Top Five Boys Seeds Exit in Grade 1 Banana Bowl Second Round, Ong Ousts No. 2 Seed in Girls Second Round Action; Florida Top Seed at ITA Women's Team Indoor

Today was the first day that seeded players took the court at the ITF Grade 1 Banana Bowl in Brazil and it didn't end well for many of them.

The top five boys seeds lost their opening matches to players who already won a first round match on Monday, leaving No. 6 seed Gianni Ross as the the highest seeded player in the boys draw.

Top seed Yuta Shimizu of Japan lost to Matias Soto of Chile 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(2).  No. 2 seed Sam Riffice was beaten by Juan Otegui of Argentina 7-5, 6-4, No. 3 seed Oliver Crawford fell to Sergio Hernandez Ramirez of Colombia 6-4, 6-3, No. 4 seed Tomas Etcheverry of Argentina went out to Javier Rodriguez Sanchez of Peru 6-3, 6-2 and No. 5 seed Francisco Vittar of Argentina lost to Thiago Seyboth Wild of Brazil 6-3, 6-4.

In addition to Ross, who earned a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Mateus Alves of Brazil, three other US boys advanced to the the third round.  No. 8 seed Danny Thomas beat wild card Igor Gimenez of Brazil 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, No. 12 seed Patrick Kypson defeated Moerani Bouzige of Australia 6-2, 6-2 and Alexandre Rotsaert downed Juan Hernandez Serrano of Mexico 6-1, 6-3.  No. 14 seed Alafia Ayeni and unseeded Sangeet Sridhar, the other two American boys in the draw, lost, with Ayeni falling to Nicolas Mejia of Colombia 7-6(5), 6-4 and Sridhar going out to No. 7 seed Gabriel Decamps of Brazil 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.

The girls seeds fared much better in their second round matches, but No. 2 seed Yang Lee of Taiwan was eliminated, with 15-year-old Vanessa Ong posting a 6-2, 6-3 win. Ong, who reached the quarterfinals of the US Open Junior Championships last September as a lucky loser, is one of three unseeded American girls in the round of 16, along with 17-year-old Victoria Flores and 14-year-old Victoria Hu. Flores defeated No. 9 seed Lulu Radovcic of Switzerland 7-5, 6-4 and Hu took out No. 16 seed Sofia Munera Sanchez of Colombia 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.

Last week's Grade 1 Asuncion Bowl champion Whitney Osuigwe, the No. 11 seed this week, advanced with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Daniela La Fuente Straassburger of Bolivia.  No. 12 seed Hailey Baptiste defeated Funa Kozaki of Japan 6-2, 7-6(2) and No. 10 seed Ann Li beat Ania Hertel of Poland 6-2, 7-6(6).

Qualifiers Alexa Noel and Katie Volynets lost their second round matches, as did Katya Townsend, Lea Ma and No. 14 seed Elysia Bolton.

The order of play for Wednesday, draws, and news can be found at the tournament website.

The ITA Women's National Team Indoor Championship begins Friday, with Yale hosting the event this year. Top-ranked Florida is the No. 1 seed.  Friday's pairings:

Florida[1] v Michigan 3:30 pm
Vanderbilt[8] v Texas Tech 3:30 pm
Pepperdine[4] v Texas A&M 6:30 pm
Georgia[5] v Duke 6:30 pm
Auburn v Ohio State[6] 9:00 am
Ole Miss v Oklahoma State[3] 9:00 am
Georgia Tech v Cal[7] noon
Yale vs North Carolina[2] noon

The seedings do vary from last week's rankings. No. 4 Stanford is not playing, so Vanderbilt moves into the No. 8 spot, with Georgia, Ohio State and defending champion Cal moving up one spot.  Pepperdine, which lost to Florida last weekend, dropped from 3 to 4, with Oklahoma State moving from 5 to 3.

The ITA's preview can be found here.

FloTennis will be providing streaming coverage that requires a subscription.  For more information, see their website.