Orange Bowl Acceptances Feature Defending Boys Champion Santamarta Roig, but Few Top Girls; Lee Earns First ATP Point, Johnson Downs Antonius at Orlando M15; McNeil Beats Sonobe at W50 in Austin; Blanch Avenges Knoxville Final Loss in Champaign

The acceptances for the final two major ITF Junior Circuit events of the year were released today, with the J300 at IMG Academy in Bradenton Florida and the J500 Orange Bowl in Fort Lauderdale Florida featuring similar fields.

Three Top 10 boys and two Top 10 girls have entered, with Andres Santamarta Roig of Spain, the defending champion in both events, leading the acceptance lists. Santamarta, currently No. 3 in the ITF rankings, obviously has a lot of points to defend, points he might need to stay in the ITF Top 10 at year-end. A top 10 finish means up to eight Challenger 50 and 75 main draw wild cards.

The other two Top 10 boys are recent ITF Junior Finals runner-up Yannick Alexandrescou of Romania[6] and Jack Kennedy[8].

In addition to Kennedy, the Americans in the Orange Bowl main draw are: Ronit Karki, Keaton Hance, Noah Johnston, Michael Antonius, Jack Satterfield, Jack Secord, Andrew Johnson, Max Dussault, Max Exsted, Gavin Goode, Dominick Mosejczuk and Ryan Cozad. Johnston(Georgia), Satterfield(Vanderbilt), Dussault(TCU) and Mosejczuk(Wake Forest) are all competing in their first semester in college this fall, so it remains to be seen whether they will actually play what would be the final ITF junior tournament of their careers.

The boys main draw cutoff was 83; ten more American boys are in qualifying, with that cutoff 206.

The two Top 10 girls who entered the Orange Bowl are Ksenia Efremova[8] of France and No. 10 Alena Kovackova of the Czech Republic. 

The top two US girls did not enter, with No. 1 Kristina Penickova and No. 5 Julieta Pareja missing. Penickova had entered the J500 in Mexico, but withdrew from that. She has no points to defend the rest of the year, and with none of the other top girls competing in the last few events, Penickova's No. 1 ranking looks safe.  She is currently competing in the W35 in Orlando, where she won her opening round match today. 

The US girls accepted into the main draw of the Orange Bowl are Thea Frodin, Annika Penickova, Capucine Jauffret, Melije Clarke, Welles Newman, Nancy Lee, Carrie-Ann Hoo, Ishika Ashar, Maggie Sohns and Ava Rodriguez.

The girls main draw cutoff was 107; 17 more US girls are in qualifying, with that cutoff at 234.

The Bradenton field is similar, but Kennedy, Karki, Satterfield and Exsted did not enter. US girls in the Orange Bowl but not Bradenton are Frodin, Annika Penickova and Sohns.

The boys main draw cutoff in Bradenton was 95, the girls main draw cutoff was 111.

The Orange Bowl 16s entries have not yet been posted, but should be available here by the end of the week. The entry lists for the 12s, 14s and 16s at the IMG Academy Championships, previously the Eddie Herr, are here.

The USTA Florida section's recent Here to Serve podcast takes a look at the history and the recent relocation of the Orange Bowl to the newly renovated Jimmy Evert Tennis Center in Fort Lauderdale. Chris Evert is expected to attend the ribbon cutting for the venue's new Stadium Court on Monday December 8th according to USTA Florida Executive Director Laura Bowen. Her conversation with the Orange Bowl's Doug Wiley and Eric Poms and Scott Pukys, Director of Tennis at the Jimmy Evert Tennis Center, can be viewed here.

Ten of the 16 players remaining in the M15 in Orlando are juniors, with the youngest, 15-year-old wild card Jordan Lee, earning his first ATP point today with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Matthew Thomson(Wake Forest). He will play Clemson freshman and fellow wild card Matisse Farzam, who defeated No. 6 seed Benjamin Torrealba of Chile 7-5, 6-2 today. Lee is the second player born in 2010 to earn an ATP point. Michael Antonius was the first with his run to the quarterfinals at an M15 in New York this summer.

That's one of three all-junior second round matches. Longtime friends and US Open boys doubles champions Jack Kennedy and Keaton Hance will play after Hance defeated Ole Miss sophomore Benjamin Martin, a qualifier, 7-6(3), 6-2. Kennedy won their most recent junior meeting in the semifinals of the ITF J300 in Indian Wells 6-4, 3-6, 6-1. The third match will be between qualifier Noah Johnston(Georgia) and Max Exsted. Johnston advanced when Pedro Rodrigues (UCF) of Brazil retired leading 4-6, 6-1, 3-1. Exsted defeated Jonathan Mridha of Sweden today 6-0, 7-5.

Seventeen-year-old Gavin Goode, who beat top seed Toby Kodat yesterday, will face Mehdi Benchakroun(UCF) of Morocco in Thursday's second round, and 18-year-old Reda Bennani of Morocco, the No. 5 seed, will play qualifier Andreja Petrovic(North Dakota, Florida State, Duke) of Norway. For the second straight week in Orlando Nikolas Stoot has qualified and advanced, with the 17-year-old Floridian beating University of Florida junior Kevin Edengren of Sweden 6-3, 6-0. He will play No. 8 seed Stijn Paardekooper(St. Bonaventure, Utah State) of the Netherlands.

In today's battle of the Junior Davis Cup champion teammates, Andrew Johnson defeated fellow wild card Michael Antonius 6-3, 6-4 to swing the head-to-head back in his favor after falling to Antonius 6-4, 6-3 in last month's ITF J300 Pan Am final. Johnson will face No. 2 seed Felix Corwin(Minnesota) next.

Christasha McNeil, the University of Texas freshman, was unsuccessful in her two attempts to qualify for next week's NCAAs, but the 19-year-old from New York had her best result since joining the Longhorns today at the W50 in Austin. After qualifying yesterday, McNeil was drawn to face No. 2 seed and reigning Australian Open girls champion Wakana Sonobe of Japan and she pulled off the upset of the WTA No. 225 6-4, 6-4. She will play Auburn senior Ekaterina Khayrutdinova of Russia in Thursday's second round.

In the last match of the first round at the ATP Challenger 75 today in Champaign Illinois, Darwin Blanch avenged his loss in Sunday's Knoxville Challenger 50 final to Mitchell Krueger. The 2025 Kalamazoo 18s champion defeated No. 3 seed Krueger 6-3, 7-6(5) to advance to a second round meeting Thursday with University of Georgia graduate student Arda Azkara of Turkey.