Baptiste and McNally Earn First WTA Main Draw Wins; US Teams for ITF World Junior 14U Championships Announced; Collegiate Doubles Success Continues on ATP Tour

It was a memorable evening at the Citi Open for 17-year-old wild cards Hailey Baptiste and Caty McNally, both of whom recorded their first WTA main draw wins in the first round of the International event in Washington DC.

Baptiste, who has played very little at the highest levels of the ITF World Tennis Tour and had never played a WTA Top 100 player, defeated No. 2 seed Madison Keys 7-6(4), 6-2. She was broken only once, at 5-5 in the first set, and saved two set points before breaking Keys and winning the tiebreaker. Ranked 283, Baptiste was giving away 266 ranking spots to Keys.

McNally, who had qualified last month at Wimbledon and won a $100,000 tournament this winter, was not as surprising a winner today. Ranked 150, McNally has already posted six WTA Top 100 wins, and her 6-4, 6-2 victory over No. 125 Lin Zhu of China, who she had beaten last month, was hardly an upset. But a first WTA-level win is significant regardless of the circumstances.

The more widely known teenager in action today at the Citi Open, 15-year-old Coco Gauff, lost her first round match to Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-2.

The USTA announced the teams that will be representing the United States in the annual ITF World Junior Tennis 14-and-under competition in Prostejov, Czech Republic beginning next Monday.

Thirteen-year-old Clervie Ngounoue, 14-year-old Tsehay Driscoll and 14-year-old Qavia Lopez are the US girls at the 16-team event, and because this competition always directly conflicts with the US National Championships, they have to give up one of the biggest events in the country to participate. Maureen Diaz is the USTA National Coach traveling with the girls.

The boys team consists of Kyle Kang, Nishesh Basavareddy, both 14, and 13-year-old Dylan Charlap. Jon Glover is the USTA National Coach accompanying the boys.

The US boys team of Victor Lilov, Bruno Kuzuhara and Evan Wen won the title last year; the girls team of Katrina Scott, Robin Montgomery and Reese Brantmeier finished third.

The USTA release, including more information on each of the players, can be found here.

In the same month that former USC star Robert Farah won the Wimbledon doubles title, other former collegians have excelled on the ATP tour. Last week the Belgian team of Sander Gille (East Tennessee State) and Joran Vliegen (East Carolina) won their second consecutive ATP title at the ATP 250 in Switzerland, after winning the ATP 250 in Sweden the week before. Vliegen is now 43 in the ATP doubles rankings, while Gille is 55. For more on their title, see the ATP website article.

At the BB&T Atlanta Open, Austin Krajicek(Texas A&M) and Dominic Inglot(Virginia) of Great Britain, won their second title in the past two months, saving two match points in their 6-4, 6-7(5), 11-9 win in the final over Mike and Bob Bryan(Stanford).  All four finalists were NCAA doubles champions; the Bryans in 1998, Inglot in 2009 and Krajicek in 2011. For more on their win Sunday, see this article from the ATP website.

In other doubles news, only one title was captured by American juniors last week on the ITF Junior Circuit, in doubles at the Grade 3 in the Dominican Republic.  Top seeds Kailey Evans and Hina Inoue defeated No. 5 seeds Zoe Hitt and Sofia Rojas 7-5, 2-6, 10-8 in the all-USA final. Both Evans and Inoue lost in the singles semifinals. No. 12 seed Aidan Mayo reached the boys singles final, falling to top seed Rafael Abdul Salam of Venezuela 6-1, 6-4. No. 3 seed Lauren Anzalotta of Puerto Rico won the girls singles title, beating unseeded Corina Spasojevic of Canada 6-0, 2-6, 6-3 in the final.