Osuigwe Wins Second Straight Grade 1 Title at Banana Bowl; Loeb Claims $60K in Australia; Semis Set at ITA Women's Team Indoor

Whitney Osuigwe  (photo courtesy Banana Bowl twitter)

Whitney Osuigwe's winning streak on the South American clay has reached ten matches after the 14-year-old Floridian defeated top seed Emily Appleton of Great Britain 7-5, 6-4 to capture the ITF Grade 1 Banana Bowl title in Brazil.  Osuigwe won last week's Grade 1 tournament in Paraguay and in her ten victories she has lost only two sets.  I spoke to Osuigwe's father Desmond, a coach at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, after her title last week in Paraguay for this USTA Florida article.

No. 9 seed Marko Miladinovic of Serbia won the boys title, the 16-year-old's first at the Grade 1 level, beating Thiago Seyboth Wild of Brazil 6-3, 6-4.

The two Banana Bowl doubles championships were guaranteed to go to Americans, with all four teams from the US.  Unseeded Elysia Bolton and Vanessa Ong defeated No. 5 seeds Osuigwe and Hailey Baptiste 4-6, 6-4, 10-5 in the girls championship match, while No. 2 seeds Gianni Ross and Danny Thomas won the boys title, beating unseeded Alexandre Rotsaert and Sangeet Sridhar 4-6, 6-3, 10-6. It's the second ITF Grade 1 title this year for Ross and Thomas, who won the Coffee Bowl last month.

The final rounds of qualifying for the Grade A Campeonato Internacional Juvenil de Tenis in Porto Alegre Brazil are Sunday, with Katie Volynets and Peyton Stearns one win away from the girls main draw, and Arnav Dhingra the one US boy who can advance to the main draw with a victory.

2015 NCAA champion Jamie Loeb won the biggest title of her pro career at the $60,000 ITF Women's Circuit event in Launceston Australia. Seeded No. 6, Loeb defeated No. 4 seed Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia 7-6(4), 6-3 in the final, after beating top seed Xinyun Han of China in the quarterfinals and No. 5 seed Asia Muhammad in the semifinals, both wins coming after she dropped the opening set. Loeb, who turns 22 next month, will move up to around 155 in the WTA rankings with the title, a career high.

The ITA Women's Team Indoor Championships quarterfinals were played today, with the top two seeds Florida and North Carolina advancing, along with No. 5 seed Georgia and No. 6 seed Ohio State.

No. 1 Florida defeated unseeded Texas Tech 4-1, and will face SEC rival Georgia, who took out No. 4 Pepperdine by the same score.

No. 2 North Carolina eliminated defending champion and No. 7 seed Cal 4-2 and will play Ohio State, who won the only 4-3 match of the day, against No. 3 seed Oklahoma State.

For more on the day's matches, see the ITA tournament page.