Yepifanova and Kuzuhara Top Seeds at IOSC Grade 1, as Americans Dominate Field; Fernandez Wins First WTA Title in Monterrey; Montgomery Receives Miami Main Draw Wild Card: UNC Fights Back to Remain Undefeated

The main draw of the ITF Grade 1 International Open of Southern California, previously held in Carson and known as the International Spring Championships, gets underway Monday at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego, and I'll be covering my first tournament onsite in over year throughout the week. The draws are reduced this year, from 64 to 48, with the seeds all getting byes in the first round. Juncheng Shang of China, who was on the acceptance list after the withdrawal deadline and played the recent South American tournaments, is not in the draw. Last week's girls champion at the Grade 1 in Colombia, Johanne Christine Svendsen of Denmark also was expected to compete, but is not in the draw.

Americans dominate the seeds, with 12 of the 16 seeds in the boys draw from the US, and 10 Americans seeded in the girls draw. The list of seeds (from US unless otherwise noted):

Boys:
1. Bruno Kuzuhara
2. Jack Pinnington Jones (GBR)
3. Alexander Bernard
4. Jack Anthrop
5. Aidan Mayo
6. Ozan Colak
7. Victor Lilov
8. Samir Banerjee
9. Benjamin Kittay
10. Aidan Kim
11. Yamato Sueoka (JPN)
12. Pedro Rodenas (ESP)
13. Derrick Chen (GBR)
14. Azuma Visaya
15. Yannik Rahman
16. Adit Sinha

Girls:
1. Alexandra Yepifanova
2. Elvina Kalieva
3. Julia Garcia (MEX)
4. Ashlyn Krueger
5. Annabelle Xu (CAN)
6. Valencia Xu
7. Alexis Blokhina
8. Chelsea Fontenel (SUI)
9. Clervie Ngounoue
10. Reese Brantmeier
11. Rebecca Lynn
12. Kayla Cross (CAN)
13. Qavia Lopez
14. Mia Kupres (CAN)
15. Sara Cruz Bonilla (ESA)
16. Elise Wagle

The final round of qualifying was played today, with 11 of the 12 qualifiers coming from the United States.

Las Vegas Grade 4 finalist Sebastian Gorzny, top seed Nicholas Godsick and USTA Individual Spring 16s champion Emon Van Loben Sels are among the six US boys advancing to Monday's first round.

Jingyi Li of China is the only international player to advance through qualifying.

USTA SoCal contributor Steve Pratt has been onsite throughout the qualifying and has interviewed several players about their recent travels on the junior circuit. Top qualifying seed Gracie Epps arrived in San Diego sans her luggage, and Gorzny had no day off between his appearance in the Las Vegas final and a two-match qualifying day on Saturday.  Today, Pratt highlighted several local Southern California players who advanced to the final round of qualifying in his notebook.

Qualifiers:

Nicholas Godsick

Emon Van Loben Sels

Masato Perera

John Kim

Nathan Cox

Sebastian Gorzny

Karsyn Evans

Elisabeth Jones

Katie Codd

Jingyi Li (CHN)

Mary Stoiana

Ahmani Guichard

Draws and Monday's order of play can be found at IOSC website.

Eighteen-year-old Leylah Fernandez of Canada won her first WTA title today at the WTA 250 tournament in Monterrey Mexico. The 2019 French Open girls champion defeated qualifier Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland 6-1, 6-4 in this afternoon's final. 

The qualifying and main draws were released today for the WTA portion of next week's Miami Open. Robin Montgomery who was initially announced as a qualifying wild card recipient, was awarded the eighth and final main draw wild card. The 16-year-old from Washington DC will face Magda Linette of Poland in the first round. Claire Liu and Bethanie Mattek-Sands received qualifying wild cards at the last minute.

At the $15,000 ITF Men's World Tennis Tour event in Croatia, 17-year-old Martin Damm fell in the final to top seed Corentin Denolly of France 3-6, 7-5, 6-0. 

In men's college tennis action today, No. 1 North Carolina fought back from 3-0 down against No. 14 South Carolina to remain undefeated, with Simon Soendergaard saving four match points, any one of which would have given South Carolina the victory, at line six. For more, see this article from the UNC website.