Osuigwe Wins Australian Open Main Draw Wild Card; Yucatan ITF Grade A Underway; More College Signing Announcements

Whitney Osuigwe won the USTA's Australian Open Wild Card Challenge late last night, when Lauren Davis, the last player with an opportunity to pass her in the race, lost in the final of the WTA 125 in Houston. Davis took a quick first set, and went up 3-1 in the second set, but Peng Shuai of China fought back for a 1-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory, denying Davis the points that would have given her the wild card.  The 16-year-old Osuigwe, who lost to Peng in the quarterfinals in Houston, had won the title at the $80,000 Pro Circuit event in Tyler Texas and her second round win over Varvara Lepchenko, who also won an $80,000 event, was the difference in the final standings.

Osuigwe will be playing in her second straight women's slam, having made the main draw of the US Open this year as the USTA Girls 18s National Champion.

Jack Sock won the men's Australian Open wild card, with Reilly Opelka and Bradley Klahn finishing second and third. Because Opelka and Klahn have moved into the Top 100, they will make the main draw on their own rankings now. If Sock gets in on his own ranking, now 106, the wild card would go to the fourth place finisher, Tommy Paul.  Klahn, who won the Houston title with a 7-6(4), 7-6(4) win over Baylor sophomore Roy Smith, moved all the way up to 77 in the ATP rankings with that title.

Links to the final standings for the USTA's Australian Open Wild Card Challenge can be found here.

The ITF Grade A in Mexico is underway in Yucatan, with 25 US girls and 14 US boys in the main draw.  All eight of the qualifiers in the girls draw are from the US: Elizabeth Stevens, Alexandra Yepifanova, Rosie Garcia Gross, Katrina Scott, Sophia Hatton, Zoe Hitt, Sara Seivane Torres and Charlotte Chavatipon. The three US boys getting in through qualifying are Alexander Bernard, Adam Neff and Alex Bancila.

The US girls in the main draw are Coco Gauff[2], playing her first event since the US Open Juniors; Hurricane Tyra Black[8], Gabby Price[11], Chloe Beck[12], Savannah Broadus, Kacie Harvey, Kylie Collins, Charlotte Owensby, Nikki Redelijk, Sanyukta Gawande, Kailey Evens, Hina Inoue, Jenna DeFalco, Robin Montgomery, Elvina Kalieva, Jennifer Gadalov and Hiba Shaikh.

The US boys in the main draw are: Drew Baird[3], Tyler Zink[9], Emilio Nava[10], Eliot Spizzirri[15], Zane Khan[16], Toby Kodat, Martin Damm, Ronan Jachuck, Blaise Bicknell, Will Grant and Milledge Cossu.

ITF Junior Masters champion Clara Burel of France is the girls top seed, with Nicolas Mejia of Colombia the boys top seed.

The tournament website is here, but the live scoring link doesn't work for me.

More National Letter of Intent signing announcements have been released since I posted the initial batch last Thursday and links to them are below:

Men:
Louisville has signed Matthew Fung, Randy Wilson, Sergio Luis Hernandez Ramirez of Colombia and Tin Chen of Taiwan (a transfer from ASA Miami JC).

Texas Tech has signed Reed Collier and Tyler Stice.

LSU has signed Ron Hohmann.

Georgia has signed Tyler Zink.

Florida State has signed Juan Martin Jalif of Argentina and Marcus Walters of Great Britain (a transfer from Tyler JC).

UNC-Charlotte has signed Wesley Barnett.

Boise State has signed Kyryll Kryvchun of Canada (a transfer from College of the Desert and Mesa Community College).

Oregon has signed Luke Vandecasteele.

Iowa has signed Matt Clegg of Great Britain.

Duke has signed Michael Heller, Garrett Johns, Omni Kumar, Samuel Rubell and Andrew Zhang.

Women:
Illinois has signed Josie Frazier and Ashley Yeah.

Florida has signed Sydney Berlin of Sweden.

Arkansas has signed Laura Rijkers of the Netherlands.

Boston College has signed Hailey Wilcox.

Kansas has signed Carmen Roxana Manu of Romania.

North Carolina State has signed Lana Mavor and Marta Gonzalez-Ballbe of Spain

Notre Dame has signed Page Freeman.