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Saturday, March 10, 2018

Vickery, Anisimova, Dolehide, Collins and Fritz Beat Seeds to Advance to BNP Paribas Open Third Round; McNally and Osuigwe Win Doubles Title at Orlando $15K; Redlicki Makes Canadian Futures Final; Kingsley and Evans Take ITF Grade 3 Costa Rica Titles

On Friday night, 16-year-old Amanda Anisimova and 19-year-old Caroline Dolehide defeated seeded players to advance to the third round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells California.  Anisimova, the reigning US Open girls champion, needed just one hour to beat No. 23 seed Anastasiya Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 6-4, 6-1 and she will face No. 9 seed Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic on Sunday.  Dolehide got past No. 30 seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 to earn a third round contest with top seed Simona Halep of Romania. Sachia Vickery, newly into the Top 100 for the first time in her career, came from a set and 3-0 down to defeat No. 3 seed Garbine Muguruza of Spain 2-6, 7-5, 6-1 and will play Naomi Osaka of Japan on Sunday.

On Saturday, two-time NCAA champion Danielle Collins earned the best win of her pro career, beating No. 15 seed Madison Keys 6-3, 7-6(1) for her first WTA Top 20 win.  Collins, ranked 117, broke Keys in the opening game of the match and then again to take the set. Keys wasn't sharp and wasn't getting many free points on her serve, but Collins, who graduated from Virginia last year, hit with pace and depth to keep Keys from dictating the points.  Collins fell behind a break early in the second set, and Keys served for the set at 5-4 and 6-5, but untimely double faults and some impressive defense by Collins kept her in several important points that she eventually won.  The tiebreaker was all Collins, staying in the points until Keys made an error.  Collins will face 19-year-old Sofya Zhuk of Russia in the third round. The two played in the final of the Newport Beach Oracle WTA 125 back in January, with Collins coming back for a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory. That win helped get Collins the main draw wild card at Indian Wells, and certainly helped Zhuk's case as well, although she wasn't announced as a wild card until the day before the qualifying began.

On Friday, wild card Ernesto Escobedo defeated Delray Beach Open champion Frances Tiafoe 7-5, 6-3, his third pro level win over Tiafoe, to advance to a second round meeting with No. 28 seed Feliciano Lopez of Spain.  Tennys Sandgren also advanced to the second round with a win Friday, as did 17-year-old Felix Auger-Aliassime, who got his first ATP victory over fellow Canadian Vasek Pospisil.

Mitchell Krueger is still on court tonight, but Taylor Fritz has already booked his spot in the third round.  Like Collins, Fritz won the Newport Beach Oracle Challenger, but he ended up not needing the wild card.  After a win over Reilly Opelka in the first round, Fritz came up against another NextGen star in No. 27 seed Andrey Rublev and he rode the Southern California crowd support to a 6-4, 7-6(4) victory.  Rublev broke Fritz to go up 5-4, but Fritz played an outstanding game to break back and kept his level high in the tiebreaker.  He will play the winner of tonight's match between Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria, the No. 3 seed, and Fernando Verdasco of Spain.


The singles final is set for the $15,000 Women's Pro Circuit event in Orlando, with No. 3 seed Sophie Chang facing No. 6 seed Astra Sharma of Australia, the Vanderbilt senior.  Change beat No. 2 seed Chanel Simmonds of South Africa 6-1, 6-3, while Sharma took down No. 8 seed Jessica Pegula 6-4, 6-4. 

In the doubles final, 16-year-old Caty McNally and 15-year-old Whitney Osuigwe continued their dominance, with the No. 3 seeds beating top seeds Ilona Kremen of Belarus and Dia Evtimova of Bulgaria 6-2, 6-3. McNally and Osuigwe did not drop a set all week in earning their first pro title as a team.

Qualifier Michael Redlicki will face No. 5 seed Dominik Koepfer of Germany in the final of the $25,000 Futures in Canada Sunday. Koepfer defeated JC Aragone 7-6(4), 6-3, while Redlicki edged Brayden Schnur of Canada 7-6(4), 7-6(0).  Former Memphis standout Joe Salisbury won the doubles with fellow British player Luke Bambridge. The top seeds beat the unseeded team of Adrien Bossel of Switzerland and Joris De Loore of Belgium 6-3, 7-5 in the final.

At the ITF Grade 3 in Costa Rica, 15-year-old Kailey Evans and 16-year-old Cannon Kingsley won all-American finals.  Evans, a qualifier, defeated 14-year-old Elvina Kalieva, also a qualifier, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 to earn her first ITF Junior Circuit singles title.  Kingsley, unseeded, beat No. 6 seed Alex Lee 6-1, 6-2 to capture his third ITF Junior Circuit singles title.

Lee did earn a title, taking the doubles with Ronan Jachuck.  The No. 1 seeds beat George Davis of Great Britain and Alan Sau Franco of Mexico 6-4, 6-3 in the final.  Evans and her partner Savannah Broadus, who were unseeded, beat top seeds Niluka Madurawe and Addison Guevara 6-3, 6-3 to claim the girls doubles title.

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