Klugman, Jovic Top Orange Bowl Acceptances, Five ITF Top 10 Boys Enter Both J300 Bradenton and Orange Bowl; Quinn Earns First Top 100 Win in Champaign; Qualifying Complete at Four USTA Pro Circuit Events

The acceptances were released today for next month's ITF J300 in Bradenton Florida and the J500 Orange Bowl, and is often the case, the fields are similar. 

The same five Top 10 boys have entered both: Luca Preda[5](ROU), Maxim Mrva([6]CZE), Jan Kumstat[7](CZE), Charlie Robertson[9](GBR) and Hoyoung Roh[10](KOR).  The same nine US boys have entered both: Jagger Leach, Cooper Woestendick, Jack Kennedy, Ian Mayew, Max Exsted, Benjamin Willwerth, Noah Johnston, Kase Schinnerer and Dominick Mosejczuk. 

Only two boys have entered the Orange Bowl, but not the IMG J300(formerly Eddie Herr): 2022 Orange Bowl 16s chamiion Naoya Honda of Japan, ranked No. 12, and No. 38 Bryan Hernandez Cortes of Spain.

It's much different for the girls. Eight top 50 girls who entered the Orange Bowl are not playing Bradenton, with three of them in the Top 10: Iva Jovic[4], Teodora Kostovic[9](SRB) and Kristina Penickova[10].

The US girls entered in the Orange Bowl: Jovic, Penickova, Kaitlyn Rolls*, Thea Frodin, Maya Iyengar*, Aspen Schuman*, Annika Penickova, Christasha McNeil, Shannon Lam*, Claire An*, Capucine Jauffret* and Leena Friedman*. Those with asterisks are also entered in Bradenton.

Jovic had entered in the J500 in Mexico the week of Thanksgiving, but she has withdrawn from that tournament. She did mention playing the Orange Bowl in an interview after her Pro Circuit title in Rancho Santa Fe California; the Orange Bowl withdrawal deadline is still two weeks away.

At last year's Orange Bowl, Jovic lost in the semifinals to Hannah Klugman of Great Britain, who went on to claim the title with a win over Tyra Grant. Klugman has entered this year; very few players attempt a defense of their Orange Bowl title, but Klugman is only 15 years old.

The boys main draw ranking cutoffs for both tournaments are similar: 72 for Bradenton and 70 for Orange Bowl.

The girls main draw ranking cutoff for Bradenton is 95, with Orange Bowl 81. 

It's likely that the ATP Accelerator Program is responsible for the boys fields being stronger, with its wild cards into Challengers for year-end ITF Top 20 boys providing a major incentive for them to keep playing junior events. 

In other news from the IMG International Champioships in Bradenton, the 16s division will be moved from hard courts to clay due to damage suffered in the recent Florida hurricanes. The acceptances for the 12s, 14s, and 16s divisions were published late last month and can be found on the USTA tournament site.

It's a busy week on the USTA Pro Circuit, with two 15Ks, a $25K and a W50, as well as the ATP Challenger 75 in Champaign Illinois. 

2023 NCAA champion Ethan Quinn(Georgia) picked up his first ATP Top 100 win yesterday in Champaign, defeating top seed Adam Walton(Tennessee) of Australia, currently ranked 90, 6-3, 6-4. Americans joining Quinn in the second round are qualifier Micah Braswell(Texas), Patrick Maloney(Michigan), Patrick Kypson[6](Texas A&M), qualifier Strong Kirchheimer (Northwestern), Eliot Spizzirri(Texas), Nishesh Basavareddy[5] (Stanford), qualifier Alex Rybakov(TCU) and Govind Nanda(UCLA).

Learner Tien's streak of 11 Challenger quarterfinals in 11 Challengers played this year came to end this evening in Champaign, with the No. 3 seed falling to Aidan McHugh of Great Britain 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 in the first round. Tien(USC) is now out of the running for the USTA's reciprocal Australian Open wild card, with Basavareddy's win today; No. 2 seed Christopher Eubanks, who led both Tien and Basavareddy by 21 points coming into this final week of countable tournaments, is playing a night match in Champaign. 

Tien's season may not be over however, as he is currently No. 5 in the NextGen rankings for that year-end tournament in Saudi Arabia for 20-and-under players. Basavareddy is currently ninth, with the top 7 and a wild card qualifying for the December 18-22 event.

At the women's W50 in Austin Texas, two Americans qualified for the main draw, UC-Santa Barbara junior Amelia Honer, who will be playing in both singles and doubles at next week's NCAA championships, and Texas junior Vivian Ovrootsky. 

Wild cards were given to Caty McNally, Kari Miller, Malaika Rapolu(Texas) and Texas redshirt freshman Charlotte Kempenaers-Pocz, who has yet to see action for the Longhorns.

Clervie Ngounoue received an ITF junior exempt entry, while Texas A&M senior Mary Stoiana, one of the favorites for the NCAA title next week, received an ITA accelerator entry. 

The top two seeds in Austin are Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Anastasia Tikhonova. Gabriela Lee(Texas Tech) of Romania defeated Tikhonova today 6-4, 6-3, while Rapolu beat No. 7 seed Gabriela Knutson(Syracuse) of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-1.

At the men's $25,000 tournament in Columbus Ohio, four Americans advanced through qualifying, three of them current collegians: Mitchell Shelton, Michigan State freshman, William Manning, NC State red shirt freshman, Wally Thayne, BYU senior and Matthew Terry(Cleveland State).

Wild cards were awarded to Ohio State sophomore Bryce Nakashima, Ohio State freshman Nikita Filin and OSU recruit Mattise Farzam. 

The top two seeds, both of whom are playing in the NCAAs next week, are Romania's Radu Papoe, a Cornell senior and Stanford junior Samir Banerjee.

There are two W15s this week, which is extremely rare, the men's in Boca Raton Florida and the women's in Clemson South Carolina.

In Boca Raton, three American juniors have qualified: Lachlan Gaskell, Noah Johnston and Maximus Dussault. The other two Americans advancing to the main draw are Harvard senior Daniel Milavsky and Spencer Gray(Auburn, UNC Charlotte).

Any 15K in the United States is going to have its ITF junior reserved spots filled, and this week the Top 100 junior receiving entry via that method are Ian Mayew, Benjamin Willwerth and Oliver Bonding of Great Britain. 

Wild cards were give to Kalamazoo 18s champion Matt Forbes, a Michigan State freshman, Dylan Long, a Duke recruit, Will Mayew, a Louisville junior and Ty Switzer, a Virginia junior. 

The top seeds are Peter Bertran(Georgia, South Florida) of the Dominican Republic and Sebastian Gima of Romania.

In South Carolina, all four wild card were given to current Clemson women: junior Romana Cisovska of Slovakia freshman Gaia Parravicini of Italy, grad students Sophia Hatton and Great Britain's Annabelle Davis.

The three ITF junior reserved spots went to Maya Iyengar, Capucine Jauffret and NC State freshman Gabia Paskauskas of Great Britain.  

The American qualifiers are Emma Charney, a Southern California junior, Mia Slama, a NC state freshman and Camille Kiss(UC Santa Barbara). Fourteen-year-old Kristina Liutova, who lives in the United States but was born in Russia, also qualified. She reached the quarterfinals as a qualifier at last week's W15 in Lincoln.

The top seeds are former North Carolina All-American Sara Daavettila  and Zuzanna Pawlikowska of Poland.