Nakagawa, Anderson and Sanchez Martinez Claim USTA Pro Circuit Titles; ITA All-American Pre-Qualifying Complete, Qualifying Begins Monday; Europe Comes Back to Win Laver Cup

The three events this week on the USTA Pro Circuit wrapped up today, with an alternate, a qualifier and a No. 6 seed taking the titles.

At the ATP Challenger 75 in Columbus, alternate Naoki Nakagawa, who had never advanced past the second round of a Challenger until this week, defeated former Ohio State Buckeye James Trotter 7-6(8), 5-7, 7-6(5) in the first all-Japanese Challenger final outside of Asia. The three-hour and 19-minute final saw Trotter hit 27 aces and save nine of 10 break points, but it wasn't enough against Nakagawa. Both players received special exemptions into the main draw of next week's Challenger 75 in Charleston South Carolina, with Nakagawa playing wild card Henry Lieberman(UNC) and Trotter facing a qualifier or lucky loser.

At the $15,000 tournament in Fayetteville Arkansas, qualifier Benito Sanchez Martinez of Germany, a junior at Mississippi State, defeated Niccolo Baroni of Italy, a freshman at Mississippi State 6-2, 6-2 for his first ITF men's World Tennis Tour title.

No. 6 seed Robin Anderson, the former UCLA All-American, ended the run of qualifier Ashley Kratzer today in the final of the W35 in San Rafael California, defeating the 2017 USTA 18s champion 7-6(6), 6-2. It's the first singles title of the year for Anderson, who also claimed the doubles title, with Alana Smith(NC State) yesterday.

The pre-qualifying is complete at the Women's ITA All-American Championships in Cary North Carolina, with the 16 players who won both their matches today advancing to the qualifying, which begins Monday. The qualifying draws do not identify those who received entry via pre-qualifying, so those 16 players are listed here:

Women's pre-qualifiers:
Kate Fakih, UCLA
Gracie Epps, Oklahoma State
Kallista Liu[17], Maryland
Gaby Rivera[4], LSU
Eva Alvarez Sande, Washington State
Carmen Andreea Herea[17], Texas
Leonie Moeller, Memphis
Valeria Ray[17], Vanderbilt
Olivia Center, UCLA
Gabia Paskauskas, NC State
Zoe Hammond, Kentucky
Xin Tong Wang, Wichita State
Ariana Pursoo[13], Texas
Xinyi Nong, Miami
Imogen Haddad, Southern Cal
Ava Catanzarite[17], Oklahoma

I'm not sure how the seeding was done, but it wasn't impressive, with just two players expected to advance through pre-qualifying(Rivera and Pursoo) actually doing so.

The results of the Men's ITA All-American Championships pre-qualifying in Tulsa Oklahoma can be found here, with the winners listed below. Again, the seeding has not proven to be a reliable indicator of who might get through three matches to reach the qualifying portion of the tournament, with just three of the 16 players below--Brown, Giamichelle and Weekes--seeded to reach the qualifying round.

Nicholas Heng, Auburn

Julien Penzlin, LSU

Mehdi Benchakroun, Central Florida

Lucas Andrade da Silva[17], South Carolina

Landon Ardila, Princeton

Manfredi Graziani, Penn

William Mroz, Illinois

Sean Daryabeigi[17], South Carolina

Lucas Brown[9], Texas

Maxwell Smith, Clemson

Santiago Giamichelle[11], Central Florida

Noah Schlagenhauf, Mississippi

Max Sheldon, Michigan State

Noa Vukadin[17], Clemson

Jaden Weekes[15], Kentucky

Marko Miladinovic, Baylor

After residing with the World Team the past two years, the Laver Cup title returned to Europe, with Carlos Alcaraz of Spain playing a major role in today's comeback. He and Casper Ruud won the doubles over Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, and then clinched the championship with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Taylor Fritz in the final singles match of the day. In all, Alcaraz won 8 of Europe's 13 points, which is a record for the event.