Notes on Kalamazoo and San Diego Entries; Young Out at Oklahoma State; Clarke Wins J200 in Mexico; Newman Goes Back-to-Back at J100s

The acceptances for the USTA Nationals 16s and 18s Championships have been posted, with the Kalamazoo lists here, and the San Diego lists here.

Jack Kennedy, last year's finalist in the Kalamazoo 18s is at the top of the boys 18s list and Easter Bowl 18s champion Bella Payne is at the top spot in the girls 18s list. Julieta Pareja, who is now the ITF junior No. 1 and Monika Ekstrand, who is up to 353 in the WTA rankings after all her success on the USTA Pro Circuit, are among the favorites for the title.

Stanford incoming freshman Alyssa Ahn, who went 15-6 during the SoCal Pro Circuit, is the 45th alternate in the 18s and will need a wild card, as will current ITF Top 100 player Kori Montoya, who was not in the Top 100 at the time of the National Standing List used for the Nationals acceptances, which is May 1. Elizabeth Ionescu and Katie Rolls are not showing in the acceptances, nor are Annika Penickova and Zaire Clarke, who are recovering from injuries. Valerie Glozman, who already has a main draw US Open wild card after winning last month's USTA Collegiate Playoff, didn't enter.

Some notable names in the 16s field are Easter Bowl champion Daniela Del Mastro, Lani Chang and Welles Newman, the later two having won ITF Junior Circuit titles last week.

2023 16s champion Cooper Woestendick is coming back to Kalamazoo after a semester at TCU, where he competed for the Horned Frogs in the ITA Indoor and NCAA team finals. Two junior slam singles finalists, Benjamin Willwerth(Australia) and Ronit Karki(Wimbledon) have entered, as has 2022 16s champion Darwin Blanch, now 410 in the ATP rankings.

Notable players who entered, but were not accepted, are Sklar Phillips, Ford McCollum, Jacob Olar, Grand Rapids' Simon Caldwell, Joseph Oyebog Jr., Virginia rising sophomore Roy Horovitz and Ilija Palavestra.

Wild cards will fill the last six places open in each division, with those meetings upcoming.

One of the boys 16s favorites will need a wild card: the newly crowned USTA National Clay Courts 18s champion Michael Antonius, currently No. 70 in the ITF junior rankings. The 15-year-old Antonius, the only player born in 2010 in the ITF Top 100, is the 21st alternate in the 16s.

Andrew Johnson, who earned his first ATP point earlier this month during the SoCal Pro Series, Safir Azam and Easter Bowl champion Marcel Latak are all playing in the 16s division.

As I posted two weeks ago, the NCAA sanctioned Oklahoma State for major recruiting violations in its women's program, and last week, word began circulating that Director of Tennis and women's head coach Chris Young had been fired. There has not been anything official on the Oklahoma State website about all this, but apparently the athletic department sent a release to local news outlets confirming Young is out.  John Parsons at the No Ad No Problem podcast put out two episodes last week with a thorough look at the violations and on the impact this will have on Division I tennis going forward.

I was unable to follow all the ITF Junior Circuit results of Americans the last two weeks due to Wimbledon, but I'll try to an abridged version tonight, concentrating on the J100s and J200s.

Unseeded 15-year-old Chukwumelije Clarke of Texas won her biggest title at the J200 in Monterrey Mexico two weeks ago, beating qualifier Olivia Allegre 6-3, 6-1 in the all-USA final. The 200 points briefly moved Clarke into the ITF Top 100, but the points from her previous best win at a J100 in the Dominican Republic dropped this week and she fell to 116. Top seeds Isabelle DeLuccia and Anita Tu won the doubles title in another all-USA contest, beating unseeded Kennedy Drenser-Hagmann and Scarlett Fagan 7-5, 7-5.

The unseeded pair of Gray Kelley and Tanishk Konduri won the boys doubles in Mexico, beating top seeds Volodmyr Gurenko of Canada and Jakub Smejcky of the Czech Republic 6-4, 7-5.

Konduri went from the J200 in Mexico two weeks ago to a J100 in Vancouver Canada last week, with the 16-year-old from Northern California picking up his first ITF Junior Circuit singles title in another all-USA final. Konduri, seeded No. 4, defeated No. 2 seed Mason Taube 6-7(6), 6-4, 7-5 in the final. Konduri and Justin Lin, who were unseeded, reached the doubles final, dropping a 7-6(3), 7-6(8) decision to No. 3 seeds Enoch Lin and Brayden Woo of Canada. Top seeds Kaya Moe and Karlin Shock claimed the girls doubles title in Vancouver, beating Aleksandra Barmicheva of Russia and Yi-Ching Huang of Taiwan 6-2, 6-7(5), 10-5.

At the J100 in the Dominican Republic last week, 15-year-old Safir Azam of Washington won his first ITF Junior Circuit title without dropping a set. The No. 12 seed defeated No. 6 seed and doubles partner Theo Hegarty 6-3, 6-4 in the all-USA final. Azam and Hegarty, the No. 3 seeds in doubles, lost in the final to No. 4 seeds Jerrid Gaines Jr of the United States and Alvaro Perez of the Dominican Republic 6-3, 6-4.

Fourteen-year-old Lani Chang swept the girls titles in Santa Domingo, with the No. 4 seed beating No. 3 seed and doubles partner Brooke Wallman 6-3, 6-3. Chang, the daughter of Hall of Fame player Michael Chang, is up to a career-high 190 in the ITF junior rankings after her biggest title. 

Wallman and Chang, the top seeds, took the doubles title with a 6-2, 5-7, 10-7 win over Ha Eum Lee of Korea and American Yael Saffar, the No. 2 seeds.

Fifteen-year-old Welles Newman is playing on the South American clay this summer, and she collected titles at back-to-back J100s. Two weeks ago in Brazil, the No. 1-seeded Newman defeated No. 2 seed Ana Cruz of Brazil 6-3, 6-2 in the final. She also won the doubles title, Zoe Doldan of Paraguay, with the unseeded pair beating another unseeded team in Camila Markus of Argentina and Alicia Reichel of Brazil 6-0, 6-2 in the final. 

Last week in Colombia, Newman, the No. 3 seed. defeated No. 7 seed Sena Yoon 6-4, 6-1 in the singles final. She and Great Britain's Clarice Ouvarova, who were unseeded, lost in the doubles finals to No. 1 seeds Leticia Bazan and Daniela Gonzales of Peru 6-4, 2-6, 10-8. 

Links to the lower-graded ITF Junior Circuit tournaments with an American singles winner are provided below.

J60 Armenia: qualifier Thomas Laukys, singles and doubles

J60 Orlando USA: Nicholas Mekhael

J60 Corfu Greece: Matias Reyniak

J60 Preveza Greece: Matias Reyniak

J30 Aruba: Sitara Agarwal

J30 Aruba: Leyla Kilgour, singles and doubles