July Aces; Liutova Advances to Memphis WTA 250 Semifinal; Penickova Reaches Semis at W35 Florence; Akli and Crawley Face Off in Lexington W75 Saturday; Gogineni Makes Final Four at Edwardsville M25, Receives Cincy Qualifying Wild Card

My monthly column featuring the top performances of July is up today at Tennis Recruiting Network, with 19 juniors, collegians and former collegians winning titles last month. Collegians and juniors are so prevalent and so successful on the World Tennis Tour men's and women's circuits now that I couldn't highlight all those who won W35s, M25s, M15s or W15s. I had to quit featuring the latter two sometime last year, but this month was the first time I couldn't find room for the 35s and 25s. 

Here are several that I couldn't cover in the Aces, but still deserve a mention: Trevor Svajda(SMU), M25 Dallas; Ozan Baris(MSU) M25 Louisville; Kenta Miyoshi(Illinois) M25 Canada; Kalin Ivanovski(Texas) M25 Macedonia; Carl Overbeck(Cal) back-to-back M25s in June, July in Portugal; Khololwam Montsi (Oklahoma, Texas A&M) 2 M15s in South Africa;  and 16-year-old Antonio Stoyanov of the Netherlands, who won a W35 in Italy as a qualifier.

Kristina Liutova continues to post wins over WTA Top 100 players, with the Moscow-born 16-year-old from Seattle defeating No. 73 Caty McNally, the No. 6 seed at the WTA Memphis 250, 6-3, 6-4.

Liutova, playing in her first WTA main draw as a qualifier, trailed 3-1 in the first set, winning the final five games and 4-0 in the second set, claiming the final six games to earn her place in the semifinals against 23-year-old American Elvina Kalieva. The unseeded Kalieva defeated No. 7 seed Peyton Stearns(Texas) tonight after a three-hour rain delay this afternoon 6-1, 2-6, 6-3.

Unseeded Annika Penickova is through to her first semifinal at the W35 level in Florence South Carolina, with the unseeded 16-year-old left-hander defeating No. 4 seed Ekaterina Khayrutinova(FIU, Auburn) 6-4, 6-3 in today's quarterfinals. Penickova will face No. 2 seed Angelina Voloshchuk of Portugal for a place in the final. Voloshchuk defeated USC rising sophomore Krisha Mahendran of India, a qualifier, 3-6, 7-5, 6-0.

Annika and twin sister Kristina are through to the doubles final in Florence after winning the title last week at the W35 in Santa Fe. The unseeded pair defeated No. 2 seeds Carmen Herea(Texas) of Romania and Anita Sahdiieva(Baylor, LSU) of Ukraine 4-6, 6-1, 13-11 in today's semifinals. They will play the unseede dteam of Mahendran and Alyssa Ahn(Stanford) for the title, after Ahn and Mahendran beat unseeded Khayrutdinova and Christasha McNeil(Texas) 1-6, 6-3, 10-4.

In the top half of the singles draw, Piper Charney, a rising senior at Michigan, will face unseeded Mayu Crossley of Japan, a rising sophomore at UCLA. Charney defeated fellow qualifier Jo-Yee Chan(Oregon, San Diego State) 6-2, 7-5, while Crossley advanced when No. 8 seed Alexis Nguyen(UNC) retired down 4-1 in the first set.

At the W75 in Lexington Kentucky, former collegiate stars Ayana Akli(Maryland, South Carolina) and Fiona Crawley(UNC) have advanced to a semifinal meeting, with No. 3 seed Akli defeating No. 6 seed Hanna Chang 6-4, 6-1 and Crawley beating No. 8 seed Eunhye Lee of Korea 7-6(1) 6-3.

Kylie Collins(Texas, LSU, Oklahoma State) defeated top seed Sara Saito of Japan this evening 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 and she will face the only non-American in the semifinals: Anastasia Kulikova of Finland. The unseeded Kulikova defeated No. 7 seed Savannah Broadus(Pepperdine) 6-4, 7-5.

Rain fell most of the day in Edwardsville Illinois, but the singles quarterfinals of M25 were played this evening, with three Americans advancing to Saturday's semifinals. No. 5 seed Ozan Baris(MSU) defeated wild card Max Exsted(USC) 6-3, 6-1 and will play top seed Johannus Monday(Tennessee) of Great Britain.

No. 7 seed Bruno Kuzuhara(Clemson) defeated Jack Anthrop(Ohio State) 6-4, 6-4 and will play Vignesh Gogineni, who beat No. 2 seed Karim Bennani of Morocco 5-7, 6-2, 6-2.

Not only did Gogineni, the recent Yale graduate, reach his third M25 semifinal with his win today, but he was also announced as a recipient of a men's qualifying wild card at next month's ATP/WTA 1000 Cincinnati Open. Gogineni, who is from Mason Ohio, will play his first tournament above the M25 level in his hometown.

JJ Wolf, who is playing in the semifinals of the ATP Challenger 125 in Vancouver Canada tonight, also received a qualifying wild card, as did Mackenzie McDonald(UCLA) and 2025 Kalamazoo 18s champion Darwin Blanch. Kei Nishikori of Japan, who is retiring later this year, also was given a qualifying wild card.

The main draw wild cards were awarded to Stan Wawrinka, Grigor Dimitrov, Gael Monfils and Jack Draper.

The announcement can be found at the ATP website.