NCAA Draws Out, with Men's Seeds Avoiding Zheng and Suresh in Round 1; Stoiana. Bennett, Payne Advance to Pro Circuit Finals; All Buckeye Final in Columbus M25; Cassone and Kozlov Meet for Champaign Title; Exsted Claims Another Doubles Title

The draws are out for the NCAA Division I individual tournament, which begins Tuesday November 18 and concludes Sunday November 23 at the USTA's National Campus in Orlando.

With all the controversy over the men's singles seeds, the several possibly disastrous first round matches heightened the anticipation for this evening's release, but for the most part, the most damaging bullets were dodged, with none of the top eight seeds drawing one of the expert consensus seeds: defending champion Michael Zheng(Columbia), DK Suresh(Wake Forest), Trevor Svajda(SMU) and Edward Winter(Pepperdine).

Zheng will play Hugo Car of South Florida; Suresh drew Matic Kriznik of Alabama and Winter faces Melchior Delloye of Harvard. Svajda drew 9-16 seed Jeremy Jin of Florida in the first round.

If both win their first round matches, Suresh will play No. 5 seed Devin Badenhorst of Baylor, while Winter would face No. 6 seed Kenta Miyoshi of Illinois, who lost in a tight three-setter today in the Champaign Challenger 75. The seed in Zheng's section is 9-16 Connor Henry Van Schalkwyk of Baylor, with No. 2 seed Duncan Chan of TCU his projected Round of 16 opponent. Chan is probably the draw loser; today he advanced to his first ATP Challenger final at the Drummondville 75 in Canada, so he's ready for the level Zheng will bring, but will he have enough energy to continue at his new peak?

There was one withdrawal from the original men's field: Top Nidunjianzan of Princeton, the co-champion of the Northeast Regional. Jack Loutit of Kentucky, the No. 1 alternate, took his place and he bumped Martin Borisiouk of NC State out of the seeding. Borisiouk was announced as a 9-16 seed Monday, but he is now unseeded. In all my years of following and reporting on tennis, I have never heard of a seed being revoked (draws redone, yes, seed revoked, no), but the speculation is that Loutit was above Borisiouk in the unpublished rankings used to seed the tournament, so he was given the seed. Loutit did not qualify for the tournament in the two fall events he played (All-American Championships, Sectionals), so I would have assumed that prevented him from receiving a seed, but obviously it did not. 

If the fall championships continue after this one, it could definitely happen again, given that the rankings are used only for seeding, not in the fall qualifying process. So to avoid the revocation of a seed, it would be better to implement a rule that  prohibiting awarding a seed to a non-qualifier or wait to announce the seeds until the draw comes out.

The seeds in the women's draw were not as controversial as the men's, but it turns out that they have several marquee matches in the first round. 

No. 6 seed Anastasiia Grechkina of Pepperdine, who has had an outstanding fall, drew 2024 spring NCAA finalist Anastasiia Lopata of Georgia. Although Reese Brantmeier of North Carolina was awarded a 9-16 seed, she would certainly be a top 4 seed in any expert poll, and she is in that same eighth of the draw as Lopata and Grechkina.

No. 5 seed Aysegul Mert of Georgia also drew a tough first round opponent in Ange Oby Kajuru of North Carolina, who transferred from Oklahoma State, where she was an All-American in 2023-24 before sitting out most of last season.

Top seed Valerie Glozman of Stanford will face Oklahoma's Julie Garcia Ruiz in the second round if both win their openers; Garcia Ruiz defeated Glozman 6-1, 6-1 in the quarterfinals of the NCAAs last November.

Luciana Perry of Ohio State, a 9-16 seed, is projected to face No. 2 seed Carmen Herea of Texas in the third round; they played a gritty semifinal at the All-Americans this fall, with Herea taking it 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Links to the draws, which show match times:

MEN'S SINGLES: https://www.ncaa.com/_flysystem/public-s3/images/2025/11/15/25%20M%20Singles%20-%20111525.pdf

WOMEN'S SINGLES: https://www.ncaa.com/_flysystem/public-s3/images/2025/11/15/25%20W%20Singles%20-%20111525.pdf

MEN'S DOUBLES: https://www.ncaa.com/_flysystem/public-s3/images/2025/11/15/25%20M%20Doubles%20-%20111525.pdf

WOMEN'S DOUBLES: https://www.ncaa.com/_flysystem/public-s3/images/2025/11/15/25%20W%20Doubles%20-%20111525.pdf

The finals are set at the six USTA Pro Circuit events, with seven Americans vying for titles in four tournaments Sunday.

