Top Seed Kovackova Loses in Third Round of Australian Open Junior Championships; Pegula Through to Women's Semifinals; All Top Eight Boys Seeds Out after Round 2 at Les Petits As; ITA Team Indoor Fields Set, Locations Determined

Top seed Alena Kovackova followed her younger sister Jana, the No. 2 seed, out of the Australian Open Junior Championships Wednesday, losing to No. 13 seed Mariia Makarova 7-6(3), 7-5 in the third round. Kovackova was the only seed to exit Wednesday, when only half of the round of 16 matches were played, but three unseeded players booked their places in a junior slam quarterfinal for the first time: Kai Thompson of Hong Kong, a Central Florida recruit; Ekaterina Tupitsyna and Rada Zolotareva.

The two Americans remaining in singles play their third round matches Thursday(tonight in the US): Thea Frodin and Keaton Hance. The ITF Junior Circuit website has articles about both of them: Frodin is featured here and Hance is featured here.

In Thursday's doubles quarterfinals, five teams featuring Americans are in action.

Thursday's matches featuring Americans:

Third round singles:

Keaton Hance[4] v Simone Massellani(ITA)

Thea Frodin[8] v Antonina Sushkova(URK)

Doubles quarterfinals:

Vihaan Reddy and Juan Miguel Bolivar Idarraga(COL) v Ymerali Ibraimi and Cooper Kose[WC](AUS)

Keaton Hance and Tanishk Konduri[4] v Connor Doig(RSA) and Dimitar Kisimov(BUL)

Capucine Jauffret and Tahila Kokkinis(AUS) v Alena and Jana Kovackova[1](CZE)

Thea Frodin and Anastasija Cvetkovic(SRB)[3] v Mariia Makarova and Rada Zolotareva(RUS)

Melije Clarke and Nancy Lee v Tereza Hermanova and Denisa Zoldakova(CZE)

The only American remaining in the Australian Open men's and women's singles is Jessica Pegula, who beat Amanda Anisimova 6-2, 7-6(1) in the quarterfinals Wednesday.  She will face Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in Thursday's semifinal.

Ben Shelton(Florida) lost to Jannik Sinner of Italy 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Christian Harrison, playing with Great Britain's Neal Skupski(LSU), is the only American left in doubles. The No. 6 seeds will play No. 3 seeds Marcel Granollers of Spain and Horacio Zeballos of Argentina in the semifinals Thursday. Granollers and Zeballos are the reigning Roland Garros and US Open doubles champions. 

The chaos continued at Les Petits As Wednesday, with all of the boys top eight seeds now out after the second round. Boys top seed Anastasis Mosaikos of Cyprus lost today to French wild card Timeo Malandain 7-6(3), 7-6(5) and No. 3 seed Rafael Papoian lost to qualifier Richard Mitchell of Switzerland 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

I don't know if they've changed the seeding process this year, but it's been as poor a result from the seeds as I can remember in my two decades of following the tournament in Tarbes.

The top seed in the girls draw, Elizaveta Anikina of Estonia, is still alive; she will face No. 16 seed and Bolton champion Anna Kapanadze of New York in the third round Thursday. There are a total of six seeds left in the girls singles draw, with IMG International and Junior Orange Bowl 14s champion Ayaka Iwasa of Japan, the No. 4 seed, among them.

In addition to Kapanadze, two other Americans have advanced to the third round: No. 15 seed Rex Kulman and unseeded Nadia Poznick.

Live streaming and live scoring is available here.

After a lot of messy weather for the Kickoff Weekend regionals, the fields are finally set for the ITA Division I women's (February 6-10) and men's (February 13-17) Team Indoor Championships next month.

Two of the women's teams who will travel to Illinois did not play a match due to their opponents being unable to complete the trip: Georgia and Texas. The Texas A&M women ended up playing their one match, against Arizona State, at the Hawkins Indoor Center at Baylor. All the men's regional finals were played, but the results from the men's regionals were unprecedented, with three No. 4 seeds advancing and seven hosts failing to qualify.

Kickoff Weekend final match results:

WOMEN:

*North Carolina[1] d. UNC-Charlotte[2] 4-0

*Virginia[1] d. Southern California[2] 4-0

*Tennessee[1] d. Clemson[4] 4-3

*Duke[1] d. South Carolina[3] 4-0

Oklahoma State[2] d. Texas Tech[1]* 4-0

*Georgia[1] advanced to Team Indoor without playing a match

*LSU[1] d. UCLA[2] 4-1

*Auburn[1] d. Florida State[3] 4-0

Vanderbilt[2] d. Michigan[1]* 4-2

*Ohio State[1] d. Iowa[4] 4-0

*Oklahoma[1] v Stanford[2] 4-1

*Texas[1] advanced to Team Indoor without playing a match

*Texas A&M[1] d. Arizona State[2] 4-0

*NC State[1] d. Florida[3] 4-3

*Kickoff host

Northwestern and Illinois, as hosts, receive byes into the 16-team event.

MEN:

Clemson[4] d. Harvard[2] 4-1

*Virginia[1] d. Michigan[2] 4-0

*Mississippi State[1] d. Auburn[2] 4-2

Texas A&M[3] d. Duke[4] 4-2

*Wake Forest[1] d. Vanderbilt[2] 4-0

Florida[2] d. Columbia[1]* 4-2

*Stanford[1] d. Rice[2] 4-0

*Texas[1] d. South Florida[2] 4-0

*Ohio State[1] d. Purdue[2] 4-0

UC Santa Barbara[2] d. UCLA[1]* 4-1

Arizona State[4] d. Princeton[2] 4-3

Central Florida[2] d. Oklahoma[4] 4-3

LSU[4] d. Pepperdine[3] 4-2

*TCU[1] d. Georgia[2] 4-1

*Kickoff host

SMU and Baylor, as hosts, receive byes into the 16-team event.

The two-site format for Team Indoor Championships now in its second year, requires a split of the 16 teams, and today the ITA released the information on who is assigned where:

WOMEN:

Northwestern site:

Auburn

LSU

Georgia

NC State

Northwestern

Oklahoma State

Tennessee 

Virginia

Illinois site:

Duke

Illinois

North Carolina

Ohio State

Oklahoma

Texas

Texas A&M

Vanderbilt

It appears to me, and I know it's early, that the field at Northwestern is loaded with contenders, with the Illinois field less strong overall.

SMU site:

Arizona State

Clemson

Florida

Mississippi State

Ohio State

SMU

Stanford

Virginia

Baylor site:

Baylor

LSU

Texas A&M

TCU

Texas

UCF

UC Santa Barbara

Wake Forest

I think it's unfortunate that all the men's teams from the state of Texas will be in Baylor, as SMU had such good crowds when Texas and Texas A&M played in Dallas last year on the first two days. 

The semifinals and finals will be again be played at Northwestern and SMU.

The latest coaches poll rankings are out, with the Top 10 shown below. Click on the heading for the full list of 25.

Top 10 Teams ITA D-I January 28, 2026

MEN:

First place votes in brackets (not applicable for women), previous ranking in parentheses

1. Wake Forest[13] (1)

2. Virginia (2)

3. Stanford (3)

4. TCU (5)

5. Texas (4)

6. Ohio State (6)

7. Mississippi State (7)

8. Texas A&M (11)

9. Central Florida (12)

10. San Diego (8)

WOMEN:

1. Georgia (1)

2. Texas A&M (2)

3. North Carolina (3)

4. Auburn (4)

5. LSU (5)

6. Oklahoma (6)

7. Duke (8)

8. Oklahoma State (10)

9. NC State (11)

10. Ohio State (12)