Four US Girls Reach Orlando ITF Semifinals; Rain Continues to Disrupt Tyler $80K; McDonald, Tiafoe and Paul Advance in Kazakhstan; Ohio State High School Championships Results

Both of the top seeds have advanced to Thursday's semifinals at the ITF Grade 4 in Orlando, with No. 1 Alexis Blokhina one of four American girls to earn quarterfinal wins today at the USTA National Campus.  In the boys draw, top seed Adolfo Daniel Vallejo of Paraguay and unseeded Giulio Perego of Italy, last week's Grade 4 champion in Atlanta, will take on the two remaining US boys in the singles draw.

Blokhina, who did not play last week in Atlanta, defeated unseeded Calissa Dellabarca 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(1) and will play qualifier Sarah Hamner. Hamner, who has verbally committed to South Carolina for 2021, defeated unseeded Olivia Lincer 6-2, 6-4 for her sixth win of the week. The other semifinal features No. 6 seed Katja Wiersholm and wild card Ashlyn Krueger. Wiersholm advanced when Grace O'Donnell retired trailing 3-6, 7-6(4), 4-0. Krueger, a finalist last week in Atlanta, defeated qualifier Tsehay Driscoll 6-2, 2-6, 6-2.

Vallejo, who defeated unseeded Nedim Suko 6-4, 7-5, will face No. 7 seed Braden Shick, who beat No. 4 seed Azuma Visaya 0-6, 6-3, 6-3. Perego, who defeated wild card Nicholas Godsick 6-3, 6-1, meets unseeded Colton Smith for a place in the final. Smith, who has committed to Arizona, downed 15-year-old qualifier Joseph Phillips 7-5, 6-4. 

Two of the doubles quarterfinals matches were not completed, but three teams in each draw have booked their spots in the semifinals. Hamner and Krueger are still alive in doubles, as is Shick.

Three days of rain in Tyler Texas has put the $80,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit tournament way behind schedule, with qualifying matches moved indoors to the SMU facility in Dallas and just six of those competed: the final three first round qualifying matches and three second round qualifying matches. Those qualifying so far are Jamie Loeb(UNC), who defeated alternate Paula Kania-Chodun of Poland 7-6(5), 6-4; Ankita Raina of India, who defeated Tessah Andrianjafitrimo of France 6-0, 6-2 and Georgina Garcia-Perez of Spain, who defeated Alycia Parks 6-4, 6-4.

Three of the four Americans in the draw at the ATP 250 in Kazakhstan won matches today, with Mackenzie McDonald(UCLA) picking up a first round win and Frances Tiafoe and Tommy Paul advancing to the quarterfinals with victories today.  McDonald defeated No. 6 seed Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-2 and will play wild card Andreas Seppi of Italy tomorrow. Tiafoe took out No. 2 seed Miomir Kecmanovic 7-5, 6-3 and will play Egor Gerasimov of Belarus in Friday's quarterfinals. It's Tiafoe's second ATP quarterfinal appearance this year, with the previous one back in February at Delray Beach. Paul, the No. 7 seed, beat Radu Albot of Moldova 6-4, 6-0 and will face No. 4 seed John Millman of Australia in the quarterfinals Friday.  Tennys Sandgren(Tennessee), the fourth American in the draw, lost his first round match Tuesday.

For more on Tiafoe's victory, see this article from the ATP website. 

Scott Gerber does a tremendous job of covering Ohio high school tennis, and with the girls state championships concluding last weekend, there is plenty of new content on his website, OhioTennisZone.com, including scores, photos and videos.