Eighteen-year-old Georgia signee Bella Payne is through to the final of the W15 in Clemson South Carolina, her second USTA Pro Circuit final, after defeating Clemson's Amelie Smejkalova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-2. The sixth seed will face No. 7 seed DJ Bennett, the Auburn senior, who beat No. 2 seed and Oklahoma State sophomore Rose Marie Nijkamp of the Netherlands 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-0.

Payne won her first USTA Pro Circuit title today, taking the doubles championship with Carson Tanguilig(North Carolina). The No. 3 seeds beat Clemson teammate Romana Cisovska of Slovakia and Candela Yecora of Spain 6-2, 6-2. Tanguilig, the 2023 NCAA doubles champion, won her first Pro Circuit doubles title earlier this month at the Sumter SC W15.

At the W50 in Austin Texas, Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M) advanced to the final with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Auburn senior Ekaterina Khayrutdinova of Russia. The seventh-seeded Stoiana will play No. 4 seed Mai Hontama of Japan, who beat top seed Anastasia Gasanova of Russia 1-6, 6-3, 7-5.

Savannah Broadus, the recent Pepperdine graduate, won her seventh and biggest doubles title today in Austin, with current Pepperdine Wave Sonja Zhiyenbayeva of Kazakhstan. the unseeded pair defeated top seeds Victoria Osuigwe and Alana Smith, current and former NC State stars, 6-3, 6-3 in the final.

Buckeyes will sweep the titles at the M25 in Columbus. Today, Brandon Carpico and Nikita Filin of Ohio State won the doubles title, a first pro title for both. The unseeded pair defeated Texas senior Sebastian Gorzny and Gavin Young(Michigan), also unseeded, 6-3, 6-2 in the final. Carpico and Filin did not come close to losing a set all week.

In the singles semifinals, No. 3 seed Aidan Kim avenged his recent three-set loss to No. 2 seed Henry Searle of Great Britain, beating the 2023 Wimbledon boys champion 6-1, 6-2. Kim will face teammate Jack Anthrop, the No. 7 seed, who beat Young 6-3, 6-4. Anthrop and Kim played once on the Pro Circuit in the summer of 2024, with Kim winning a qualifying match over Anthrop 6-3, 7-6(5).

All four of the Buckeyes in the two finals will be playing in the NCAA individual championships next week.

The second all-USA men's final is at the ATP Challenger 75 in Champaign Illinois, with No. 4 seed Murphy Cassone(Arizona State) taking on unseeded Stefan Kozlov for the title Sunday. Cassone defeated Kenta Miyoshi of Japan 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to reach his second Challenger final and first this year, while the 27-year-old Kozlov advanced to his first Challenger final in over three years when Cedrik-Marcel Stebe of Germany retired trailing 6-0, 4-0. 

In today's doubles final between unseeded teams, today former Tennessee teammates Pat Harper of Australia and Shunsuke Mitsui of Japan defeated Ryan Seggerman(Princeton, UNC) and Keegan Smith(UCLA) 7-5, 6-7(3), 12-10. Harper has now won five Challenger doubles titles this year, but has yet to crack the Top 100 in the ATP doubles rankings, sitting at 122 in the live rankings after the win today.

Mike Cation will be providing commentary for the last USTA Pro Circuit Challenger match of the year tomorrow on the Challenger TV stream.

M15 Orlando doubles champions Felix Corwin and Max Exsted

After so much success in the earlier rounds for young Americans there won't be one in the final of the M15 in Orlando, with Jack Kennedy losing to No. 5 seed Reda Bennani of Morocco 7-6(3), 7-6(5) and Christopher Li of Peru coming back to beat No. 2 seed Felix Corwin 0-6, 7-5, 6-4.

But Max Exsted and Corwin did take the doubles title, with the top seeds beating Ryan Cozad and Gavin Goode 6-3, 6-1 in the final. 

The 18-year-old Exsted, who won last week's doubles title in Orlando with Will Nolan of Great Britain, now has four Pro Circuit doubles titles, all with different partners, all since mid-September. He also has won the Australian Open boys doubles title, two ITF J300s and the Kalamazoo 18s doubles title this year, again, all with different partners.

At the W35 in Orlando, Oklahoma State freshman Luca Udvardy of Hungary reached the final, beating Auburn senior Angella Okutoyi of Kenya 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. She will face No. 6 seed Martha Matoula of Greece, who beat No. 4 seed Victoria Hu 6-4, 6-3.

Okutoyi and Francesca Pace of Italy won the doubles title, with the No. 2 seeds beating top seeds Allura and Maribella Zamarripa(Texas) 3-6, 6-4 14-12 in today's final.