USA Sweeps Billie Jean King, Junior Davis Cup Titles; Basavareddy Wins Australian Open Wild Card; Fritz Reaches ATP Final; NCAA Draws Posted; Wild Cards Reach W50 Final in Austin

2024 Junior BJK Cup and Junior Davis Cup Champions
left to right: Ciara Frame, Georgi Rumenov, Kristina Penickova
Tyra Grant, Julieta Pareja, Jack Kennedy, Jack Secord, Keaton Hance, Jose Caballero (photo courtesy USTA)

So much news today in American tennis, so let's get to it, with the lead story the Junior Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup titles for the USA teams in Turkey.

The US boys claimed their first title since 2014, beating Romania 2-0. Keaton Hance earned the first point, at No. 2 singles, with a 6-2, 6-7(5), 6-0 win over Alejandro Mateo Berg Nourescu, giving Jack Kennedy the opportunity to close out the match at No. 1 singles. Kennedy, the Kalamazoo 18s finalist, didn't drop a set in any of his five matches leading up to the final, and he continued that dominance against Yannick Theodor Alexandrescou, taking a 6-3, 6-2 victory after trailing 2-0 in the second set.  The US boys didn't play a single doubles match that mattered, going 12-0 in singles matches; the only point they lost was in a dead doubles match in the round robin group.

The boys finished in time to cheer on the girls, who were in the unprecedented position of being behind on the scoreboard this week when Julieta Pareja lost to Romania's Giulia Popa 7-5, 6-4 at No. 2. singles. But Tyra Grant quickly put the US back in control, beating Maia Bercescu 6-2, 6-1 and with the three-time junior slam doubles champion on tap for the deciding doubles, the drama was minimal. Pareja and Grant blitzed through the first set 6-1, only to have Burcescu and Popa jump out to a 2-0 lead in the second set. But the US girls tied it at 2, had a deciding point/match point with Burcescu serving at 4-5 and broke Popa at 5-6 for the clinch. At 30-all Grant poached to set up their first match point and Pareja's backhand winner gave the US girls their third straight Junior Billie Jean King Cup title.

The US girls have dominated the 16U competition, with their last loss coming in 2016, in the final, to an Iga Swiatek-led Polish team. They won in 2017, 2018 and 2019, but could not participate in 2021 as the USTA opted not to enter the competition due to Covid. 

Grant joins Iva Jovic and Connie Ma as players who have won consecutive Junior Billie Jean King Cup titles, but Grant is the only one of those three who played in the final in their first year on the team. 

This is the first time since 2014 that both the boys and girls have won in the same year. The boys team that year consisted of Michael Mmoh, Will Blumberg and Gianni Ross; the girls team was Tornado Black, CiCi Bellis and Sofia Kenin. 

The Czech girls finished third, beating Germany 2-0; the boys bronze medal was shared by Japan and Germany, who were tied at 1-1 after two long singles battles when the anticipated rain arrived. 

You can watch a replay of the both finals at the ITF YouTube Channel, the girls final is here, the boys final is here.

Nineteen-year-old Nishesh Basavareddy, who played two years at Stanford, will be competing in his first slam main draw in Melbourne after claiming the USTA's Australian Open reciprocal wild card with a semifinal victory today at the ATP Challenger 75 in Champaign. Basavareddy, seeded No. 5, rolled past unseeded Eliot Spizzirri(Texas) 6-1, 6-1, the exact same score as his win over Spizzirri in the Tiburon Challenger final in October. 

Basavareddy, who has yet to publicly announce his intention regarding returning to Stanford for his junior year, made the final in Charlottesville, the semifinals in Knoxville and now the final in Champaign in the past three weeks. For those of us who have known him since the 12s, the fact he has been able to stay healthy throughout this summer and fall, and particularly in these deep runs every week at the end of the season, is the most encouraging part of his success. He is now at a career-high 152 in the ATP live rankings.

Basavareddy will play 2023 NCAA champion Ethan Quinn(Georgia), who reached his first Challenger final since February with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over wild card Kenta Miyoshi of Japan, a University of Illinois junior. Quinn's run this week has put him in position to play qualifying at the Australian Open, with his current ATP live ranking at 226. Basavareddy has won all three of their meetings on the Challenger Tour this summer and fall.

The doubles title in Champaign was claimed by top seeds Evan King(Michigan) and Reese Stalder(TCU), who beat unseeded James Davis and James Mackinlay of Great Britain 7-6(3), 7-5 in the final today. It's their 11th Challenger title as a team.

