Seven Americans Qualify for Wimbledon; Dudeney Prepares for Wimbledon Debut; Antonius Reaches Armani Invitational Final; Leach, Gowda Advance to M15 Claremont Quarterfinals; ITF Rebrands to World Tennis

Americans had their most successful Wimbledon final round of qualifying this century today at Roehampton, with four women and three men advancing to the main draw with victories today.

In 2021 six Americans reached the main draw via qualifying, but seven is the most since eight qualified in 1993, and it is the most at any major since eight qualified at the US Open in 2017.

Two-time NCAA champion Michael Zheng, a recent Columbia graduate, is now 9-0 this year in slam qualifying, with the 2022 boys finalist returning to the All-England Club for the first time since then with his three-set win over Colton Smith(Arizona)

Tristan Boyer(Stanford), who beat No. 7 seed Pablo Llamas Ruiz of Spain 7-5, 6-7(4), 7-6(2), 6-3, and Kayla Day, a 6-2, 7-5 winner over No. 14 seed Katarzyna Kawa of Poland, will also be making their main draw debuts at Wimbledon.

Mackenzie McDonald, Ashlyn Krueger, Robin Montgomery and Claire Liu, all of whom have played the main draw at one point in the past three years, booked their returns with victories today.

Other notable qualifiers are wild cards Max Basing(Stanford) and, for the second year in a row, Oliver Tarvet(San Diego). Basing, who received a last-minute wild card into qualifying despite failing to advance to the final of the LTA's playoff, defeating Remy Bertola of Switzerland 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, 6-2. Tarvet, who returned to San Diego for his senior year despite winning a round in the main draw last year, didn't drop a set in his three victories this week, beating Stefanos Sakellaridis of Greece 6-4, 6-2, 7-5 in today's final round of qualifying. For more on their successful qualifying runs, see this article from wimbledon.com.

Eighteen-year-old Tyra Grant, who played for the United States until a year ago, when she switched her representation to her mother's country of Italy, will make her women's Wimbledon debut after qualifying; she won the Wimbledon girls doubles title with Iva Jovic in 2024.

Thursday's final round Wimbledon qualifying matches featuring Americans:

Ashlyn Krueger[2] d. Polina Iatcenko(RUS) 7-6(8), 6-1

Alina Korneeva[3](RUS) d. Fiona Crawley 6-2, 6-0 

Leolia Jeanjean[23](FRA) d, Katie Volynets[5] 6-3, 6-4

Kayla Day[32] d. Katarzyna Kawa[14](POL) 6-2, 7-5

Claire Liu d. Elena Pridankina(RUS) 6-2, 4-6, 6-1

Robin Montgomery d. Marina Bassols Ribera(ESP) 3-6, 6-1, 6-1

Tristan Boyer d. Pablo Llamas Ruiz[7](ESP) 7-5, 6-7(4), 7-6(2), 6-3

Mackenzie McDonald[13] d. Christopher O'Connell[32](AUS) 6-3, 6-4, 6-4

Michael Zheng[26] d. Colton Smith 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3

The draw is scheduled to be announced at 10 a.m. local time Friday in London, which is 5 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. 

While collegians Tarvet and Basing were grinding through qualifying, Alice Dudeney was spared that ordeal, with the two-time doubles All-American at Florida receiving a main draw wild card. Dudeney was outside the WTA Top 1000 when she graduated from Florida last May, but in the past year has improved her ranking to a career-high of 246. In this article from the Independent, Dudeney explains why she chose the American college pathway, still not as prevalent for British girls as it has become for British boys, and how it prepared her for her steep climb in the past 12 months.

Michael Antonius is through to the final of the Giorgio Armani Junior Invitation at Hurlingham in London after defeating Yannick Alexandrescou of France today 7-6, 6-7(8), 10-5. Antonius will play Australian Cruz Hewitt, son of Lleyton Hewitt, who beat Kai Thompson of Hong Kong 6-3, 6-1.  The girls final will feature Ksenia Efremova of France and Nana Leme Da Silva of Brazil. Live streaming is available on YouTube.

Jagger Leach, who just completed his freshman year at Stanford, is playing his first non-collegiate event this week at the SoCal Pro Series M15 in Claremont California. The 19-year-old, who was out with an elbow injury for the second half of 2025, is through to the quarterfinals after defeating No. 6 seed Luca Pow(Wake Forest) of Great Britain 7-5, 6-3. Leach will face qualifier Oliver Ojakaar(Texas) of Estonia Friday.  Last week's Irvine M15 winner Spencer Johnson(UCLA), repeated his win over Bryce Nakashima(Ohio State) in that final today, by a 6-4, 6-3 score. Johnson will face another Buckeye in the quarterfinals in top seed Aidan Kim.

Recent Yale graduate Vignesh Gogineni is through to the quarterfinals after taking out No. 2 seed Kenta Miyoshi(Illinois) of Japan 6-2, 6-4.

In the SoCal Pro Series W15 in Claremont, 17-year-old lucky loser Thara Gowda has advanced to the quarterfinals, after beating No. 6 seed Anita Sahdiieva(Baylor, LSU) of Ukraine 6-3, 7-5 in the first round yesterday, Gowda defeated Caroline Driscoll(Denver, Stanford) 6-3, 7-6(3) today.

For more on Wednesday's first round action in Claremont, featuring comments from Leach, his mother Lindsay Davenport, 16-year-old qualifier Brooke Kwon and former Arizona standout Midori Castillo Meza, see this article from the USTA SoCal website.

The International Tennis Federation has changed its name, and will now be known as World Tennis. It will certainly take me some time to get used to this, as I've been using ITF to designate the organization for more than twenty years, but I'm going to try to use World Tennis in its place. If you see WT in a Zootennis headline, know that it refers to what was formerly known as the International Tennis Federation.