Hance Beats No. 2 Seed Woestendick, Satterfield Tops No. 4 Seed Willwerth to Reach Kalamazoo 18s Semifinals; Top Seeds Fall in B16s Doubles Quarterfinals; Ayrault Beats 16s Top Seed Moreno in San Diego; US Teams Reach Semifinals at ITF 14U World Junior Tennis

©Colette Lewis 2025--
Kalamazoo MI--

Jack Satterfield is set to move into the dorms at Vanderbilt on Sunday, but he may have to delay his trip to Nashville after reaching the final weekend in the USTA Boys 18s National Championships with a 7-6(5), 6-4 victory over Australian Open boys finalist Benjamin Willwerth.

Satterfield, the No. 8 seed, took a 3-1 lead in the first set, but Willwerth, seeded No. 4, recovered to go up 4-3, only to cede the tiebreaker with a double fault serving at 5-6.

"When he got it to 4-3, I really started to try to make some more balls, really lock in," said the 18-year-old, who has trained in Florida for several years. "It was a really tight breaker, some good tennis. He double faulted by an inch or two on set point."

Today marked the first day the boys are no longer calling their own lines, so Satterfield was relieved when Willwerth's second serve was called out.

"I definitely saw space, but I was happy that they called it, because I know it's probably tough to make all the right calls," said the 2024 Allen B. Stowe Sportsmanship winner. 

There were no breaks in the second set until Willwerth, who had won the final four games in his round of 16 match against Maximus Dussault Wednesday to survive, was broken serving at 4-5.

"I thought I played a solid last game," Satterfield said. "Last point I kind of got lucky on the stretch forehand dropper, but he had a lot of long matches, and a long grind with Maximus yesterday, so I knew if I dug down, he'd be more tired than I was, because I've won most of my other matches pretty quickly."

Satterfield was disappointed in his performance at Wimbledon, losing in the first round in both singles and doubles, so he was eager to find his form in Kalamazoo.

"I had a tough Wimbledon, and that's why I really wanted to do good here," said Satterfield, who is playing Kalamazoo for his fourth consecutive year. "KZoo is the tournament where you want to play well. It's my favorite tournament of the year, because all your friends are here, it's a big draw, you get a lot of matches. I remember when I first got into this tournament, I was thinking wow, I'm here. I think I made the second round and it was the biggest deal ever. I got destroyed my next two matches, so this is crazy."

Satterfield's opponent in Saturday's semifinal is No. 6 Keaton Hance, who took down No. 2 seed Cooper Woestendick 6-0, 5-7, 6-3.

Hance, who reached the semifinals of the 16s last year, had dropped only one game in his Round of 16 win over No. 9 seed Dominick Mosejczuk and he started off just as well against 2024 18s semifinalist Woestendick.

"Yesterday and today, at least for both those first sets, I definitely was playing very well," said the 17-year-old from Torrance California, who trains with the USTA in Orlando. "I didn't have many errors at all, and that was my goal going into both matches. Against Dom and Cooper, they're big hitters and don't like to play longer points, so my goal going into this was to make as many balls as possible and I think it really helped."

Woestendick shook off that disappointing opening set, making fewer errors and serving better in the second, so when Hance lost it, and spoke to his brother and coach Connor during the 10-minute break, strategy wasn't a part of the discussion.

"I was a little frustrated, but he calmed me down, talked to me mostly about positivity and energy," Hance said. "I didn't feel I played bad at all, Cooper just raised his level a lot, so I didn't have much to change tactically, it was mostly just mentally and my energy."

Hance missed a volley that led to the break that cost him the second set, but he made a critical one after failing to close out the match on his first match point with Woestendick serving at 2-5, ad-out.

Serving for the match at 5-3, Hance went down 15-30, but hit an overhead winner for 30-all, then executed a perfect backhand drop volley winner to earn his second match point.

"That was a clutch volley," Hance said with a smile. "I'll talk to my brother about that for a while. I don't think he was ready for that either, thinking I was making that, but I'll take it. It was pretty clutch by me, a big point."

Hance converted that second match point when Woestendick sent a forehand long, ending the two-hour and 51-minute contest that looked as if it wouldn't last half that long after the first set.

Hance and Satterfield are expecting a battle in Saturday's semifinal, with the two splitting ITF J300 matches with 7-5 in the third scores, Satterfield in Costa Rica and Hance in Indian Wells.

"I just think he has a lot of variety in his game, he can do a lot," Hance said. "But I think I do too, so I think that's why we have such good matches. We're both able to do pretty much everything on a tennis court, and I'm looking forward to doing that again."

Saturday's semifinal in the top half will feature top seed Darwin Blanch and 2024 finalist Jack Kennedy, the No. 3 seed this year.

Blanch defeated Wimbledon boys finalist Ronit Karki 6-2, 6-2 and said he is rounding into form now that he's had five matches on the Stowe Stadium courts.

"I feel like I've played better every match, so I'm happy with that," said the 17-year-old Floridian, who trains in Spain. "I think yesterday was a little bit better and then today was even better. My goal was just to focus on getting my level higher each match."

Blanch knew that Karki had had a great run to the Wimbledon final as a qualifier last month, but was not really familiar with his game.

"I've known him for four years, and he came three years ago to where I train in Spain, for about a month," Blanch said. "But I've actually barely seen him play. I saw him yesterday for like three games. But I just focused on my lefty game; I knew I was a more aggressive player than him, so I just played aggressive and that's all I did today."

Kennedy spent 45 minutes longer on court than Blanch, dropping his first set of the tournament to No. 22 seed Matisse Farzam before recovering for a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 victory.

