated Daniil Medvedev 3-6, 6-4, 10-5, Shelton lost to Carlos Alcaraz 6-4, 6-4 and Fritz defeated Alexander Zverev 6-4, 7-5. With matches worth twice as much Saturday as Friday, that gave the World a 6-4 lead, which they expanded to 8-4 with Shelton and Alejandro Tabilo's 6-1, 6-2 win in doubles over Casper Ruud and Stefanos Tsitsipas. 

For more on tomorrow's matches, which will determine if the World can earn its third straight title, see this article for the Laver Cup website.