Rain Disrupts USTA's USO Collegiate Wild Card Playoffs on Doubles Day; Qualifying Complete at This Week's Four USTA Pro Circuit Tournaments; US Open's New Downsized Mixed Doubles Event Draws Top Players; Another D-I Tennis Program Axed
The USTA's US Open American Collegiate Wild Card Playoffs were to focus on doubles this evening in Lake Nona, but rain rolled in shortly after the start of the first two matches at 5:00 p.m.
Columbia's Nicolas Kotzen and Michael Zheng, who is playing in the singles final Wednesday and probably isn't helped by this rain delay, had played two games in their match with Stanford's Nicholas Godsick and Hudson Rivera, with Duke's Cooper Wiliams and Theo Winegar playing SMU's Trevor Svajda and Louis Cloud in the late match, which had not begun.
Check the USTA's tournament website for results and for Wednesday's times. Cracked Racquets will be covering Wednesday's finals, with the main draw US Open wild cards on the line, at the their YouTube channel.
Rain also delayed the completion of qualifying at the USTA Pro Circuit's W35 in Wichita Kansas and the M25 in Tulsa Oklahoma, but those matches did finish this evening.
In Wichita, 17-year-olds Sydney Jara and Ava Rodriguez advanced to the main draw, with Jara, the No. 16 seed in qualifying defeating Maria Kononova(North Texas) of Russia 3-6, 6-0, 10-8 in the final round and the unseeded Rodriguez beating Maria Berlanga Bandera(Tulsa) of Spain 6-1, 7-5. Rodriguez will face lucky loser Kononova in the first round, with Jara taking on Liv Hovde(Duke).
Texas A&M rising junior Daria Smetannikov, Jenna Dean and Kylie Collins(Texas, LSU, Oklahoma State) are the other Americans to qualify. Ohio State rising junior Teah Chavez of Canada qualified, as did Oklahoma rising senior Julia Garcia of Mexico and Alina Shcherbinina(Baylor, Oklahoma) of Russia.
Ana Sofia Sanchez of Mexico is the top seed in Wichita, with wild cards going to Wichita State's rising senior Kristina Kudryavtseva of Russia, rising UNC junior Thea Rabman and Hibah Shaikh(Virginia). Katie Rolls, an incoming freshman at Virginia, received a junior exempt spot and will play No. 6 seed Robin Anderson(UCLA) in the first round. Last week's champion at the W35 in Decatur Illinois, Fiona Crawley(UNC), is unseeded this week, facing Dalayna Hewitt in the first round.
In Tulsa, American qualifiers are Marko Mesarovic(Clemson), Boris Kozlov(LSU, Tennessee), Nathan Chavez, Bjorn Swenson(Michigan), Jonah Braswell(Florida, Texas), along with lucky loser Dylan Long.
Wild cards were awarded to Ian Bracks(Oklahoma State), Billy Suarez(Tulane), Pranav Kumar(Texas A&M, SMU) and Liam Krall(SMU). TCU rising sophomore Cooper Woestendick received a junior exempt spot in the main draw, losing tonight to top seed Aidan Mayo 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Patrick Maloney(Michigan) is the No. 2 seed.
This week marks the exact middle of the SoCal Pro Series, with three tournaments completed and three more to come after this week's $15,000 men's and women's events in Rancho Santa Fe.
Americans qualifying into the women's main draw are 14-year-old Anya Arora, Jo-Yee Chan(San Diego State), 17-year-old Avery Nguyen, Midori Castillo Meza(Arizona) and Caroline Driscoll(Denver, Stanford).
Haley Giavara(Cal) and Eryn Cayetano(USC) are the top two seeds.
Wild cards were given to Lani Chang, 16s Easter Bowl champion Armira Kockinis, Isabella Foshee(Eastern Washington). Thea Frodin and Olivia Carneiro of Brazil received ITF Junior Reserved places in the main draw. Frodin defeated No. 6 seed Sabastiana Leon of Mexico 6-3, 6-4 in the first round today, while Kockinis lost to No. 8 seed Anita Sahdiieva(Baylor, LSU) of Ukraine 3-6, 6-4, 6-0. Carneiro lost to No. 4 seed and ITF J300 Indian Wells finalist Alexis Nguyen 6-0, 6-2.
Americans qualifying for the men's main draw are Theo Dean(Yale, Cal), Spencer Johnson(UCLA), Dominique Rolland(Arizona, UC-Santa Barbara), Kyle Overmyer and Karl Lee(UCLA, USC). Evan Burnett(Texas) received entry as a lucky loser. Roshah Santhosh is the junior reserved entry for the men.
Wild cards were awarded to Ethan Schiffman(Cal, Northwestern), Noah Zamora(UC-Irvine), William Kleege and Dylan Martin. Andre Ilagan(Hawaii) is the top seed, with Australian Moerani Bouzige the No. 2 seed.
The USTA announced the first entries for the new US Open mixed doubles event, which will feature only 16 teams and will played in a Fast 4 format during qualifying week. Nine of the top 10 women and nine of the top 10 men have entered; whether or not they will all play in the tournament, now two months away, remains to be seen, and only the eight teams with the best combined singles rankings will receive entry anyway, with the other eight spots in the draw filled by wild cards.
For the star-studded list of teams entered, see this article from the US Open website.
Another Division I tennis program was cut today, with Louisiana-Monroe announcing the end of their women's tennis program. They do not have a men's team. Looking at their website, that leaves them at 14 sports, two less than the 16 required by the NCAA for Division I schools, but often track and field, listed for both men and women, are considered separate sports for the indoor and outdoor seasons.
1 comments:
It appears the USTA has downgraded the Mixed Doubles at the US Open to an “Exhibition “.
The new format for Mixed Doubles will decrease the draw and have highly ranked single players “participating” so the crowd can see the top single players in the world play an “exhibition “ for doubles. The current players playing in mixed doubles give it their all for the game, money, and title. The new format will lower the event to nothing more than a “tennis exhibition” if the USTA keeps going, All Doubles Events will fall in the same category. Sad day in Tennisville.
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