Qualifier Suh, Unseeded Stoot Join Top Seeds in ITF J300 Pan American Closed Quarterfinals; Pareja Defeats No. 2 Seed at W100 in Oklahoma

©Colette Lewis 2025--
Spring, Texas--

The top three seeds in both the girls and boys draws at the ITF J300 Pan American Closed advanced to Thursday's quarterfinals at the Giammalva Racquet Club, but four unseeded players will join them, including 15-year-old qualifier Sophie Suh.

Suh, playing in just her fourth ITF Junior Circuit tournament and the first outside of her home section of Southern California, defeated unseeded Scarlett Fagan 6-1, 7-5 for her fifth win of the tournament.

After several days in the hot and humid conditions, Suh said she is adapting, but did begin to feel less energetic in the second set.

"In the first set, I was hitting with a lot of pace and it was working," said the Orange California resident. "But then as it got towards the middle of the second set, I started making a few more errors, was getting tired from the heat, so I was telling myself to just make her earn the points, not go for too much, and I think that helped me pull through."

Suh served for the match at 5-3 and although she was unable to close it out, she managed to avoid a dwelling on the poor game she had played.

"I had some opportunities in the 5-3 game, I was up 30-15 and I played a good point, but missed a short ball," Suh said.  "And then recovering from that, I made a few more errors. But I was telling myself there's always another chance to close it out, it's not over yet, it's still tied, so I was telling myself to move on, and stay in the present."

Suh is playing her first ITF Junior Circuit event of 2025, with her school schedule limiting her options.

"It's hard for me to travel, because I go to normal school," Suh said. "It's hard for me to take days off and I miss a lot of work, so I try to stay in SoCal and not travel so much. But I thought this was going to be a good opportunity for me, so I decided to play this, have a new experience."

Next up for Suh is top seed Annika Penickova, who beat No. 16 seed Clemence Mercier of Canada 6-3, 6-4. Suh said she didn't know who she would play, as she doesn't look ahead in the draw, but now that she's won five matches in straight sets, she's ready for what's next.

"I was feeling pretty confident in qualies and as I've continued playing my matches, I've been building, getting better and better," Suh said.

Two other 15-year-olds, No. 13 seed Janae Preston and No. 11 seed Maggie Sohns, are through to the quarterfinals, with Preston beating No. 4 seed Kori Montoya 6-1, 6-3 and Sohns defeating No. 7 seed Thara Gowda 6-4, 6-4.

Preston will face No. 6 seed Chukwumelije Clarke, who eliminated 14-year-old wild card Allison Wang 6-3, 7-6(5). Preston defeated Clarke in the first round of August's J300 in College Park 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.  Sohns will take on No. 2 seed Nancy Lee, who beat last week's J200 Corpus Christi champion Jordyn Hazelitt, the No. 15 seed this week, 6-4, 7-5. Lee has a 3-0 win-loss record over Sohns, but all three matches were in the spring of 2024.

In fourth quarterfinal, No. 3 seed Capucine Jauffret will play No. 5 seed Carrie-Anne Hoo, after Jauffret eliminated No. 14 seed Marianne Angel of Mexico 6-4, 6-4 and Hoo fought back to beat No. 9 seed Zaire Clarke 2-6, 6-4, 6-0. Jauffret and Hoo have played twice at J300s this year, with Jauffret winning both matches in three sets.

After half of the boys seeds lost in their opening matches Tuesday, two unseeded players were guaranteed to make the quarterfinals and another joined them when Kalamazoo 16s champion Marcel Latak defeated No. 11 seed Vihaan Reddy 6-3, 6-7(9), 6-4 in three hours and 25 minutes.

Latak will face No. 3 seed Michael Antonius for the third time in the past two months, after Antonius recovered from a 4-1 deficit in the opening set against unseeded Tyler Lee to post a 6-4, 6-4 victory.  Latak defeated Antonius in the quarterfinals of Kalamazoo, with their next meeting coming that same month in the first round of College Park, with both going three sets.

Unseeded Navneet Raghuram defeated unseeded Sebastian Bielen 7-6(2), 6-3 to set up a meeting with top seed Gavin Goode, who beat unseeded Mason Vaughan 6-4, 6-2. Raghuram and Goode have met just once on ITF Junior Circuit, just under a year ago at the J60 in South Carolina, with Goode winning that match 6-2, 6-2.

