Knight and Selvaraasan Secure Wimbledon Junior Wild Cards with LTA 16s Titles; Texas Upsets Top-Ranked Georgia Women; Urhobo Reaches Singles Semis, Doubles Final at Boca Raton W35; Nava and Spizzirri Advance to Semifinal Meeting at Sarasota Challenger

The LTA 16s Nationals concluded today at the National Tennis Centre with 14-year-olds Megan Knight and Aran Selvaraasan earning the titles and with them comes a wild card into the main draw of the Wimbledon Junior Championships in July.  

Knight, who had previously won the 12s and 14s titles, beat fellow 14-year-old Daniella Britton 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 in the girls final, while Selvaraasan, a qualifier, defeated 16-year-old Vincent Fletcher, the No. 8 seed, 7-6(2), 2-6, 6-2. 

Britton and Fletcher will receive wild cards into the qualifying of the Wimbledon Junior Championships.

The 18s Nationals are next week, with those champions receiving men's and women's qualifying wild cards at Wimbledon, as well as main draw wild cards for the Wimbledon junior championships. 

For more on today's 16s finals, see this LTA article. Complete draws can be found here.

The 14th-ranked Texas women have been looking for a big win in their first year in the SEC and they finally got it on the last weekend of regular season conference play, defeating No. 1 Georgia 4-2. The Longhorns took the doubles point and straight-sets wins at lines 4 and 5. Georgia's top two gave the Bulldogs their two points, with Dasha Vidmanova and Anastasiia Lopata earning straight-sets wins, but Texas freshman Ashton Bowers closed out the victory, beating Mell Reasco 7-6(6), 6-3 at line 3. 

This loss means that the winner of Sunday's match between Georgia and No. 2 Texas A&M, who beat South Carolina 4-0 today, will win the regular season SEC title outright, as both teams now have one loss in conference play. 

For the box score and recap see georgiadogs.com.

Eighteen-year-old Akasha Urhobo has been rolling through her matches this week at the women's USTA Pro Circuit W35 in Boca Raton, and today's win was her most impressive yet. Urhobo, a finalist at this tournament last year, defeated Diletta Cherubini of Italy, who had taken out the top seed in the first round, 6-1, 6-0 to return to the semifinals.

Urhobo will play No. 3 seed Iryna Shymanovich of Belarus, who defeated qualifier Jada Robinson 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. In the bottom half semifinal, qualifier Jamie Loeb(UNC) makes her first Pro Circuit semifinal since last April by beating Mexico's Maria Portillo Ramirez 6-1, 6-2. She will play No. 2 seed Whitney Osuigwe, who defeated No. 6 seed Mei Yamaguchi of Japan 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.

Urhobo and Rasheeda McAdoo(Georgia Tech) have advanced to the doubles final with two wins today. The No. 4 seeds will play No. 3 seeds Tori Osuigwe and Alana Smith(NC State) for the title Saturday.

At the ATP Challenger 75 in Sarasota, Eliot Spizzirri(Texas) and Emilio Nava have advanced to a semifinal contest Saturday with close two-set wins today.  Spizzirri, the top seed, defeated lucky loser Geoffrey Blancaneaux of France 6-4, 6-4, coming from 4-1 down in the second set. The fifth-seeded Nava, who has now won 13 straight Challenger matches after claiming back-to-back titles in South America last month, defeating No. 4 seed Tomas Barrios Vera of Chile 7-5, 7-6(3).  

In the other semifinal, No. 7 seed Liam Draxl(Kentucky) of Canada will face No. 2 seed Federico Agustin Gomez(Louisville) of Argentina, after Draxl defeated Andres Andrade(Florida) of Ecuador 7-5, 7-6(4) and Gomez beat Filip Jianu of Romania 6-4, 6-0.