Kotzen and Delgado Eye First USTA Pro Circuit Titles; Crawley, Holmgren and Draxl Reach Granby 75s Finals; Rodriguez Advances to First Pro Final; Bloomfield Hills ATP Challenger 100 Qualifying Begins Sunday

Current collegians will contest both USTA Pro Circuit finals Sunday, with three of the four finalists at the 75s in Canada are former Division I stars, just a few years removed from their college days.

At the USTA Pro Circuit M25 in Louisville Kentucky, Columbia rising senior Nicolas Kotzen and Vanderbilt redshirt sophomore Hoyoung Roh of Korea will face off for a first pro singles title after both claimed come-from-behind victories in today's semifinals.

The unseeded 22-year-old Kotzen defeated qualifier Vignesh Gogineni, a rising senior at Yale, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, while the 19-year-old Roh, a former ITF Top 10 junior, defeated unseeded Matthew Thomson(Wake Forest) by the same score.

Kotzen won his first pro title today, partnering with Wake Forest star DK Suresh of India for two doubles victories this afternoon after Kotzen's two-hour win in the singles semifinal. The unseeded Kotzen and Suresh defeated Ohio State's Jack Anthrop and Preston Stearns, the No. 4 seeds, 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals and unseeded Sekou Bangoura(Florida) and Benjamin Kittay(UNC, Michigan) by the same score in the final. Bangoura and Kittay had beaten top seeds Zachary Fuchs(BYU) and Wally Thayne(Utah, BYU) 7-5, 5-7, 10-4 in the semifinals.

At the USTA Pro Circuit M15 in Rochester New York, 20-year-old wild card Andrew Delgado, a Wake Forest red shirt sophomore, will take on defending champion Alexander Bernard, a rising senior at Ohio State, in search of his first pro singles title. Delgado, who had posted just three singles wins on the Pro Circuit the last two years, has four this week, including today's 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 win over unseeded Ryan Dickerson(Duke, Baylor). 

The fifth-seeded Bernard defeated No. 3 seed Blu Baker of Great Britain 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 to return to the final for the second straight year.

No. 3 seeds Dickerson and Joao Vitor Goncalves Ceolin of Brazil won the Rochester doubles title, beating unseeded Nathan Cox(Vanderbilt) and Cyrus Mahjoob(Georgia, Northwestern) 6-2, 7-6(2) in the final. 

At the W75 in Granby Canada, former North Carolina star Fiona Crawley is through to her first final at that level after she defeated Haley Giavara(Cal) in today's all-qualifier semifinal 6-4, 2-6, 6-4. Crawley, who won back-to-back W35s last month, will face top seed Talia Gibson of Australia, who defeated unseeded Cadence Brace(LSU) of Canada 7-6(4), 6-1.

Recent University of Georgia graduate Dasha Vidmanova of the Czech Republic, the NCAA spring 2024 doubles champion, won by far her biggest pro doubles title today, with partner Alexandra Vagramov(UCLA) of Canada, who had beaten Vidmanova in singles earlier in the week. The unseeded pair defeated another unseeded team, Japan's Saki Imamura and Australian Open girls champion Wakana Sonobe, 7-6(5), 6-3 in the final. It's the first pro doubles title for Vagramov and the fourth for Vidmanova.

The final of the ATP Challenger 75 in Granby will feature two of the sport's most in-form players, with August Holmgren(San Diego) of Denmark facing Liam Draxl(Kentucky) of Canada for the title Sunday. No. 6 seed Holmgren, who qualified and reached the third round at Wimbledon, beat top seed Eliot Spizzirri(Texas) 6-4, 6-1, while the third-seeded Draxl, who won the Challenger 75 last week in Winnipeg, beat No. 2 seed and 2023 Australian Open boys champion Alexander Blockx of Belgium 6-4, 7-6(5), in a repeat of the Winnipeg final. 

Top seeds Finn Reynolds(Ole Miss) and James Watt(St. Mary's) of New Zealand claimed the doubles title in Granby, defeating No. 4 seeds Kody Pearson of Australia and Yuta Shimizu of Japan 6-3, 6-4 in the final. It's the third Challenger 75 title of the year for Reynolds and Watt, who are inching their way toward the ATP Top 100 in doubles.

At this week's W15 in Mexico, 17-year-old Ava Rodriguez, who has committed to Georgia for 2026, reached her first ITF women's World Tennis Tour final by beating 16-year-old qualifier Anna Kartseva of Russia 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 today. Given her opportunity to compete in the main draw by virtue of the ITF's Top 100 junior reserved program, Rodriguez will play top seed Dalayna Hewitt in Sunday's final. 

I'll be making a quick trip to the ATP Challenger 100 in Bloomfield Hills Michigan Monday, now that the dates no longer conflict with my annual Wimbledon trip. After its first two years at the 75 level, the tournament has upgraded to a 100, and I'm eager to see what's been improved, after hearing only good things about it the past two years.

Sunday's  first round qualifying matches are below.

ORDER OF PLAY - SUNDAY, 20 JULY 2025

Center Court - start 10:00
[1] Andres Andrade (ECU) vs Jason Jung (TPE)
[4] Patrick Maloney (USA) vs [Alt] Joshua Sheehy (USA)
[WC] William Cooksey (USA) vs [9] Andre Ilagan (USA)
[WC] Spencer Johnson (USA) vs [10] Hyeon Chung (KOR)

Court 2 - start 10:00
[5] Naoki Nakagawa (JPN) vs [WC] Kaylan Bigun (USA)
Kris Van Wyk (RSA) vs [8] [Alt] Arthur Fery (GBR)
[2] Tung-Lin Wu (TPE) vs Stefan Dostanic (USA)
[6] Garrett Johns (USA) vs Yusuke Takahashi (JPN)

Court 3 - start 10:00
Tsung-Hao Huang (TPE) vs [11] Hiroki Moriya (JPN)
Ryuki Matsuda (JPN) vs [7] Christian Langmo (USA)
[3] Aidan Mayo (USA) vs [WC] Reese Stalder (USA)
[Alt] Aidan Kim (USA) vs [12] Masamichi Imamura (JPN)

Main Draw:

[1] Nishesh Basavareddy (USA) vs Yu Hsiou Hsu (TPE)
Alibek Kachmazov vs Qualifier
Qualifier vs Qualifier
[WC] Nicolas Ian Kotzen (USA) vs [7] Li Tu (AUS)
[3] Alexander Blockx (BEL) vs Qualifier
Alex Bolt (AUS) vs Qualifier
Mark Lajal (EST) vs Omar Jasika (AUS)
Qualifier vs [6] August Holmgren (DEN)

[5] Eliot Spizzirri (USA) vs [NG] Rei Sakamoto (JPN)
Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez (MEX) vs [WC] Michael Zheng (USA)
[NG] Yi Zhou (CHN) vs Sho Shimabukuro (JPN)
Yasutaka Uchiyama (JPN) vs [4] Christopher Eubanks (USA)
[8] Hady Habib (LBN) vs [WC] Andres Martin (USA)
[Alt] Nicolas Mejia (COL) vs Yuta Shimizu (JPN)
Patrick Kypson (USA) vs Alexis Galarneau (CAN)
Rio Noguchi (JPN) vs [2] Shintaro Mochizuki (JPN)