ITF Grade A Porto Alegre Underway with 29 Americans in Main Draw; Collins, Anisimova Advance at WTA 125 in Indian Wells; Kingsley Among Qualifiers at $25K Futures in Canada

The second Grade A of the ITF's 2018 Junior Circuit is underway in Porto Alegre Brazil, with 13 US boys and 16 US girls competing in the 64-player singles draws.

The US has seven of the 16 girls seeds: No. 3 Alexa Noel, No. 5 Lea Ma, No. 7 Peyton Stearns, No. 10 Elli Mandlik, No. 11 Gabby Price, No. 15 Hailey Baptiste and No. 16 Chloe Beck.  Fourteen-year-old Charlotte Owensby was the only American to get through qualifying, although two US boys--Milledge Cossu and Benjamin Kittay--were given wild cards.  The other US girls in the draw are: Vanessa Ong, Katie Volynets, Shelly Yaloz, Kacie Harvey, Addison Guevara, Alexandra Yepifanova, Sanyukta Gawande and Sabina Dadaciu.  Top seed Maria Osorio Serrano of Colombia has won four straight ITF Grade 1 titles since the first of this year, including last week's Banana Bowl. Ong, who lost to Osorio Serrano last week in the semifinals, drew her in the first round this week.

Only two US boys are seeded: No. 4 Drew Baird and No. 6 Tristan Boyer. Boyer was a finalist at last week's Grade 1 Banana Bowl.  The other US boys in the draw are: Ronan Jachuck, Sangeet Sridhar, Eliot Spizzirri, William Grant, Tyler Zink, Govind Nanda, Pierce Rollins, Nathan Han and Brian Shi. Nicolas Mejia of Colombia is the boys top seed.

The tournament website is here, and it has printable draws and orders of play, but I am unable to find any scoring or results.

The BNP Paribas Open begins next week in Indian Wells, but the Tennis Garden is hosting tennis this week as well, with the second of two tournaments in the inaugural Oracle Challenger Series.  The men's event is a $150,000 ATP Challenger; the women's event, also with $150,000 in prize money, is part of the WTA's 125 series.  The first events were back in January in Newport Beach California, with Taylor Fritz and Danielle Collins claiming the titles.  Those two are now in the lead for the BNP Paribas Open wild card given to the American man and woman who amass the most ATP and WTA points in the two tournaments.  Two-time NCAA singles champion Collins received a wild card into the main draw and today won her opening round over 2009 BNP Paribas champion Vera Zvonareva of Russia 6-1, 6-4. Zvonareva received a wild card into the main draw, as did USTA 18s National Champion Ashley Kratzer.  Another two-time NCAA champion in the draw, Nicole Gibbs, won her first round match, defeating No. 7 seed Natalia Vikhlyantseva of Russia 7-5, 6-2.  Reigning US Open girls champion Amanda Anisimova, who has played just two tournaments this year with the first being Newport Beach, beat fellow qualifier Naomi Broady of Great Britain 6-1, 6-1. Wild card Caroline Dolehide reached the second round with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Spain Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain.

The results of the final round of qualifying on Sunday:

Men:

[1] C. Harrison (USA) d [7] M. Matosevic (AUS) 64 64

[2] M. Krueger (USA) d S. Fanselow (GER) 61 64

[3] A. Sarkissian (USA) d [6] N. Scholtz (RSA) 76(0) 36 63

[8] M. Giron (USA) d E. Song (USA) 64 75


Women:

Y. Wang (CHN) d L. Chirico (USA) 63 75

N. Broady (GBR) d J. Boserup (USA) 63 57 63

M. Doi (JPN) d V. Lapko (BLR) 76(1) 63

S. Errani (ITA) d C. Liu (USA) 63 36 63

V. Duval (USA) d F. di Lorenzo (USA) 63 62

A. Anisimova (USA) d S. Jang (KOR) 63 36 60

World No. 1 junior and Australian Open boys champion Sebastian Korda received a wild card, as did Reilly Opelka, Noah Rubin and Evan King.  Korda played his first round match today and lost to Norbert Gombos of Slovakia 6-0, 6-4.

With no USTA Pro Circuit events in the US this week, many American men are in Gatineau Canada for a $25,000 ITF Men's Circuit Futures.  Qualifying was completed today, with Michael Redlicki, DJ Thomas, Strong Kirchheimer, Jonathan Chang, Junior Ore and Cannon Kingsley advancing to the main draw.  Kingsley, a 16-year-old New Yorker who recently announced his verbal commitment to Ohio State, defeated No. 8 seed and former Texas A&M standout Harrison Adams 3-6, 6-3, 6-0 in the final round of qualifying.  He has drawn top seed Dominik Koepfer of Germany in the first round.