Jovic and Townsend Qualify at Wimbledon; USD's Tarvet and Holmgren Reach Wimbledon Main Draw; ITF J300 Roehampton Qualifying Features Seven Americans; Wrapping Up 2024-25 D-I Season in an ITA Roundtable

Seventeen-year-old Iva Jovic and 29-year-old Taylor Townsend have reached the Wimbledon main draw with straight-sets wins today in Roehampton, while two men from the University of San Diego will compete at the All England club next week, and a recent Texas A&M Aggie and Virginia Cavalier will make their debuts at a major.

Jovic is now on an eight-match grass winning streak, with the WTA 125 Ilkley champion avoiding a third set for the first time today with a 6-3, 7-6(2) victory over Katarzyna Kawa of Poland. Jovic will play in her fourth consecutive major, after receiving a US Open wild card for winning the USTA girls 18s title in San Diego last year and then winning the USTA's wild card challenge for both this year's Australian Open and Roland Garros. This is obviously the first time she's made it through qualifying, and especially given her general unfamiliarity with the surface, that may actually help her in the main draw. She vowed to continue to wear her strawberry earrings and necklace, a gift from her mother, as she heads to the main draw; Jovic has won a round at each previous major.

Despite her game being perfectly suited to grass, Townsend will be competing in the main draw in singles for just the fifth time and this is the first time she's done so by coming though qualifying. 

Robin Montgomery, who made the main draw through qualifying last year, lost to Kaja Juvan of Slovenia today.

Of all 32 qualifiers, certainly Great Britain's Oliver Tarvet is the most unlikely. Earlier this month the University of San Diego rising senior was competing in the $15,000 SoCal Pro Series tournaments in San Diego, winning one, then retiring in the semifinals of the next one before heading home to compete in the Wimbledon qualifying as a wild card. He had played the 2021 Wimbledon Juniors as a wild card, losing in the first round, but his lack of experience or preparation on the surface wasn't evident at all this week. The ITA year-end No. 5, Tarvet defeated No. 14 seed Terence Atmane of France in the first round, former NC State star Alexis Galarneau of Canada in the second round and today, No. 29 seed Alexander Blockx of Belgium 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1, in a match interrupted by rain.

With the massive prize money on offer in the first round of majors, Tarvet obviously has a choice to make,  as quoted by BBC in this article:

"It's a little bit awkward because I've got to find a lot of expenses and I really want to come back to University of San Diego to complete my fourth year," Tarvet said.

"What they've done for me is just incredible and I'm so grateful. I want to spend my fourth year there and really leave my mark on US history.

"I can claim up to $10,000 so I might be flying my coach on a private jet at home."

August Holmgren of Denmark is the second USD player to reach the main draw and he did it in much more dramatic fashion. Holmgren, who graduated in 2022, so was not on the team with Tarvet, saved three match points in the fourth set tiebreaker of his 6-4, 6-7(2), 3-6, 7-6(11), 7-6(7) win over Yosuke Watanuki of Japan, which took just five minutes short of four hours to complete. The 2022 NCAA singles finalist will be making his main draw debut in a slam, after failing to get through in his first two attempts at qualifying this year.

Luxembourg's Chris Rodesch, who graduated from Virginia last year as a three-time All-American, lost in the first round of qualifying last month at Roland Garros, but he came through one of the toughest sections of the Wimbledon qualifying draw, beating top seed Marton Fuscovics of Hungary 6-3, 6-4, 0-6, 7-6(4) in the final round today. 

On the women's side, Carson Branstine, who helped Texas A&M to its first NCAA team title in May of 2024, had a path similar to that of Rodesch, but she beat the top seed, France's Lois Boisson, in the first round of qualifying, then had to battle back in today's third round against unseeded Raluka Serban of Cyprus for a 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-2 victory. Branstine, who was born in California but switched to represent Canada as a junior, will be making her main draw debut at a major.

Ben Rothenberg has a feature on Branstine, which captures the drama that always accompanies her on court, in his Substack newsletter Bounces.

Thursday's Wimbledon final round qualifying results of Americans:

Iva Jovic[3] d. Katarzyna Kawa[32](POL) 6-3, 7-6(2)
Kaja Juvan(SLO) d. Robin Montgomery[16] 6-3, 7-6(7)
Taylor Townsend[7] d. Celine Naef(SUI) 6-3, 6-3

The singles draws will come out early Friday morning.

The conclusion of the men and women's qualifying at Roehampton clears the way for the start of the qualifying for the ITF J300 there, the only warmup for the Wimbledon Junior Championships. 

Seven Americans--four boys and three girls--are in the qualifying. The boys are Jacob Olar, Gavin Goode[4], Matisse Farzam[7] and Lachlan Gaskell.  The girls are Capucine Jauffret[2], Ciara Harding and Ishika Ashar[5].  Leena Friedman, who was two out of the main draw at the freeze deadline, is not in qualifying, so I'm assuming she moved into the main draw.

Linus Lagerbohm of Finland is the top boys seed in qualifying, with Maaya Revathi of India the No. 1 girls qualifying seed.

Earlier this month I participated on a Zoom call organized by Intercollegiate Tennis Association CEO Dave Mullins and ITA Director of Communication Zach Pohlmann to discuss the 2024-2025 Division I season. The call featured reflections and opinions, not only on the past season but on the sport's future, with Parsa Nemati, Alex Gruskin and John Parsons contributing their vast knowledge about the landscape. I appreciated being included, and thoroughly enjoyed hearing the perspectives of Alex, Parsa and John. The video of the hour-long call is available on the ITA's YouTube channel.