Navarro and Daavettila Meet in NCAA Semifinals, Defending Champion Perez-Somarriba Rallies; Riffice Faces Top Seed Draxl; Emory Sweeps Division III Titles; Five Americans Advance to Final Round of French Open Qualifying

The top two seeds in both the NCAA Division I men's and women's singles draws advanced to Thursday's semifinals, with defending champion Estela Perez-Somarriba's stunning comeback highlighting the eight matches played today at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona Florida.

Perez-Somarribes trailed No. 7 seed Abbey Forbes of UCLA 7-6(5), 5-0, saved a match point, then fought all the way back to post an improbable 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-3 victory. The fifth-year senior will face unseeded Janice Tjen of Oregon in Thursday's semifinals. For more on the match today, see this article from the Sun-Sentinel.

In the top half, No. 1 seed Sara Daavettila will face No. 3 seed Emma Navarro, after both recorded straight-sets victories today. Daavettila defeated unseeded Christina Rosca of Vanderbilt 6-2, 6-4 and Navarro beat unseeded Paris Corley 6-2, 6-1.

All four of the men's quarterfinals were decided in straight sets. Adrian Boitan of Baylor defeated Will Blumberg of North Carolina 6-4, 6-1 to set up a meeting with No. 2 seed Daniel Rodrigues of South Carolina. Rodrigues continued his march through the draw, defeating unseeded Aleks Kovacevic, a semifinalist in 2019, 6-1, 6-3. 

Top seed Liam Draxl of Kentucky won in straight sets for the first time this tournament, beating No. 8 seed Gabriel Decamps of Central Florida 7-6(6), 6-1. Draxl will face the lone American remaining in the men's draw, No. 6 seed Sam Riffice of Florida. Riffice took out No. 4 seed Valentin Vacherot of Texas A&M 6-3, 6-0.

Thursday's doubles semifinals will feature just three seeded teams, two in the men's draw and one in the women's draw.

Sven Lah and Constantin Frantzen of Baylor, seeded 5-8, defeated No. 2 seeds Blumberg and Brian Cernoch 6-4, 0-6, 10-7 and will face No. 3 seeds Adam Walton and Pat Harper of Tennessee. Walton and Harper downed Loic Cloes and Clement Marzol of South Alabama 6-4, 6-2.

In the top half, Guy Den Ouden and Adrian Oetzbach of Pepperdine defeated Siim Troost and Vlad Lobak of Minnesota 6-3, 3-6, 10-7 and will play Auburn's Finn Murgett and Tad Maclean, who beat Riley Smith and Daniel Cukierman of Southern California 7-7(2), 3-6, 10-3.

Navarro is the only player still remaining in both singles and doubles, with the Virginia freshman and her partner Rosie Johanson defeating Jayci Goldsmith and Tatiana Makarova of Texas A&M 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the semifinals against Kylie Collins and Lulu Sun of Texas. Collins and Sun defeated Andrea Garcia and Nandini Das of Florida State 6-3, 6-7(2). 10-5. 

The only women's seeds remaining are No. 4 Elizabeth Scotty and Makenna Jones of North Carolina. They beat Sofia Munera and Natasha Subhash of Virginia 6-3, 6-3 and will pay Alana Smith and Anna Rogers of North Carolina State, who defeated Elysia Bolton and Jada Hart of UCLA 7-6(4), 6-3.

The women's singles semifinals are scheduled for noon, followed by the men's singles semifinals at 2 p.m., the women's doubles semifinals at 4 p.m. and the men's doubles finals at 6 p.m.

Coverage will be available through the TennisONE app.

After Barry swept the Division II team titles last week, Emory did the same in Division III, with the men defending their 2019 title and the women avenging their 2019 semifinal loss to champion Wesleyan.

The Emory men, who have now won six national titles, defeated Case Western Reserve 5-2 in today's final in Chattanooga Tennessee. The Emory women, who have now won eight national titles, beat Wesleyan 5-0 to claim their first national team championship since 2016. 

Five Americans have advanced to the final round of qualifying for the French Open, with Hailey Baptiste, Varvara Lepchenko, Mackenzie McDonald(UCLA), Bjorn Fratangelo and Jenson Brooksby(Baylor) winning their second round matches today.  Baptiste, who defeated Claire Liu 6-3, 6-3 today, will play Julia Grabher of Austria for a place in the main draw, and Lepchenko faces No. 7 seed Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany.

McDonald, the No. 9 seed, plays Marco Trungelliti of Argentina, Fratangelo faces Aleks Vukic(Illinois) of Australia and Brooksby meets wild card Evan Furness of France.

Grace Min, who finished her first round match today, is scheduled to play her second round match against No. 22 seed Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland Thursday.

Thursday's order of play is here.