Gauff Wins WTA Finals; Three Current Collegians, 18-Year-Old Crossley Compete for USTA Pro Circuit Titles Sunday; Tien Meets Eubanks in Knoxville Challenger Final; More NCAA Qualifiers Determined at Sectional Championships

Coco Gauff closed out 2024 on the WTA Tour in the best way possible. At the WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia this week, the 20-year-old from Florida defeated nemesis and WTA No. 2 Iga Swiatek, No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and today, in the final, Olympic gold medalist Qinwen Zheng. As she had done in their meeting in the 2018 Orange Bowl final, Gauff came back from a break down in the third set to beat Zheng 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(2) and become the youngest winner of the event since Maria Sharapova in 2004, the year Gauff was born.

Gauff collected 4.8 million dollars, the largest prize in women's tennis history, and is the first American to win the event since Serena Williams in 2014.

For more on the final, see this article from the WTA website.

New Zealand's Erin Routliffe, a two-time NCAA doubles champion at Alabama, and her partner Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada, avenged their loss in this year's Wimbledon final to Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic to claim the WTA Finals doubles championship.  The No. 2 seeds defeated the No. 8 seeds 7-5, 6-3, going undefeated throughout the week.

For more on the the doubles final, see this article from the WTA website.

Pepperdine senior Savannah Broadus and Florida junior Rachel Gailis will play for the singles championship Sunday at the W15 in Lincoln Nebraska after both picked up straight-sets victories in the semifinals today.  Qualifier Broadus, who has yet to win a Pro Circuit singles title, defeated DJ Bennett, a junior at Auburn, 6-1, 7-5, while Gailis, who has claimed one W15 title, beat former USC star Snow Han 7-5, 6-3.

Broadus won her third Pro Circuit doubles title, all with different partners, this time with Carolyn Campana(Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Pepperdine). They defeated No. 2 seeds and Auburn teammates Merna Refaat of Egypt and Angella Okutoyi of Kenya 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in the final.

University of Georgia senior Dasha Vidmanova of the Czech Republic will play in her fifth Pro Circuit final of 2024 Sunday at the W35 in Miami Florida. The No. 8 seed defeated former teammate and No. 4 seed Lea Ma 6-3, 6-4.  Vidmanova faces unseeded 18-year-old Mayu Crossley, a UCLA recruit, who ended the winning streak of last week's Norman W35 champion Anna Rogers(NC State), the No. 7 seed, with a 6-4, 6-4 win.

Rogers did claim the doubles title, with Canadian Kayla Cross. The No. 1 seeds defeated unseeded Central Florida teammates Olivia Lincer of Poland and Aya El Aouni of Morocco 7-5, 6-4 in the final.

No. 3 seed Learner Tien(USC) will play in his fourth ATP Challenger final this year at the 75 in Knoxville Tennessee after the No. 3 seed defeated Stanford's Nishesh Basavareddy 6-2, 6-4 to run his Challenger record against the 19-year-old from Indiana to 2-0.  Tien made 83 percent of his first serves, which negated one of Basavareddy's strengths: his second serve return. 

The 18-year-old Tien, who is 7-0 in finals this year, will face No. 2 seed Christopher Eubanks(Georgia Tech) in a championship match that will have major implications in the Australian Open Wild Card race with one week remaining. Eubanks picked up his second consecutive win in a third-set tiebreaker today, ending the run of recent Tennessee graduate Johannus Monday of Great Britain 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-6(1). 

The singles final is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday, with Mike Cation providing commentary on the free ATP Challenger TV stream.

Monday earned his 11th pro doubles title, and his second at the Challenger level, partnering with former Tennessee teammate and 2021 NCAA doubles champion Pat Harper of Australia. The unseeded pair defeated alternates Eliot Spizzirri and Micah Braswell, former teammates at Texas, 6-2, 6-2. 

Although additional NCAA Division I singles and doubles qualifiers will be decided in matches on Sunday, the majority of the spots were filled today with the completion of the four Sectional Championships singles quarterfinals. Those singles quarterfinal winners are below; the women's West Sectional also determined the fifth and sixth place winners, who also qualify for NCAAs in Waco in ten days.

EAST:
Men:
DK Suresh[1], Wake Forest
Paul Inchauspe[4], Princeton
Lucas Adrade da Silva, South Carolina
Cooper Williams[2], Duke
5/6 TBD

Women:

Carson Tanguilig[1], North Carolina

Kaitlyn Carnicella, South Carolina

Annabelle Xu[3], Virginia

Sarah Hamner[2], South Carolina

5/6 TBD

SOUTH:

Women:

Guillermina Grant[1], Georgia

Ludmila Kareisova, Mississippi

Lucie Petruzelova, Mississippi

Catherine Aulia[2], Tennessee

5/6 TBD

Men:

Martin Katz[1], Miami

Niccolo Baroni[5-8], Mississippi State

Roan Jones, Alabama

Jeremy Jin[5-8], Florida

5/6 TBD

CENTRAL:

Women:

Julia Garcia Ruiz[1], Oklahoma

Piper Charney[3], Michigan

Lily Jones[5-8], Michigan

Nicole Khirin[2], Texas A&M

5/6 TBD

Men:

Gavin Young[1], Michigan

Duncan Chan, TCU

Devin Badenhorst, Baylor

Trevor Svajda[2], SMU

5/6 TBD

WEST:

Women:

Elise Wagle, UCLA

Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer[4], UCLA

Mao Mushika, Cal

Kate Fakih[5], UCLA

5th and 6th place:

Grace Piper, USC

Lan Mi, Cal

Men:

Maxi Homberg, Pepperdine

Alex Chang[4], Cal

Theo Dean[5-8], Cal

Youssef Kadiri, Nevada

5/6 TBD

Four of the six men's and women's doubles teams from the Conference Masters that will received NCAA berths have been determined after today's semifinals. The teams that finish third in a playoff tomorrow will also get NCAA bids.