Last week's final in Corpus Christi will be a quarterfinal this week, with champion Andrew Johnson again taking on Tanishk Konduri in the only boys quarterfinal not featuring an unseeded player.  The fourth-seeded Johnson defeated unseeded Safir Azam 6-4, 6-2, a repeat result of their quarterfinal match last week in Corpus Christi.

Konduri, the No. 10 seed, beat No. 8 seed Benjamin Azar of Canada 6-1, 6-3 to get his opportunity to avenge his 7-5, 7-5 loss in the final to Johnson.

The third unseeded boy in the quarterfinals is Nikolas Stoot, who beat unseeded Mauricio Schtulmann Gasca of Mexico 6-4, 7-5 in a match that spanned nearly three hours.

"It felt like a five-setter today," said the 17-year-old left-hander from Miami Florida. "It took me to my limit, but we train for times like that. It was really just pure grit, and hanging in there."

Schtulmann had beaten No. 5 seed Roshan Santhosh 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 in Tuesday's second round, so there was no overlooking how dangerous he could be.

"In simple words, he pretty much didn't miss," said Stoot, who has committed to LSU for next fall. "He'd hit high percentage balls pretty much every point, making me earn the points. He really made me work for it."

Given his familiarity with a tropical climate, Stoot feels he has an advantage when conditions are as hot and humid as they were yesterday, but dew points were lower today, so that edge was less pronounced.

"Yesterday was humid and I handled it well, but everyone was talking about how they were suffering in it," Stoot said. "To me, when I walk outside, it's stinging my skin. It's pretty dry here and I'm not too used to it, but you've just got to adapt."

Stoot will face No. 2 seed Ryan Cozad, who had an equally long third round match, although his 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-3 win over No. 16 seed Mason Taube did stretch over three sets, not two.

"We played a while back, about two years ago Orange Bowl, first round," Stoot recalled. "I had to play qualies so I was three matches in and he was pretty fresh. We are good friends too. It's going to be a good match, looking forward to it 100 percent."

Stoot has also advanced to the doubles semifinals with partner Bielen, with the unseeded pair beating Andrew Gordon and Jacob Hewitt, also unseeded, 6-3, 6-7(4), 10-4, winning the final nine points of the match. They will face No. 2 seeds and Corpus Christi champions Antonius and Johnson, who defeated unseeded Schtulmann and Nicolas Rivera Paz of Mexico 6-4, 6-2.

In the top half, No. 1 seeds Goode and Cozad defeated No. 7 seeds Raghuram and Reddy 6-1, 6-2 and will play unseeded Vaughan and Lee in the semifinals. Vaughan and Lee had to finish their second round doubles match, postponed to Tuesday's evening rain shower, before playing their quarterfinal. They came from a set down to take out No. 3 seeds Volodymyr Gurenko and Azar of Canada 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 12-10 in the second round, then got a 5-0 ret. win over No. 5 seed Shaan Majeed and Sklar Phillips.

In the girls doubles semifinals, top seeds Pennickova and Jauffret beat No. 6 seed Hoo and Adla Lopez 6-4, 6-3 to set up a meeting with No. 3 seeds Isabelle DeLuccia and Gowda. DeLuccia and Gowda beat Angel and Abril Cardenas Olivares of Mexico 6-0, 6-1.

The only unseeded girls doubles team remaining is Lucy Oyebog Atang and Lillian Santos, who defeated No. 7 seeds Sohns and Sara Shumate 6-4, 7-6(3). They will play No. 5 seeds Zaire Clarke and Preston, who defeated Fagan and Hazelitt 1-6, 6-4, 11-9.

All eight quarterfinals are scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday, with all four doubles semifinals scheduled for 1 p.m.

At the USTA Pro Circuit W100 this week in Norman Oklahoma, 16-year-old qualifier Julieta Pareja, the ITF's No. 1 junior, defeated No. 2 seed and WTA 123 Petra Marcinko of Croatia 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 to advance to the second round. It's the second best win by ranking for Pareja, who beat WTA 116 Leolia Jeanjean of France in the quarterfinals of the WTA 250 in Bogota this spring.

She will face unseeded Elli Mandlik, who beat Fiona Crawley(North Carolina) 7-6(1), 4-6, 6-2.