USA's Davis Cup Team Begins Quest for 2025 Title Friday in Taiwan; Zaar Upsets Top Seed at Rome W75; Arizona Senior Smith Reaches Fourth Challenger Quarterfinal in Cleveland

The United States Davis Cup team is back in action after losing to Australia in the quarterfinals back in November, taking on Taiwan in Taipei City Friday (tonight in the United States).  

Alex Michelsen and Marcos Giron(UCLA) will play singles for the United States, against Tung-Lin(Tony) Wu and Chun Hsin(Jason) Tseng respectively. Both Michelsen and Giron are making their Davis Cup debuts for captain Bob Bryan. Rajeev Ram(Illinois) and Austin Krajicek(Texas A&M) are the doubles team, and they will play, with the format back to doubles being sandwiched between two singles matches. Last year, just three matches were played, two singles and and then doubles if the singles had split. Mackie McDonald is also on the team.

Mike Bryan and Mark Bey are serving as assistants to Bob Bryan, with ITF No. 4 junior Jagger Leach helping out as a hitting partner after reaching the semifinals in singles and doubles at the Australian Open Junior Championships.

For comments from Michelsen and Bob Bryan, see this article from usta.com.

The quarterfinals are set at the W75 in Rome Georgia, with three qualifiers advancing, but not the top seed. In today's second round, recent Pepperdine graduate Lisa Zaar of Sweden took out last week's W75 Vero Beach champion Solana Sierra of Argentina 0-6, 6-4, 6-2 to advance to her first ITF women's WTT quarterfinal above the W35 level. It's the best win by ranking for the 24-year-old, with Sierra at 166, while Zaar is at 569. She will face fellow qualifier Cadence Brace of Canada, a freshman at LSU, who advanced when Carol Zhao(Stanford) of Canada retired trailing 6-1, 2-0.

Qualifier Victoria Mboko of Canada, who beat No. 4 seed Iva Jovic 7-6(3), 6-4 Wednesday, defeated fellow 18-year-old Akasha Urhobo 6-2, 6-1. She will play yet another Canadian, LSU freshman Kayla Cross, in the quarterfinals, after Cross defeated No. 6 seed Irene Burillo Escorihuela of Spain 6-3, 7-5.

The bottom half features no qualifiers and no Canadians, with the only two seeds in the quarterfinals playing each other. No. 5 seed Hanna Chang will play No. 2 seed Emiliana Arango of Colombia. The only American remaining, Whitney Osuigwe, who coming off an appearance in the final last week in Vero Beach, will face her doubles partner, Eva Vedder of the Netherlands, in the quarterfinals.

The only two Americans remaining at the men's USTA Pro Circuit $15K in Palm Coast Florida, No. 2 seed Garrett Johns(Duke) and Miles Jones, will play in the quarterfinals. Top seed Tommaso Compagnucci of Italy lost to qualifier Aleksa Ciric(Georgia Gwinnett) of Serbia 6-0, 3-6, 6-4. Jack Satterfield picked up his first ATP point with a 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-3 win yesterday over wild card Alexis Gurmendi (Georgia Gwinnett) of Argentina, but he lost 6-1, 6-4 today to Sasa Markovic of Serbia, a freshman at LSU.

The quarterfinals at the ATP Challenger 75 in Cleveland will feature seven college players with college ties, with only Stefan Kozlov not connected to the collegiate game.

Arizona State's Murphy Cassone, who just turned pro, will play Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State), who won his first Challenger match on Monday. The other quarterfinal in the top half will feature No. 4 seed James Trotter(Ohio State) of Japan against No. 5 seed Eliot Spizzirri(Texas). 

In the bottom half, No. 7 seed Karue Sell(UCLA) of Brazil will play Arizona senior Colton Smith. Sell, 31, who will be playing his seventh Challenger quarterfinal, defeated Cannon Kingsley(Ohio State) 6-4, 6-4 in the second round today. Smith, 21, who will be playing his fourth Challenger quarterfinal, beat Stefan Dostanic(USC, Wake Forest) 6-4, 6-4. The match was far from routine however, with Smith leading 5-0 in the second set, failing to convert his one match point serving at 5-1, getting broken serving for it again at 5-3, but breaking Dostanic to escape.

Kozlov, who beat wild card Kaylan Bigun(UCLA) 6-2, 6-3 today, will face the winner of tonight's match between Kentucky freshman Antoin Ghibaudo of France and No. 8 seed JJ Wolf(Ohio State) in Friday's quarterfinals.