USTA Clay Court Championships Underway with Expanded Draws; US Open Prize Money at Record $50.4 Million

I'm usually in Memphis this week of the year, covering the Girls 18s Clay Courts, but with Wimbledon a week later this year, I couldn't manage it this year.  I'm barely able to keep my eyes open right now as it is.  But the Tennis Recruiting Network will have coverage of all the tournaments next week, and they have published their predictions for this year along with an excel file in Google document with UTR ratings, TRN ratings, college commitments and additional information.

Except for the 12s, which are using their usual compass draws, the other divisions are all 256 draws with byes for the top 32 seeds.  Some of the divisions are using 64 seeds, with 16 designated as 33 seeds, some are seeding numerically to 64. I believe Kalamazoo is going to use 32 seeds, not 64.

Below are the top eight seeds in each division.  I've lined through the seeds who have already been eliminated, with the boys 16s and 18s particularly notable, with Bill Duo, the top seed in the 18s already out, and Evin McDonald, the No. 2 seed in the 16s, also beaten early. Click on the headers will take you to the Tennis Link site.

Girls 12s, Boca Raton
1. Wang, Matilyn
2. Nelson, Priya
3. Driscoll, Tsehay
4. Ngounoue, Clervie
5. Yu, Eleana
6. Yakoff, Stephanie
7. Jesudason, Meera
8. Roeck, Emma

Girls 14s, Plantation
1. Hibah R. Shaikh
2. Katja Wiersholm
3. Tara Malik
4. Alexandra Torre
5. Valencia Xu
6. Misa Malkin
7. Madison Sieg
8. Allie Gretkowski

Girls 16s, Virginia Beach
1. Fiona Crawley
2. Ruth P. Marsh
3. Gianna Pielet
4. Reilly H. Tran
5. Karina Miller
6. Savannah Broadus
7. Kiana Graham
8. Julia Andreach

Girls 18s, Memphis
1. Chelsea Kung
2. Abigail Forbes
3. Sedona S. Gallagher
4. Anika Yarlagadda
5. Briana Crowley
6. Rachel Lim
7. Cali Jankowski
8. Anna Brylin

Boys 12s, Orlando
1. Cooper Williams
2. Learner Tien
3. Lucas Brown
4. Aidan Kim
5. Kurt Miller
6. Thomas Faurel
7. Nicholas Herdoiza
8. Joseph Phillips

Boys 14s, Ft. Lauderdale
1. Aryan Chaudhary
2. Griffin Daehnke
3. Filipe Costa
4. Jack Anthrop
5. Evan Wen
6. Eli Gordon
7. Samir Banerjee
8. Connor Krug

Boys 16s, Delray Beach
1. Andrew Dale
2. Evin McDonald
3. Leighton Allen
4. Eliot Spizzirri
5. Ryder Jackson
6. Andres Martin
7. Alex Lee
8. Jacob Bullard

Boys 18s, Delray Beach
1. Bill Duo
2. Harris Walker
3. Robert Maciag
4. Christian Alshon
5. Trey Hilderbrand
6. Carson Haskins
7. Jake Sands
8. Mac Kiger

The USTA announced the prize money for the 2017 US Open today, and it's a record $50.4 million dollars.  First round prize money is up to $50,000, and there's been a substantial increase in prize money, nearly a million dollars more, for the qualifying tournament, to $2.9 million. The breakdown for each round of qualifying was not provided in the release.

2017 US Open Prize Money

Singles:
Winner: $3,700,000
Runner-Up: $1,825,000
Semifinalist: $920,000
Quarterfinalist: $470,000
Round of 16: $253,625
Round of 32: $144,000
Round of 64: $86,000
Round of 128: $50,000

Doubles:
Winner: $675,000
Runner-Up: $340,000
Semifinalist: $160,000
Quarterfinalist: $82,000
Round of 16: $44,000
Round of 32: $26,500
Round of 64: $16,500