Ohio State Men, North Carolina Women No. 1 in New ITA Oracle Rankings; 119th Edition of The Ojai Underway; Women Competing in Two ITF World Tennis Tour Events This Week in USA

The Ohio State men and the North Carolina women are No. 1 in the ITA Division I rankings revealed today. The Buckeyes remain in the top spot, while the Tar Heels, who won the ACC tournament Sunday, take over from Georgia, who lost in the SEC tournament final.  The Big Ten and the Pac-12 will be playing their conference tournaments this weekend, and the NCAA team selections will be live streamed on ncaa.com Monday April 29 at 6 p.m. for the men and 6:30 for the women.

For the complete list of rankings, see the ITA website.

ITA Division I Men’s Top 16 Rankings, April 23, 2019

1. Ohio State (1)
2. Texas (2)
3. Wake Forest (4)
4. Florida (3)
5. Virginia (5)
6. Baylor (8)
7. Mississippi State (6)
8. USC (10)
9. TCU (7)
10. North Carolina (9)
11. Texas A&M (11)
12. Tennessee (13)
13. UCLA (14)
14. Stanford (12)
15. Illinois (15)
16. Columbia (16)

ITA Division I Women’s Top 16 Rankings, April 23, 2019
1. North Carolina (2)
2. Georgia (1)
3. South Carolina (5)
4. Duke (3)
5. Stanford (4)
6. Pepperdine (6)
7. Vanderbilt (8)
8. Texas (7)
9. UCLA (10)
10. Florida State (11)
11. Washington (13)
12. NC State (9)
13. Kansas (20)
14. Oklahoma State (12)
15. USC (15)
16. Cal (14)

Women’s Top 10 singles:
1. Katarina Jokic, Georgia (1)
2. Estela Perez-Somarriba, Miami (2)
3. Kate Fahey, Michigan (3)
4. Ingrid Gamarra Martins, South Carolina (4)
5. Makenna Jones, UNC (6)
6. Fernanda Contreras, Vanderbilt (5)
7. Alexa Graham, UNC (7)
8. Kenya Jones, Georgia Tech (8)
9. Anna Rogers, NC State (10)
10. Sophie Whittle, Gonzaga (11)

Women’s Top 5 doubles:
1. Lauryn John-Baptiste and Ilze Hattingh, Arizona State (2)
2. Angela Kulikov and Rianna Valdes, USC (4)
3. Janet Koch and Nina Khmelnitckaia, Kansas (3)
4. Gabby Andrews and Ayan Broomfield, UCLA (8)
5. Jessie Aney and Alexa Graham, UNC (7)

Men’s Top 10 singles:
1. JJ Wolf, Ohio State (1)
2. Nuno Borges, Mississippi State (2)
3. Carl Soderlund, Virginia (5)
4. Paul Jubb, South Carolina (6)
5. Alex Rybakov, TCU (3)
6. Petros Chrysochos, Wake Forest (4)
7. Oliver Crawford, Florida (11)
8. Christian Sigsgaard, Texas (9)
9. Aleks Kovacevic, Illinois (8)
10. Brandon Holt, USC (10)

Men’s Top 5 doubles:
1. Sven Lah and Jimmy Bendeck, Baylor (1)
2. Henry Patten and Oli Nolan, UNC-Asheville (2)
3. Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic, Mississippi St (3)
4. Maxime Cressy and Keegan Smith, UCLA (5)
5. Christian Sigsgaard and Harrison Scott, Texas (6)

Libbey Park, Ojai California

The Pac-12 team tournaments will be held once again at The Ojai, in Ojai California, now in its 119th year.  The variety of tennis on display at this event is incredible, from junior, high school and junior college championships, to Pac-12 team and men's and women's Open competitions. The latter always draw good fields due to the the prize money at stake and this year the top seeds in the Open draws are touring pros Jared Hiltzik and Hanna Chang. Although most events don't start until Wednesday, the qualifying for the Open events began today.  For more on the top players in their respective draws, see this preview article by Steve Pratt.

The two ITF World Tennis Tour events in the United States this week are both women's tournaments, with a $25,000 tournament in Osprey Florida and an $80,000 tournament in Charlottesville Virginia.

With qualifying now complete at Osprey, six Americans advanced to the main draw: Pam Montez(UCLA), Jessica Ho(Duke), Brynn Boren(Tennessee/USC), Emerald Able(Georgia Gwinnett) and juniors Kylie Collins and Katie Volynets. Wild cards were given to Alexa Glatch, a 29-year-old who, until this month, had not played on the circuit since October of 2017, and juniors Elli Mandlik, Alexa Noel and Hurricane Tyra Black. Black and Glatch played today in the first round, with Glatch winning 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Hailey Baptiste won her first round match today 6-3, 6-4 over University of Texas No. 1 Bianca Turati. The top seed is Gabby Ruse of Romania.

In Charlottesville, the six qualifiers include three Americans: Sanaz Marand(UNC), Ingrid Neel(Florida) and Rasheeda McAdoo(Georgia Tech).  Wild cards were given to Virginia recruit Natasha Subhash, Duke recruit Emma Navarro, top seed Taylor Townsend and Loraine Guillermo(Pepperdine). Coco Gauff entered via a junior exemption, but lost today in the first round to Zoe Hives of Australia 6-4, 7-6(3). Whitney Osuigwe, the No. 8 seed, defeated Kayla Day 6-0, 6-4 in a rematch of last year's USTA National 18s final in San Diego, also won by Osuigwe.

The men's tournament this week in the US is the ATP 80 Challenger in Tallahassee, where Paolo Lorenzi of Italy is the top seed. Wild cards were given to Sekou Bangoura(Florida), Alexander Ritschard(Virginia), Dennis Novikov(UCLA), Zane Khan and Sebastian Korda. Bangoura, Novikov and Khan lost first round matches, while Ritschard and Korda won first round matches yesterday before losing their second round matches today.

Ritschard lost to recent Texas A&M graduate Jordi Arconada, who was given a wild card into qualifying and beat top seed Aleks Vukic(Illinois) of Australia yesterday to advance to the main draw. After getting a bye into the second round due to the withdrawal of Daniel Elahi Galan of Colombia, Arconada, who won his first ITF World Tennis Tour singles title earlier this month, defeated Ritschard 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 for his first Challenger-level win.