Bryde, Johnson Top ITF Grade 1 International Spring Championships Acceptances; Anisimova Advances to Second Round in Brazil $25K

Trent Bryde and Taylor Johnson head the acceptances for next month's ITF Grade 1 International Spring Championships in Carson California, with strong fields expected for both boys and girls.  The tournament is a week earlier than usual, with the main draw March 20-26th for the 18s.  The 16s finals are usually on Saturday, which would mean the 25th this year, but the fact sheet currently shows the 26th as the end date for the 16s.  Registration is still open for the 16s, until tomorrow, Tuesday February 28th. See the tournament's new website to register.

The 18s registration closed last week, with most of the top US juniors participating.  The ISC and the Easter Bowl are huge tournaments for those who want to play the junior slams this summer, and the ITF Junior Masters, which conflicted the past two years has been moved to the fall, eliminating that scheduling problem.

The US girls in the ITF Top 10 --No. 2 Kayla Day, the defending champion, 2016 finalist Claire Liu, ranked tenth, and semifinalist Amanda Anisimova, ranked No. 4--are not participating, but the depth of the US girls now still makes for an impressive group.  In addition to Taylor Johnson, ranked 16th, are six more Top 50 girls: Sofia Sewing[22], Whitney Osuigwe[23], Caty McNally[25], Ellie Douglas[26], Natasha Subhash[29] and Hailey Baptiste[50].  Carson Branstine, who is showing as Canadian now on the acceptance list, is entered, as is Emiliana Arango of Colombia, who just won the Grade B1 in South America yesterday.

In addition to No. 11 Bryde, the US boys in the Top 50 entered are Oliver Crawford[17], Gianni Ross[22], 2016 finalist Sam Riffice [24], Danny Thomas[31], Brian Cernoch[47], Patrick Kypson[49] and Alafia Ayeni[50]. Vasil Kirkov is the only US boy in the Top 50 not entered.
Top international players entered include Florida recruit Duarte Vale of Portugal, ranked 16th, and Toru Horie of Japan, ranked 32nd.

The complete entry lists can be found at the ITF junior website.

After Amanda Anisimova won the Grade A Porto Alegre title in Brazil two weeks ago, she stayed in the country for this week's $25,000 ITF Women's Circuit event.  Because she is just 15, she has not played many professional events; she won a US Open women's qualifying match last August and two qualifying matches in Midland's $100K this month, but that's been it until Brazil, where she won two qualifying matches without dropping a game, then beat Victoria Bosio of Argentina 6-4, 6-1 in the opening round of the main draw today for her first professional main draw victory.

As an IMG client, Anisimova is likely to receive at least a qualifying wild card into the Miami Open, which is the same weeks as the International Spring Championships and Easter Bowl.