Friend and Kim, Glozman and Herea Meet for ITA All-American Titles; Spizzirri Plays for Title in Challenger 100 in China; Rybakov Makes First Challenger Final; Day and Cross Advance to W75 Final in Templeton

The ITA All-American Championships finalists were determined today in Cary North Carolina for the women and in Tulsa Oklahoma for the men, with three of the singles semifinals going the distance.

Only No. 4 seed Valerie Glozman of Stanford got through in straight sets, with the 18-year-old sophomore defeating Ohio State junior Teah Chavez, the No. 7 seed, 6-3, 6-2 in a match contested entirely indoors.

In the other semifinal, also played indoors due to rain, No. 9 seed Carmen Herea of Texas came from behind to defeat No. 3 seed Luciana Perry of Ohio State 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Despite the pedigree of both the Stanford and Texas programs, it's been a while since either had an All-American champion. Stanford's most recent champion was Hilary Barte in 2010; Texas's Kelly Pace won the title for Texas in 1994.

The women's doubles semifinals were played outdoors, with top seeds Reese Brantmeier and Alanis Hamilton of North Carolina, up a set and a break, losing to unseeded Roisin Gilheany and Gloriana Nahum of Oklahoma  6-7(3), 7-6(5), 10-4. Gilheany and Nahum played a near-perfect match tiebreaker to advance to the final.

The unseeded pair also won the other women's semifinal, with Wisconsin's Maria Sholokhova and Lucie Urbanova defeating No. 5 seeds Gabriella Broadfoot and Victoria Osuigwe of NC State 6-4, 6-4.

In Tulsa, where the weather was sunny all day, Arizona senior Jay Friend made program history, with the No. 3 seed defeating No. 7 seed Dylan Dietrich of Virginia 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(2). Friend, who reached the All-American consolation final last year, is the first Arizona man to reach the final of a collegiate major. 

Friend will face No. 2 seed Aidan Kim of Ohio State, with the junior defeating No. 9 seed Devin Badenhorst of Baylor 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4. Kim was a semifinalist at the All-American Championships last year.

The men's doubles final will feature top seeds Benito Sanchez Martinez and Petar Jovanovic of Mississippi State, who came from a break down in the opening set to cruise past unseeded Tanapatt Nirundorn and Henry Jefferson of Florida 6-4, 6-1.

They will play unseeded DK Suresh and Andrew Delgado of Wake Forest, who somehow got past unseeded Paul Inchauspe and Landon Ardila of Princeton in straight sets 7-6(7), 7-6(9). The Princeton pair served for the first set at 5-4 40-0 and had a 6-2 lead in the second set tiebreaker, but Suresh and Delgado fought off at least a dozen set points total to get to the final.

Wake Forest has never won an All-American doubles title; the only one for Mississippi State came in 1992, with Daniel Courcol and Laurent Miquelard winning it.

Cracked Racquets will have coverage of all four finals Sunday beginning at 11 a.m. at the ITA YouTube channel.

The 2023 ITA All-American champion, Eliot Spizzirri of Texas, is making his way toward the ATP Top 100, with the 23-year-old reaching the final of the ATP Challenger 100 in Jingshan China. Unseeded, Spizzirri ended a frustrating run of six losses in Challenger semifinals since April, beating former USC All-American Yannick Hanfmann of Germany 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 to reach his first Challenger final since winning the San Diego Challenger in February. He will play qualifier Alex Bolt of Australia, who prevented a rematch of that San Diego final by beating No. 2 seed Mackenzie McDonald(UCLA) 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

At the ATP Challenger 75 in Las Vegas, unseeded Alex Rybakov(TCU) reached his first Challenger semifinal Friday night with a 7-6(5) 6-4 win over Philip Sekulic of Australia, then reached his first Challenger final tonight by beating unseeded Andre Ilagan(Hawaii) 7-6(4), 6-3.

He will play former Florida standout Abdullah Shelbayh of Jordan, who defeated No. 4 seed Benjamin Hassan of Lebanon 6-3, 6-1.

University of Michigan senior Benjamin Kittay and Joshua Sheehy(Abilene Christian) won their first title as a team, with the wild cards beating top seeds Finn Reynolds(Ole Miss) and James Watt(St. Mary's) of New Zealand 7-5, 7-6(2) in today's final. It's the second Challenger title for Kittay and the first for Sheehy.

At the W75 in Templeton California, Kayla Day and LSU sophomore Kayla Cross of Canada have advanced to the final after straight-sets wins today. Day defeated No. 7 seed Olivia Gadecki of Australia 6-4, 6-2 and the fifth-seeded Cross beat Emina Bektas(Michigan) 6-3, 6-3.

No. 2 seeds Maria Kozyreva(St. Marys) of Russia and Martina Okalova(Tulsa) of Slovakia won the doubles title, defeating unseeded Usue Arconada and Slovakia's Viktoria Hruncakova 6-2, 7-5 in the final.

Auburn sophomore Merna Refaat has reached the final of the W35 in Berkeley California. The 21-year-old from Egypt has not dropped a set in her six wins so far, having come through qualifying. Today she defeated No. 4 seed Zuzanna Pawlikowska of Poland 7-5, 6-3 and will play unseeded Johanne Svendsen of Denmark in the final. Svendsen defeated qualifier Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer, a senior at UCLA, 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-4 in a three-hour, three-minute semifinal.

At the M15 in Ann Arbor, another qualifier will play for a title Sunday, with Oliver Okonkwo(Iowa, Illinois) of Great Britain facing No. 2 seed Raphael Perot(Texas A&M) of France. Okonkwo defeated qualifier Alex Kotzen(Columbia, Tennessee) 6-4, 6-3 to reach his first Pro Circuit final, while Perot beat wild card Max Dahlin of Sweden, a sophomore at Michigan, 6-4, 6-2.

Dahlin did come away with a title for the Wolverines however, although that outcome was guaranteed before the final was played, with Dahlin and Michigan senior Bjorn Swenson defeating teammates Arnav Bhandari and Mert Oral 6-3, 6-4 in the championship match.