December Aces; Four Top Seeds Advance to USTA Winter Nationals Finals Friday; NCAA Champion Quinn Reaches Canberra Challenger Semifinals; Montgomery Makes First WTA Semifinal

If you took a break from tennis last month, today's Aces column at the Tennis Recruiting Network is your chance to catch up quickly on everything that happened at the three major junior events in Florida in December, as well as several other notable accomplishments by juniors and current and former college players.

Four players, one in each age division, earned the Florida Sunshine double, winning both the Bradenton events and either the Orange Bowl or Junior Orange Bowl.

The first gold balls of 2025 were claimed today in San Antonio, with the doubles championships decided in the 12s and 14s divisions of the USTA Winter National Championships. The singles finals, which take place Friday, will feature three No. 1 seeds, with the girls 12s the only division that doesn't have its top seed in the final. Three players, Lucy Dupere in girls 12s, Michelle Lee in girls 14s and David Bender in boys 12s, all will be going for sweeps on Friday after winning doubles titles today.

G12s results:

Singles semifinals:
Jacqueline Nick[7] d. Gabrielle Villegas[3] 6-2, 6-1
Lucy Dupere[4] d. Amara Ama[8] 6-1, 6-1

Doubles final:
Lucy Dupere and Christina Li[1] d. Violetta Mamina and Brielle Amey[3] 4-6, 6-1, 6-3

B12s results:

Singles semifinals:

David Bender[1] d. Selwyn Olufemi-Owoeye[8] 6-3, 6-1

Max D. Smith[5] d. Wyatt Markham[14] 6-3, 7-5

Doubles final:

David Bender and Gabriel Marino[3] d. Krish Advani and Selwyn Olufemi-Owoeye[7] 7-6(9), 6-1

G14s results:

Singles semifinals:

Michelle Lee[1] d. Adelyn Gross[3] 6-3, 6-1

London Evans[10] d. Gabrielle Brereton 6-0, 6-0

Doubles final:

Anna Scott Laney and  Michelle Lee[4] d. Emma Alvarado Reed and Aria Menon[2] 6-3, 6-3

B14s results:

Singles semifinals:

Eli Kaminski[1] d. Tristan Ascenzo[15] 6-0 5-7, 6-3

Aayush Vartak[3] d. Zander Abrams[10] 7-5, 6-3

Doubles final:

Rafael Pawar and Zesen Wang[2] d. Kona Parseghian and Mayurchandra Bharath 4-6, 6-2, 7-5

Doubles finalists are still being decided at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona, but the 16s and 18s divisions in the Winter Nationals have their championship matches determined in singles. Streaming is available at Playsight, with the girls finals at 9 a.m. and the boys finals scheduled for 10 a.m.

G18s semifinal results:

Chukwumelije Clarke d. Avery Nguyen[17] 6-4, 6-4

Carrie-Anne Hoo[3] d. Catherine Rennard 6-3, 6-4

B18s semifinal results:

Arin Pallegar[17] d. Benjamin Saltman[11] 6-4, 6-3

Shaan Patel[17] d. Gray Kelley 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-1

G16s semifinal results:

Paige Wygodzki[3] d. Baotong Xu[14] 7-5, 6-0

Anjani Vickneswaran[10] d. Anna Bugaienko[5] 6-4, 6-3

B16s semifinal results:

Safir Azam[1] d. Ilias Bouzoubaa[12] 6-2, 6-4

Magnus Weng[7] d. Teodor Davidov[17] 6-1, 4-6, 6-3

The ATP Challenger 125 in Canberra Australia this week featured  one of the strongest fields of the year, but only one seed, No. 6 Jake Fearnley(TCU) of Great Britain advanced to the quarterfinals. Although Fearnley is 23, he is just seven months removed from college tennis; the other semifinalists are even younger.  Ethan Quinn, the 20-year-old who won the NCAA singles title as a freshman at Georgia in 2023, qualified for the main draw, and has won five matches. Quinn, who finished last year by winning his first Challenger title in Champaign, takes on 18-year-old Martin Landaluce of Spain, the 2022 US Open boys champion, in the semifinals.

Fearnley's opponent is Next Gen champion and 2023 US Open boys finalist Joao Fonseca of Brazil, who is picking up right where he left off after going undefeated in Jeddah last month. 

The matches are available for streaming at Challenger TV.

A third US Open junior champion has advanced to the semifinals this week, with 2021 US Open girls singles and doubles champion Robin Montgomery reaching her first WTA semifinal at the 250 in Auckland New Zealand Friday. The 20-year-old from Washington DC defeated Bernarda Pera of the United States 6-4, 6-4, hitting 13 aces and making very few unforced errors. Montgomery and Pera are just two of the six US women who made the quarterfinals. with the others Madison Keys[1], Katie Volynets[8], Alycia Parks and Hailey Baptiste. Volynets and Parks play in the quarterfinals later tonight (Friday in New Zealand), Keys takes on No. 5 seed Clara Tauson of Denmark, with the winner playing Montgomery; Baptiste is playing No. 7 seed Naomi Osaka of Japan in the quarterfinals.