Rollins and Madurawe Take Grade 4 Titles in Jamaica; Dolehide Wins Winnipeg $25K; Kuhn Captures First Challenger; Embree Named Assistant Coach at Pepperdine

I'm not quite home yet, but in between flights I've got a few minutes to catch up on some of the tennis that took place away from Wimbledon last week.

At the ITF Grade 4 in Jamaica, 16-year-old Pierce Rollins won his first singles title, with the No. 6 seed beating No. 2 seed Keenan Mayo 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-4 in the all-USA final.  The girls final was also between two Americans, with 17-year-old Niluka Madurawe, the fourth seed, beating 14-year-old Hina Inoue, seeded eighth, 7-5, 7-6(3) in the final.  It's Madurawe's fourth Grade 4 singles title this year.

The boys doubles title in Jamaica went to the unseeded team of Drew Baird and Keenan Mayo's younger brother Aidan, who beat No. 2 seeds Blaise and Jacob Bicknell of Jamaica 6-1, 6-1 in the final.  Ariana Arseneault of Canada was the only champion not from the US, as she and Lindsay Lampert, the No. 4 seeds, beat unseeded Maxi Duncan and Sasha Wood 0-6, 7-5, 10-6.

Also of note in ITF Junior circuit results, Argentina's Anna Geller, the 15-year-old sister of Wimbledon singles finalist and doubles champion Axel Geller, won her first ITF junior titles, sweeping singles and doubles at the Grade 5 in Paraguay.

At the $25,000 ITF Women's Circuit event in Winnipeg, 18-year-old Caroline Dolehide won her second title at that level this year.  The No. 4 seed defeated No. 5 seed Mayo Hibi of Japan 6-3, 6-4 in the final. Hibi had taken out top seed Nicole Gibbs in the semifinals.  Dolehide also made the doubles final in Winnipeg, with Kimberly Birrell of Australia.  The unseeded pair lost to top seeds Hiroko Kuwata of Japan and Valeria Savinykh of Russia 6-4, 7-6(4). Dolehide is still age eligible to compete in next month's USTA 18s Nationals in San Diego, although she is not currently on the entry list, which does not include wild cards. Kayla Day is also not entered.

At the $75,000 ATP Challenger in Winnetka, Akira Santillan of Japan won his first title at that level.  The unseeded 20-year-old defeated Ramkumar Ramanathan of India, the No. 5 seed, 7-6(1), 6-2 in the final. Santillan is featured in this ATP Challenger article.

French Open boys finalist Nicola Kuhn of Spain, who turned 17 in March, won his first Challenger title at the €127,000 event in Braunschweig Germany, the country he played Junior Davis Cup for in 2015 before switching to Spain.  Kuhn, a qualifier, defeated unseeded Viktor Galovic of Croatia 2-6 7-5 4-2 ret. in the final.  For more on Kuhn's victory, see this article from the ATP website.

Former Florida Gator All-American Lauren Embree was announced today as the new women's assistant coach for the Pepperdine women's program, led by Per Nilsson.  Embree replaces Mario Toledo, who resigned for personal reasons.