Teens Take Advantage of Four USTA Pro Circuit Tournaments This Week; Stearns Makes History in Reaching Rome Semifinals; Roland Garros Wild Cards Announced
It's a busy week for the USTA Pro Circuit, with three tournaments in Florida and one in Delaware.
The W35 in Bethany Beach Delaware had a surprisingly depleted qualifying draw, with only 23 players, leading to nine byes. Only five final round qualifying matches were actually played, with a walkover and two defaults, which is strange.
Americans qualifying--Arkansas State incoming freshman Meghna Arun Kumar, Sumvruta Iyengar(Texas-Dallas) and 40-year-old Eva Frissora(Harvard)--are joined in the main draw by lucky loser by Kallista Liu(Maryland).
Wild cards were awarded to Texas incoming freshman Elizabeth Ionescu, 17-year-old Calla McGill and Maddy Zampardo, a rising junior at NC State. McGill and Zampardo both lost their matches today, with half of the first round played Tuesday and the other half Wednesday. Despina Papamichail of Greece is the No. 1 seed, with Anna Rogers(NC State) the No. 2 seed.
Former South Carolina All-American Ayana Akli, a finalist Sunday at the W35 in Boca Raton, is competing for a fifth straight week. Today she advanced to the second round with a 6-3, 3-0 retired decision over No. 7 seed Kayla Day. Seventeen-year-old Alexis Nguyen defeated No. 5 seed Madison Sieg(USC) 4-6, 6-1, 6-1.
At the M25 in Pensacola, six American men advanced to the main draw by winning their final qualifying matches today: Pablo Paternostro(Florida Gulf Coast); Dakotah Bobo(LSU, Southern Miss); Lazar Markovic; Columbia incoming freshman Abhishek Thorat; Liam Krall(SMU) and Tygen Goldammer(BYU).
Wild cards were given to Carson Baker, a sophomore at Boise State; Justin Lyons, a sophomore at Florida State who is from Pensacola; Kian Vakili(Penn) and Clemson rising junior Marko Mesarovic. Mesarovic lost to No. 4 seed Alex Rybakov(TCU) 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 in first round play today. Vakili defeated No. 7 seed Quinn Vandecasteele(Oregon) 6-3, 4-6, 7-5. Baker and Lyons play their first round matches Wednesday.
Andres Andrade(Florida) of Ecuador is the top seed, with Garrett Johns(Duke) the No. 2 seed.
The USTA National Campus in Lake Nona is hosting $15,000 tournaments for both genders this week, and both had full qualifying draws.
Americans qualifying for the men's main draw today: Matthew Segura; Ryan Dickerson(Duke, Baylor) and 14-year-old Teodor Davidov, who received a wild card into qualifying and beat UCF's No. 2 singles player Mehdi Benchakroun of Morocco 4-6, 6-0, 10-7 today.
Wild cards were given to Sunday's Plantation ITF J200 champion Gavin Goode; recent NC State graduate Braden Schick; 17-year-old Lachlan Gaskell and 16-year-old Agassi Rusher. Goode and Gaskell both lost their first round matches today, Schick plays tomorrow, but Rusher earned his first ATP point with a 1-6, 6-4, 7-6(6) win over No. 2 seed Will Grant(Florida). Rusher retired leading 6-4, 4-5, in his semifinal match with Goode last week at the J200 in Plantation, but was able to withstand nearly three hours of competition today.
Rusher wasn't the only teen to take out a seed today, with Jagger Leach, using the ITF junior reserved program for entry, beating No. 3 seed Leo Vithoontien(Carleton) 7-5, 6-0. Ronit Karki received the other junior reserved entry; he faces qualifier Reece Falck of New Zealand in the first round.
Top seed Dan Martin(Dartmouth, Miami) of Canada is one of only three seeds remaining after completion of just half of the first round.
Six of the eight qualifiers in the Orlando W15 are Americans: 15-year-old Anita Tu; 17-year-old Sydney Jara, who ended the winning streak of ITF J100 Coral Gables and J200 Plantation champion Bella Payne; 14-year-old Caroline Shao; Duke incoming freshman Claire An; 19-year-old Shradha Grover and Samantha Alicea(Arizona State, Nebraska).
UCLA incoming freshman Maya Crossley of Japan is the No. 1 seed, with the second seed Francesca Pace of Italy.
Wild cards were given to four 14-year-olds; Scarlett Fagan, Emery Combs, Lani Chang and Olivia De Los Reyes. Chang plays Grover Wednesday, while the other three lost, although Combs came very close to an upset, falling to No. 7 seed Carolina Bohrer Martins of Brazil 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(5).
Selected for the ITF junior reserved spots were 17-year-old Maya Iyengar, who beat Fagan 6-3, 7-6(4) today; Capucine Jauffret, who plays W35 Boca Raton champion and No. 3 seed Monika Ekstrand Wednesday, and Ava Rodriguez, who won her first Pro Circuit match today over Meisha Kendall-Woseley(Toledo) 6-0, 6-2.
Three years ago, Peyton Stearns was beginning a fortnight that would see her lead the Texas Longhorns to the NCAA team title and then capture the NCAA singles title.
Today the 23-year-old from Ohio set a WTA record, winning her third consecutive match in a third-set tiebreaker, beating No. 16 seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(4) to advance to the semifinals of the Masters 1000 in Rome. Stearns had beaten Madison Keys and Naomi Osaka of Japan in tiebreakers in the previous two matches.
Roland Garros' wild card announcement was released today, with Iva Jovic and Emilio Nava officially into the main draw later this month after winning the reciprocal wild card the USTA and FFT exchange annually.
No teenagers received main draw wild cards, but four qualifying wild cards went to French junior girls: Ksenia Efremova (Age 16/WTA No. 629), Eleejah Inisan (Age 16/No. 976), Cindy Langlais(Age 15/no WTA ranking) and Daphnée Mpetshi Perricard (Age 16 /No.1158). Two French teens were given men's qualifying wild cards, 16-year-old Orange Bowl finalist Moises Kouame and 19-year-old Mae Malige.