Orange Bowl 16s Gallery; Saffar Claims First ITF Singles Title at J60 in Mexico; ITF J500 Cairo Begins Monday; Kuzuhara Wins Sunrise $15K; King and Harrison Capture Dallas Doubles Title; ATP 250 Delray Beach Qualifying Complete

With the semifinalists at the ITA Women's Team Indoor Championships getting the day off today, I'll take a day off from college tennis results to catch up on several junior and pro events.

My gallery of the round of 16 singles players in both the boys and girls Orange Bowl 16s Championships back in December is up today at the Tennis Recruiting Network. The backdrops and the light in south Florida that time of year produce some stunning photos, thanks to my photographer Paul Ballard, who works tirelessly that week to photograph hundreds of players for the Zootennis library. 

One of the players in that gallery, Yael Saffar, won her first ITF Junior Circuit singles title this past week at the J60 in Mexico. The 16-year-old from Plantation Florida, the home of the Orange Bowl, didn't drop a set in her five victories. The No. 6 seed, Saffar defeated No. 16 seed Carla Guerrero Calvo of Spain 6-4, 6-1 in the final. No. 2 seeds Shaya Jovanovic and Reagan Levine lost in the doubles final to top seeds Zoe Levresse Zavala and Natalia Varela Herrera of Mexico 6-4, 6-2.

The only other title last week for an American junior came in Australia, with Noble Renfrow taking the boys doubles title at the J100 in Launceston. Renfrow and his Australian partner Luca Connaughton, seeded No. 5, defeated No. 4 seeds Nikolas Baker and Cooper Kose of Australia 6-1, 6-0 in the final. 

The first ITF J500 of the year begins Monday in Cairo Egypt, with just one American entered: Maya Iyengar.  Iyengar, who was the top seed at the J300 this week in Cairo, lost in the quarterfinals; No. 4 seed Neus Torner Sensano of Spain won the title, beating unseeded Antonia Stoyanov of the Netherlands 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(2) in the final. Torner Sensano is the No. 7 seed in the J500, with Iyengar seeded No. 3. Jana Kovackova of the Czech Republic and Luna Vujovic are the top two seeds; they did not play the warmup event.

The top seed in the boys draw is Alan Wazny of Poland, who won the J300 warmup event. Ognjen Milic of Serbia, who did not play the warmup tournament, is the No. 2 seed.

The qualifying draws for J500s are generally quite strong, or at least full with local players, but that wasn't the case for this one, with just 36 boys entered in a 64-player qualifying draw and only 13 girls. Only three of those girls, all from Egypt, had to win a qualifying match to reach the main draw. The other five were directly into the main draw just for signing into qualifying.

Twenty-year-old Bruno Kuzuhara won his fourth ITF men's World Tennis Tour singles title and his first since 2023 today at the $15,000 tournament in Sunrise Florida. The unseeded Floridian, a former ITF Junior No. 1, ended the winning streak of No. 8 seed Garrett Johns(Duke), who had won the $15K last week in Palm Coast. Kuzuhara had a come-from-behind three-set win in the second round over No. 6 seed Juan Carlos Aguilar(Texas A&M, TCU), but was impressively efficient after that, beating No. 4 seed Ernesto Escobedo of Mexico and No. 5 seed Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State) in straight sets before closing out Johns 6-1, 6-2 in just over an hour.

The ATP 500 Dallas Open concluded today with unseeded Denis Shapovalov of Canada winning the biggest title of his career with a 7-6(5), 6-3 win over No. 2 seed Casper Ruud of Norway. Shapovalov, who has struggled to find his ATP Top 10 form after returning from a 2023 injury layoff, beating three Top 10 players this week in Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul and Ruud. 

The doubles title in Dallas went to Evan King(Michigan) and Christian Harrison, who had to qualify just to get into the tournament. The 32-year-old King and the 30-year-old Harrison didn't drop a set however, in a strong field, beating unseeded Ariel Behar of Uruguay and Robert Galloway(Wofford) 7-6(4), 7-6(4) in the final. It's the first title for both King and Harrison, who were playing as a team for the second time. For more on the final, see this article from the ATP website.

2024 spring NCAA doubles champions Robert Cash and JJ Tracy(Ohio State) received a wild card and beat No. 4 seeds and Olympic silver medalists Austin Krajicek(Texas A&M) and Rajeev Ram(Illinois) 6-3, 3-6, 10-5 in the quarterfinals before falling to Behar and Galloway.

Delray Beach Florida ATP 250

With Dallas complete, the ATP Tour in the United States heads to the 250 in Delray Beach, Florida. Many of the same players are in the field, although Tommy Paul withdrew.  Taylor Fritz is the top seed and is defending champion; with Paul out, there is no No. 2 seed; Marcos Giron, the No. 5 seed, will take his place at the bottom of the draw. Alex Michelsen is the No. 3 seed.

Wild cards were awarded to Learner Tien, who will be playing for the first time since reaching the fourth round at the Australian Open last month, Mackenzie McDonald and Reilly Opelka. 

Three Americans qualified: Tristan Boyer(Stanford), Michael Mmoh and Zachary Svajda. Ethan Quinn(Georgia), who lost to Svajda 7-6(1), 6-3 today, got Paul's spot in the main draw as the lucky loser. James Trotter(Ohio State) of Japan is the fourth qualifier.