Jovic, Bigun Among Top Juniors Declining Invitations to ITF World Junior Tennis Finals in China; Spizzirri, Basavareddy and Tien Reach Tiburon Challenger Quarterfinals; Joint, Jovic Advance at W75 in Rancho Santa Fe

Today, the International Tennis Federation announced the participants in this month's World Junior Tennis Tour Finals, which begin October 14 in Chengdu China. 

Unlike the ATP and WTA year-end finals, participation in this event has never been a given for those who qualify and this year the field is missing the top three boys in the ITF rankings and two of the top three girls. 

The only junior slam champions in the field are the most recent: Rafael Jodar of Spain and Mika Stojsavljevic of Great Britain.

Two Americans are among the eight competing in the girls tournament, with Tyra Grant and Kristina Penickova accepting invitations. Roland Garros boys champion Kaylan Bigun, who has been playing Challengers since the US Open Junior Championships, passed, as did Iva Jovic.  

See the screenshots below for those who have accepted and  declined invitations. The alternates are Antonia Vergara Rivera of Chile and Jangjun Kim of Korea.

The quarterfinal matchups at the ATP Challenger 75 in Tiburon California are nearly decided, with recent Texas graduate Eliot Spizzirri and  Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) and No. 2 seed Learner Tien(USC) joining fellow Americans Denis Kudla and Colton Smith in the quarterfinals.  Spizzirri defeated No. 6 seed Abdullah Shelbayh(Florida) of Jordan 4-6, 7-6(2), 6-4, saving a match point with Shelbayh serving for the match at 6-4, 5-4. Basavareddy, who has now reached his sixth Challenger quarterfinal since finishing his sophomore year at Stanford in May, defeated No. 7 seed Brandon Holt(USC) 6-2, 6-4. Tien has reached his eighth Challenger quarterfinal with a 6-2, 7-6(6) win over qualifier Micah Braswell(Texas). Braswell had two set points, leading 6-4 in the tiebreaker, but Tien came up with some big shots to take the last four points of the match.

Spizzirri will play the winner of the late match between No. 4 seed JJ Wolf(Ohio State) and qualifier Nicolas Mejia of Colombia. Basavareddy faces Karue Sell(UCLA) of Brazil and Tien plays Kudla. 

Live streaming, with commentary by Mike Cation, is available at the ATP Challenger TV webpage.

Top seed Maya Joint of Australia is through to the quarterfinals of the W75 in Rancho Santa Fe, after defeating fellow teenager Akasha Urhobo 6-4, 6-4. The University of Texas freshman will play unseeded Katherine Sebov of Canada on Friday.

Iva Jovic, who won last week's W35 in Berkeley as the No. 2 seed, is unseeded here, but she has advanced to the quarterfinals, beating former USC All-American Madison Sieg 6-2, 6-3. Jovic's opponent in the quarterfinals is No. 7 seed Gabriela Knutson(Syracuse) of the Czech Republic.