Kennedy Defeats Top Seed at W15 Winston-Salem; Jones Avenges AO Loss to Sonobe at Rancho Santa Fe W50; Zheng's Challenger Winning Streak Continues; Shao Beats Liutova at J200 Corpus Christi;Tien Reaches First ATP Final in Beijing

The first round of play today at the M15 in Winston-Salem North Carolina featured only four main draw singles matches, but the top seed is already out. Karl Poling(Princeton, North Carolina) lost to 17-year-old Jack Kennedy 7-5, 6-3. Kennedy, playing his first tournament since winning the boys doubles title at the US Open earlier this month, will play the winner of two qualifiers in the second round: Oren Vasser(William & Mary, Miami) and Kuangqing (Chris) Xu, a sophomore at North Carolina.

Kennedy is one of three junior reserved entries, with his US Open doubles partner Keaton Hance drawing No. 2 seed DK Suresh of Wake Forest, and Jangjun Kim, a sophomore at Virginia, losing 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 today to former Tennessee star Shunsuke Mitsui of Japan, the No. 8 seed.

Wake Forest freshman Dominick Mosejczuk received a wild card, as did Wake Forest sophomores Cornelius Shalmi and Joaquin Guilleme. Mosejczuk plays fellow Demon Deacon Andrew Delgado in Wednesday's first round, while Shalmi lost to teammate Luca Pow, a junior at Wake Forest 6-4, 7-5. Guilleme lost his first round match today against No. 4 seed Peter Bertran(Georgia, South Florida) of the Dominican Republic 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.

There are two women's USTA Pro Circuit tournaments this week, both in California, with the W50 Rancho Santa Fe in Southern California and the W35 San Rafael in Northern California. 

Louisa Chirico and Iryna Shymanovich of Belarus are the top two seeds, who will play their first round matches Wednesday. The No. 3 seed is 17-year-old Emerson Jones of Australia, playing her first tournament since losing in the final round of qualifying last month at the US Open. Today she took on fellow 17-year-old Wakana Sonobe, who had beaten her in the semifinals of the Australian Open Junior Championships this year en route to the title. This time Jones came out on top, posting a 7-5, 6-2 victory.

Wild cards were given to Haley Giavara(Cal), Akasha Urhobo, Rose Marie Nijkamp(Oklahoma State) of the Netherlands and Hina Inoue. Inoue, who was just returning from a W125 in China, lost to Urhobo in a first round match today 6-2, 6-2.

Americans who qualified for the main draw today are Katrina Scott, Rasheeda McAdoo(Georgia Tech) and Victoria Hu(Princeton), with Mary Lewis(Arizona, Michigan State) getting in as a lucky loser. University of Oklahoma freshman Mika Buchnik of Israel, who received a Junior Exempt spot in the draw based on her Top 20 ITF junior ranking, lost to Elli Mandlik 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 in the first round today. ITF World Junior No. 1 Julieta Pareja, who received entry based on her WTA ranking, will face Katherine Sebov of Canada in the first round Wednesday.

In San Rafael, first round matches are still underway, but qualifying is complete, with W35 Berkeley champion Merna Refaat, playing her ninth match in nine days, through to the main draw with a 6-4, 6-2 win over top qualifying seed Ziva Falkner of Slovenia. Refaat, a sophomore at Auburn, went straight from winning a rain delayed final Sunday in Berkeley to the first round of qualifying Monday in San Rafael, but continued her winning streak regardless. 

Americans advancing to the main draw are Victoria Flores(Georgia Tech, Pepperdine), Kylie Collins(Texas, LSU, Oklahoma State) and Madison Brengle.

Main draw wild cards were given to Jaedan Brown(Michigan), Thea Frodin, Maya Iyengar and Texas freshman Christasha McNeil. 

Lea Ma(Georgia) is the top seed, with Alicia Herrero Linana(Baylor) of Spain the No. 2 seed.

At the ATP Challenger 75 in Tiburon California, Columbia senior Michael Zheng extended his Challenger winning streak to 11, with the No. 7 seed defeating San Diego senior Oliver Tarvet of Great Britain 6-4, 6-3 in today's first round. Zheng had lost to Tarvet in a dual match in March 5-7, 7-5, 6-3. Zheng, who the Columbus Challenger two weeks ago, and the Chicago Challenger in August, will play qualifier Olle Wallin(Charlotte, Texas Tech) of Sweden, who beat Martin Damm 2-6, 7-6(5), 6-3. 

Stanford senior Samir Banerjee, who received a wild card, beat Philip Sekulic of Australia 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 to advance to a second round meeting with No. 4 seed Benjamin Hassan of Lebanon.

Las Vegas Challenger champion Abdullah Shelbayh(Florida) of Jordan beat top seed Jurij Rodionov of Austria for the second straight week, this time in the first round, rather than the quarterfinals last week, 7-6(3), 6-4. He will play Alfredo Perez(Florida) next, after Perez beat wild card Trevor Svajda 6-4, 6-4. 

The top four boys seeds--Ryan Cozad, Michael Antonius, Andrew Johnson and Roshan Santhosh--have all advanced to the third round at the J200 in Corpus Christi Texas, but there were a couple of surprises in the girls second round today.  Raina Miae Kim defeated No. 3 seed Ireland O'Brien 6-3, 7-6(4), and Kerrville J60 champion Carol Shao, who is 14, defeated No. 6 seed and ITF J300 College Park champion Kristina Liutova 6-3, 6-4. Girls top seed Kori Montoya and No. 4 seed Maggie Sohns advanced to the third round with straight-sets victories.

Two-time Kalamazoo champion Learner Tien(USC) has reached his first ATP final, at the 500 tournament in Beijing China. Tien, who dropped the first set in both the quarterfinals and semifinals to Lorenzo Musetti[4] and Daniil Medvedev[8] ended up getting third-set retirements from both and will face top seed Jannik Sinner in Wednesday's final. Tien, who had not reached an ATP semifinal before this week, is now up to 36 in the ATP live rankings. For more on his match with Medvedev, see this article from the ATP website.