Montgomery and Scott Top USTA Nationals Girls 18s Seeds; ITF No. 1s, Wimbledon Junior Champions Head US Open Acceptances; ITF College Park J1 Entry List Points to Strong Field; Michigan's Top Boys Prepare for Kalamazoo Nationals

Katrina Scott and Robin Montgomery
Junior Billie Jean King Cup champions 2019

The USTA Girls 18s National Championships in San Diego don't begin until Sunday, but a link to the list of seeds was posted today at the USTA's PlayTennis site. Robin Montgomery and Katrina Scott are the top two seeds based on their WTA rankings of 357 and 384. Below are the top 32 seeds, the 32 additional seeds can be found here.

G18s seeds:
1. Robin Montgomery
2. Katrina Scott
3. Madison Sieg
4. Alexandra Yepifanova
5. Elvina Kalieva
6. Ashlyn Krueger
7. Reese Brantmeier
8. Amelia Honer
9. Akari Matsuno
10. Sarah Hamner
11. Liv Hovde
12. Elisabeth Jones
13. Ann Guerry
14. Bridget Stammel
15. Emma Charney
16. Natalie Block
17. Meera Jesudason
17. Maddy Zampardo
17. Vivian Miller
17. Eleana Yu
17. Mary Stoiana
17. Katie Codd
17. Isabella Chhiv
17. Kimmi Hance
17. Charlotte Owensby
17. Alexis Blokhina
17. Vivian Ovrootsky
17. Savannah Broadus
17. Clervie Ngounoue
17. Anne Lutkemeyer
17. Kylie Collins
17. Ellie Coleman

The first round of the Girls 16s was played today in San Diego, with the results posted at the PlayTennis site. The top 32 seeds in the 16s play their first matches Thursday. 

The acceptances for the US Open Junior Championships were posted today, with three of the four 2021 junior slam champions entered: Luca Van Assche of France, Samir Banerjee and Ane Mintegi Del Olmo of Spain. French girls champion Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic, who did not enter Wimbledon Juniors either, is the exception. Also entered are the ITF junior No. 1s, Juncheng Shang of China and Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva of Andorra. Eight of the Top 10 boys and eight of the Top 10 girls have entered.

Because the draw size has been reduced from 64 to 48, the cutoffs are much higher than usual, with the girls cutoff 38 and the boys cutoff 36 as of now. Philip Sekulic of Australia, who is ranked 77, gets into to the main draw due to no other representative of his region qualifying otherwise. A player must be in the Top 80 to earn that exemption.

The US girls on the initial acceptance list:

Robin Montgomery

Madison Sieg

Alexandra Yepifanova

Elvina Kalieva

Ashlyn Krueger

Reese Brantmeier

The US boys on the initial acceptance list:

Samir Banerjee

Bruno Kuzuhara

Victor Lilov

Dali Blanch

Alexander Bernard

Ozan Colak

Jack Anthrop

As I mentioned earlier, there are only six main draw and four qualifying wild cards this year, and one of those six main draw wild cards has already been awarded to Clay Court champions Ryan Colby and Amelia Honer.

The acceptances for the College Park Maryland ITF J1 were also released today, although that tournament is two weeks prior to the US Open. Jimenez Kasintseva did not enter, but Shang did, and the cutoffs (the draws are 64) for both boys and girls are inside the Top 100 for the first time in many years. The J1 tournament in Canada that serves as another warmup from the US Open has dropped down to a Grade 3 this year and is just a 32-draw, so I assume that's why so many have opted for College Park this year.

Americans entered in College Park:

Boys:

Banerjee

Kuzuhara

Lilov

Blanch

Bernard

Colak

Anthrop

Quinn

Aidan Mayo

Aidan Kim

Benjamin Kittay

Girls:

Sieg

Yepifanova

Kalieva

Brantmeier

Clervie Ngounoue

Alexis Blokhina

The Kalamazoo Gazette published a superb feature today on the Michigan boys who are playing in the USTA National Championships. If any other local newspaper does this for its players, please let me know. This type of article takes a lot of time and research, but it certainly helps introduce the sport to casual sports fans in the area by giving them a local name and face to follow.