Taylor Fritz defeated ATP No. 2 Alexander Zverev of Germany 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(3) today in the semifinals of the ATP World Finals and will play for the year-end championship against World No. 1 Jannik Sinner of Italy. Sinner, who defeated Fritz 6-4, 6-4 in group play earlier this week, defeated Casper Ruud of Denmark 6-1, 6-2 to reach the finals without the loss of a set. Fritz is the first American to reach the final of the ATP World Tour Finals since James Blake in 2006. For more on today's match, see this article from the ATP website.

The NCAA singles and doubles championships begin Tuesday in Waco, with Baylor hosting the first fall edition of the individual championships. The draws were released today (the seeds were announced on Monday and can be found here), with two women who originally qualified not in the draw: Texas's Ashton Bowers and Oklahoma State's Ange Oby Karjuru. With Karjuru the No. 6 seed, that led to some seeding changes, with Connie Ma of Stanford now No. 6, Julia Fliegner of Michigan now No. 7 and Sofia Johnson of Old Dominion moving up from the 9-16 seeding group to No. 8.  Sarah Hamner of South Carolina then moved up to the 9-16 seeding group. There have been no withdrawals from the men's field. 

Top seed Mary Stoiana of Texas A&M will face the only freshman in the women's field this year (CORRECTION: Valerie Glozman of Stanford, Irina Balus of Duke, Merna Refaat of Auburn and Ariana Pursoo of Texas are all freshmen) in the first round: UCLA's Kate Fakih (Fakih is the only freshman who qualified in the last weekend of tournaments). Men's top seed Sebastian Gorzny of Texas plays Gavin Young of Michigan to open his tournament. Young was No. 7 in the preseason rankings, while Gorzny was No. 30 before his run to the ITA All-American Championships final. 

The women's singles draw is here, the women's doubles draw is here. 

The men's singles draw is here, the men's doubles draw is here.

Two of the women who played in the NCAA singles draw in May, Michigan's Kari Miller and Texas's Malaika Rapolu, will play for the title Sunday at the USTA Pro Circuit W50 in Austin Texas after the two wild cards won three-setters in today's semifinals. Miller defeated unseeded Whitney Osuigwe in just under three hours 6-1, 4-6, 7-5, while Rapolu beat unseeded Haruka Kaji of Japan 2-6, 6-4, 6-0. Rapolu has never been to a pro circuit final above the W15 level; Miller won a W35 in September. 

The doubles title went to unseeded Diae El Jardi of Morocco and Thaisa Pedretti of Brazil, who beat top seeds Osuigwe and Alana Smith(NC State) 6-2, 4-6, 14-12 in today's final. 

Two of the men competing in the NCAA championships next week will face off in the final of the men's USTA Pro Circuit $25,000 tournament in Columbus Ohio. Ohio State sophomore Aidan Kim, the No. 8 seed in Waco, but seeded No. 5 this week on his home courts, defeated No. 2 seed Samir Banerjee(Stanford) 6-0, 4-6, 6-3; Greece's Aristotelis Thanos of Michigan State, unseeded in Waco but the No. 3 seed in Columbus this week, defeated No. 7 seed Derek Pham(Oklahoma State) of Australia 6-4, 7-5. 

Kim and Thanos are in opposite halves of the draw; Banerjee and Kim are in separate quarters. 

The Buckeyes have already picked up one title in Columbus, with Jack Anthrop and Bryce Nakashima winning the doubles championship. The No. 4 seeds defeated No. 3 seeds Adam Jones of Great Britain and Jake Van Emburgh(Oklahoma, Ohio State) 6-3, 6-2. Nakashima qualified for the NCAAs in doubles with Will Jansen. 

At the men's $15K in Boca Raton, No. 4 seed Stefan Dostanic(USC, Wake Forest) ended the run of 17-year-old Benjamin Willwerth, posting a 6-4, 6-4 win in the semifinals. Dostanic will face qualifier Ilgiz Valiev of Russia, who beat No. 3 seed Will Grant(Florida) 6-2, 6-3. 

Wild cards Jeremias Rocco and Santiago Villarruel of Argentina won the doubles title, beating top seeds Miles and Alex Jones 4-6, 7-5, 10-6 in today's final.

At the W15 in Clemson, top seed Sara Daavettila(North Carolina) will play qualifier Emma Charney, a junior at USC. Daavettila beat NC State sophomore Kristina Paskauskas 6-2, 7-5 in the semifinals, while Charney reached her first Pro Circuit final with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Makenna Jones(North Carolina). 

Jones and Daavettila won the doubles title, with the top seeds beating Central Florida teammates Olivia Bergler of Poland and Sofia Biolay of France, the No. 4 seeds, 6-0, 6-4 in the final.