My Coverage of Wimbledon 14U Tournament; Spizzirri and Martin to Meet in Bloomfield Hills Challenger Semifinals; Current, Former NCAA Champs to Clash at W100 in Evansville; Friend and Kajuru Claim Doubles Gold at World University Games

How much bandwith I have to devote to the Wimbledon U14 tournament depends a lot on the weather, the scheduling and how the older Americans are doing in the Wimbledon Junior Championships. I did manage to watch all three of the Americans and most of the boys final this year, but was unable to catch the dramatic girls final, with it encroaching on the boys final.

But I did get an opportunity to talk with boys champion Moritz Freitag of Austria and with Texan Tristan Ascenzo for this article, posted today at Tennis Recruiting Network. The opportunity to experience Wimbledon, to play on the same courts as the pros, is a dream come true for them and they can hardly contain their excitement when talking about it.

Two three-hour quarterfinals today at the ATP Challenger 100 in Bloomfield Hills forced the tournament to move the last match of the day, between qualifier Arthur Fery(Stanford) of Great Britain and Mark Lajal of Estonia, to Court 2, while the third quarterfinal was still going. There are no lights at Cranbrook, so playing late into the night is not an option.

No. 5 seed Eliot Spizzirri did his part to move the schedule along in the first match of the day, with the former Texas All-American beating Yi Zhou of China 6-1, 6-2 in an hour and 21 minutes. But wild card Andres Martin(Georgia Tech) and Alexis Galarneau(NC State) of Canada played a 78-minute second set, with Martin defeating Galarneau 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-1 in eight minutes short of three hours to advance to his second career Challenger final. Spizzirri and Martin will play each other for the third time in a Challenger in the last eight months, with Spizzirri winning the previous two at Sioux Falls and San Diego. 

The winner of tomorrow's match will earn at least 50 points in the USTA's Wild Card Challenge, which has two weeks remaining after this week.

Qualifier Tony Wu and Yu Hsiou Hsu, both of Taiwan, battled for three hours and 12 minutes before Hsu claimed a 7-6(5), 3-6, 7-6(4) victory. Hsu, who defeated top seed Nishesh Basavareddy in the first round, will face Lajal, who beat Fery 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 as dusk deepened in Michigan.

2018 NCAA singles champion Arianne Hartono(Ole Miss) and 2024 NCAA singles champion Dasha Vidmanova(Georgia) will meet in the semifinals of the W100 in Evansville after each picked up straight-sets wins today. No. 6 seed Hartono, of the Netherlands, defeated unseeded Himeno Sakatsume of Japan 7-6(5), 6-1, while No. 7 seed Vidmanova beat No. 2 seed and Granby W75 champion Talia Gibson of Australia 6-4, 6-1

Caty McNally, who won the WTA 125 in Newport Rhode Island two weeks ago, has continued her winning streak on hard courts, reaching the semifinals in Evansville. The No. 3 seed, who was recently announced as a wild card recipient at the Cincinnati Open, her hometown event, advanced to the semifinals with a 6-2, 7-6(3) win over No. 8 seed and former Pepperdine All-American Janice Tjen of Indonesia. McNally will play No. 5 seed Xiyu Wang of China, who beat top seed Yue Yuan of China 7-6(11), 7-5. Wang and McNally have played three times, twice in junior slams and once in WTA tour qualifying, with McNally winning all three matches.

At the M25 in Champaign, Ryan Dickerson(Duke, Baylor) and Quinn Vandecasteele(Oregon), both unseeded, are the two Americans in the semifinals. Dickerson will face top seed Paul Jubb(South Carolina) of Great Britain, the 2019 NCAA singles champion, while Vandecasteele's opponent in the semifinals is No. 8 seed Blaise Bicknell(Florida, Tennessee) of Jamaica.

In Florence, the W35 semifinals will feature top seed Robin Anderson(UCLA) and unseeded Haley Giavara(Cal), along with wild card Amelia Honer(UC-Santa Barbara) and qualifier Shilin Xu of China. The 27-year-old Xu, a former ITF junior No. 1, did not play at all in 2023 or 2024, but returned to the Pro Circuit in March of this year.

The doubles medals were awarded today at the World University Games in Germany, with Ange Oby Kajuru(Iowa State, Oklahoma State, UNC) of Japan winning the women's doubles gold and Jay Friend(Arizona) of Japan claiming the mixed doubles gold.

Kajuru and partner Kanon Yamaguchi, who were unseeded, defeated No. 3 seeds Li Yu-yun and Lin Fang-an of Taiwan 6-4, 4-6, 10-4 for the title. Kajuru ended the 2024 academic year ranked No. 2 in the ITA national doubles rankings, with Oklahoma State partner Anastasiya Komar. 

Friend, partnering with Natsuki Yoshimoto, defeated Kenya's Angella Okutoyi(Auburn) and her partner Kael Shah 6-3, 6-3 in the gold medal match. Both teams were unseeded.

Top seeds Egor Agafonov and Ilia Simakin of Russia won the gold in men's doubles, beating No. 2 seeds Mert Alkaya and Tuncay Duran of Turkey 3-6, 6-2, 10-3 in the final.