US Teams Face Romania in Junior Davis Cup, Junior Billie Jean King Cup Finals Saturday; Willwerth Ousts Top Seed at Boca Raton $15K; All Collegian Semis at Columbus $25K, Basavareddy Can Clinch AO Wild Card Saturday

The Junior Davis Cup and Junior Billie Jean King Cup teams from the United States will both play for the titles Saturday after they again shut out their semifinal opponents today.

The girls, who have not lost a match in the five ties they've won this week, defeated the Czech Republic 2-0. with Julieta Pereja winning at No. 2 singles 7-6(6), 3-6, 6-3 over Tereza Krejcova and Tyra Grant clinching the win with a 6-0, 6-1 decison over Julia Pastikova at No. 1 singles. Grant has been outstanding all week, with her 6-3, 6-4 win over US Open girls finalist Wakana Sonobe of Japan in the quarterfinals the closest match she's had all week.

Romania defeated Germany 2-0 to reach the final, the first ever Billie Jean King Cup finals appearance for that country

Grant was on the US team that won the title last year; the girls are looking for their third straight with the only Junior Billie Jean King Cup title they haven't won since 2016 is the one they didn't play in 2021, with the USTA deciding not to send a team that year due to the pandemic.

The US boys will also play Romania in the Junior Davis Cup final. In today's semifinals, they defeated Japan 2-0, with Keaton Hance beating Hyu Kawanishi 6-2, 6-2 at No. 2 singles and Jack Kennedy defeating Ryo Tabata 7-6(11), 6-4 at No. 1 singles.

Romania has never played in a JDC final; the US boys have now made four finals since last winning the title in 2014.

Links to live streaming and live scoring can be found here.

Seventeen-year-old Benjamin Willwerth didn't stop at winning his first match in his first USTA Pro Circuit event this week at the $15,000 tournament in Boca Raton Florida. After taking out former Florida All-American and No. 6 seed Axel Nefve in the second round, Willwerth defeated top seed Peter Bertran(Georgia, South Florida) of the Dominican Republic 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 in today's quarterfinals. Willwerth will now face No. 4 seed Stefan Dostanic(USC, Wake Forest) in the semifinals. The other semifinal will feature No. 3 seed Will Grant(Florida) against qualifier Ilgiz Valiev of Russia.

Three of the participants in next week's NCAA singles championships have advanced to the semifinals of this week's $25,000 men's USTA Pro Circuit event in Columbus Ohio, with the fourth also a current collegian who did not make the NCAA field.

That would be Oklahoma State sophomore Derek Pham of Australia, the No. 7 seed, who defeated wild card Bryce Nakashima, a sophomore at Ohio State, 6-2, 6-2 in today's quarterfinals. Pham will face Michigan State sophomore
Aristotelis Thanos, the No. 3 seed, who beat No. 8 seed Jack Anthrop of Ohio State by the same score.

The Buckeyes do have a representative in the semifinals in No. 5 seed Aidan Kim, who defeated teammate Will Jansen 7-5, 6-4. Kim will play No. 2 seed Samir Banerjee, a junior at Stanford. Banerjee beat former Virginia star Jeffrey von der Schulenburg of Switzerland 6-3, 6-2.

The last of the seeds at the women's W50 in Austin Texas went out in today's quarterfinals, with two recent college graduates advancing to the semifinals.  Former Michigan All-American Kari Miller, a wild card who reached the quarterfinals at the WTA 125 in Midland last week, defeated Jaimee Fourlis of Australia 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-4 to set up a meeting with Whitney Osuigwe. Osuigwe defeated No. 8 seed Carol Zhao of Canada 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.

Wild card Malaika Rapolu, the former Texas standout, defeated qualifier Rinon Okuwaki of Japan 6-1, 6-3 and will face Haruka Kaji of Japan, who beat No. 8 seed Sophie Chang 6-1, 6-1.

At the women's W15 in Clemson, top seed Sara Daavettila(North Carolina) ended the run of 14-year-old qualifier Kristina Liutova, posting a 6-3, 6-4 quarterfinal victory. Daavettila will play unseeded NC State sophomore Kristina Paskauskas of Great Britain, who beat teammate Gabriella Broadfoot of South Africa 7-5, 6-7(4), 7-6(5) in three hours and 10 minutes. 

In the bottom half semifinal, qualifier Emma Charney, a junior at Southern Cal, will face former North Carolina star Makenna Jones. Charney defeated NC State freshman Gabia Paskauskas of Great Britain 6-2, 6-2, while Jones came back to beat Georgia junior Sofia Rojas 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.

There are several story lines at the ATP Challenger 75 in Champaign Illinois, but as is usually the case at this final Challenger of the season on the USTA Pro Circuit, the Australian Open wild card overshadows them all.

2023 NCAA champion Ethan Quinn(Georgia) reached his first Challenger semifinal since February today, beating qualifier Micah Braswell 6-2, 6-3, while wild card Kenta Miyoshi of Japan, a junior at Illinois, is into his first Challenger semifinal with a 7-6(3), 6-2 win over Great Britain's Jack Pinnington Jones(TCU). They will play in the first semifinal of the day, with a 3 p.m. Eastern start.

But the stakes are higher in the second semifinal, between No. 5 seed Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) and Eliot Spizzirri(Texas), with Basavareddy able to clinch the USTA's reciprocal Australian Open wild card with a victory over Spizzirri. Spizzirri defeated No. 6 seed Patrick Kypson 6-4, 6-3 to set up a third meeting this fall with Basavareddy. Basavareddy, who avenged his recent loss to Govind Nanda(UCLA) tonight with a 6-2, 6-4 victory, beat Spizzirri 6-1, 6-1 in the Tiburon Challenger final and 6-4, 6-3 in the first round at the Charlottesville Challenger two weeks ago. 

If Basavareddy does not make the final, the wild card will go to Knoxville Challenger champion Christopher Eubanks(Georgia Tech), who lost to Nanda in the second round last night, but retains his lead for now.