Georgia Tops 2017 Women's Recruiting Class Rankings; ITF Grade 1 Banana Bowl Features 20 American Juniors in Second Round

The Tennis Recruiting Network released its 2017 Women's Winter Recruiting Class rankings, with Georgia finishing in the No. 1 spot, followed by UCLA, LSU, Duke and Columbia.  Unlike the men's rankings published last week, where only one point separated No. 1 Cal from No. 2 Florida, this vote was not particularly close, with Georgia taking 14 of the 19 first place votes.  Georgia has blue chips Morgan Coppoc and Annette Goulak as well as Serbia's Katarina Jokic, who has been ranked as high as 604 in the WTA rankings, committed to the Bulldogs.

The ITF Grade 1 Banana Bowl is underway in Brazil, with eight US boys and 14 US girls reaching the 48-player draws.  All but one of the US boys is seeded and had byes into the second round: Sam Riffice[2], Oliver Crawford[3], Gianni Ross[6], Danny Thomas[8], Patrick Kypson[12], Alafia Oyeni[14] and Alexsandre Rotsaert[15].  The only unseeded US boy, Sangeet Sridhar, won his first round match over qualifier Gabriel Currlin of Switzerland 6-2, 7-6(3).  Yuta Shimizu of Japan is the top boys seed.

Four US girls qualified into the main draw, joining the ten direct entries. Katie Volynets and Alexa Noel won their opening round matches today, both in three sets, with Volynets defeating Moyuka Uchijima of Japan 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 and Noel rebounding for a 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 win over Vitoria Okuyama of Brazil.  Qualifiers Chloe Beck and Camille Townsend dropped their first round matches today, but they were the only US players to lose.  In addition to Volynets and Noel, the other US girls advancing to the second round with wins today are Victoria Hu, Victoria Flores, Katya Townsend, Chloe Hamlin, Vanessa Ong and Lea Ma.

The seeded US girls, who had byes into the second round, are Ann Li[10], Whitney Osuigwe[11], Hailey Baptiste[12] and Elysia Bolton[14]. Emily Appleton of Great Britain is the top girls seed.

For draws and order of play, see the tournament website. The tournament is also providing update scores via twitter @bananabowl

There are no USTA Pro Circuit events this week, but there is a $100,000 ATP Challenger in San Francisco.  Qualifying was completed today, with Canadian Brayden Schnur(UNC), Raymond Sarmiento(USC) and Eric Quigley(Kentucky) moving into the main draw. Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz are the top two seeds.