"It was not easy," said the 17-year-old New Yorker. "We both started off with the nerves, it's a big moment, quarterfinals. I was kinda used to the pressure, because I've been in this stage before. I think in the second, he kind of relaxed a little bit, got the new balls, that helped his serve. He was stepping up his game, playing free, with pressure on me."

Kennedy admitted the 10-minute break was beneficial, because he is not allowed the on-court coaching that the ITF now allows in its junior tournament, with the USTA only permitting coaching during that break.

"It's been different, we're both getting used to not coaching in between points," Kennedy said of coach Greg Lumpkin. "I think after the second that 10 minutes really helped me. It slowed down his momentum a little bit and relaxed me a little bit. We got into the air conditioning--this is one of the hottest days all week--and with me and Greg, we were just saying I wasn't playing bad, he was just coming up with the goods and to weather the storm. His level kind of dropped, I think he got a little tired and I knew if I extended the points and the match, it would be in my favor."

Kennedy has some familiarity with Blanch from occasional practices in Orlando, but Blanch has been playing pro events for nearly two years now, so their paths did not cross on the ITF junior circuit.

"I haven't seen him too much, compared to Ronit," Kennedy said. "But getting the body ready and just focusing on myself is the main thing for sure. Then whatever they bring, you get answers and problem solve."

The 16s will play their singles quarterfinals on Friday, beginning at 10:30 a.m., with the doubles semifinals in both the 16s and 18s scheduled for the afternoon. The remaining doubles matches will be played with full third sets rather than match tiebreakers.

B16s quarterfinals:

Michael Antonius[1] v Marcel Latak[5]

Roshan Santhosh[3] v Jerrid Gaines Jr[10]

Colin McPeek[16] v Vihaan Reddy[4]

Safir Azam[7] v Andrew Johnson[2]

The doubles quarterfinals in the 16s were played this afternoon, with top seed Michael Antonius and Roshan Santhosh falling to No. 7 seeds Lucas Smith and Shaan Majeed 6-2, 7-6(5).

Smith and Majeed will face No. 15 seeds Marcel Latak and Vihaan Reddy, who beat unseeded Kamil Stolarczyk and Griffin Goode 7-6(3), 4-6, 11-9.

Unseeded Jerrid Gaines Jr and Sebastian Bielen advanced to the semifinals with a 7-6(6), 7-5 win over No. 6 seeds Anish Poojari and Soren Swenson. Gaines and Bielen will play No. 2 seeds Andrew Johnson and Mason Vaughan, who beat unseeded Sebastian Godoy and Akshay Mirmira 6-4, 4-6, 10-7.

Links to live streaming and live scoring can be found at ustaboys.com.

At the Girls 16s in San Diego, 14-year-old Hannah Ayrault defeated top seed Carlota Moreno to advance to Friday's semifinals, saving five match points in her 6-4, 0-6, 7-5 victory

"I stayed positive and my attitude was super good. I played aggressive. I was able to pull out this match because of my attitude,” Ayrault told the tournament's press aide Fred Sidhu. “I’ve known her (Moreno) forever, she’s a friend and obviously an amazing player. It felt great to go out and play some great tennis and win.”

Below are the results of the quarterfinals of the other USTA National Championships, except for the G12s and G18s, which have their quarterfinals scheduled for Friday. Click on the heading to go to the draws.

Girls 12s quarterfinals:

Daniella Han[1] v Cataleya Brown[6]

Rina Ishida v Anna Victoria Sandru[8]

Chloe Anthony[7] v Daniella Yogumyan[3]

Noa Boar[10] v Mila Mikoczi Spivey[2]

Girls 14s quarterfinal results:

Isha Manchala[1] d. Natalie Frisbie[5] 6-2, 6-1

Anna Kapandze[7] d. Nadia Poznick[4] 6-2, 6-4

Anna Scott Laney[3] d. Evija Thoresen[17] 6-3, 6-1

Daniella Sales[6] d. Olivia Lin[2] 6-1, 6-0

Girls 16s quarterfinal results:

Hannah Ayrault[17] d. Carlota Moreno[1] 4-6, 6-0, 7-5 

Brooke Kwon[33] d. Madeline Cleary[17] 6-3, 6-1

Paige Wygodzki[4] d. Kiana Smith 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 

Yilin Chen[17] d. Nikol Davletshina[33] 6-2, 6-1

Girls 18s quarterfinals:

Akasha Urhobo[1] v Alyssa Ahn[7]

Tianmei Wang[17] v Alexis Nguyen[5]

Maya Iyengar[17] v Ava Rodriguez[17]

Janae Preston[17] v Julieta Pareja[2]

Boys 12s quarterfinal results:

Ethan Cho[12] d. William McGugin[1] 6-2, 6-2

Keita Iida[5] d. Olie Rosa Hall[3] 7-6(3), 6-4

Dmitriy Flyam[7] d. Matthew Kolomeyer[11] 6-3, 6-1

Evan Fan[2] d. Ved Iyengar[8] 6-2, 6-3

Boys 14s quarterfinal results:

Michael Chervenkov[6] d. Joshua Dolinsky[1] 6-4, 0-6, 7-6(3)

Jiarui Zhang[15] d. Collin Mika[33] 7-5, 6-3

Dylan Meineke[3] d. Advay Singh[17] 6-3, 4-6, 7-5

Sebastian Zavala[2] d. Luke Jones[5] 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-0

Cracked Racquets has coverage of selected matches in San Diego at their YouTube channel.

Both teams from the United States have advanced to Friday's semifinals of the ITF World Junior Tennis 14U championships in the Czech Republic. 

The US girls defeated Taiwan 3-0 and will play Sweden, who beat Austria 2-1 Thursday.

The US boys beat Japan 2-1 and will play Korea, a 2-1 winner over Venezuela. 

Live scoring is here, with links to live streaming posted daily at the ITF junior website. All results can be found at the ITF tournament website.