My Recap of Svajda's Second Kalamazoo 18s Title; Krueger Doubles Up in San Diego; Liu and Li Advance to Semifinals of Chicago WTA 125; Qualifying Begins Saturday for College Park J1

Yesterday's Tennis Recuiting Network recap of Alexander Razeghi's Kalamazoo 16s title focused on how dominant his run was despite the 15-year-old's lack of previous experience in Kalamazoo. 

Today, my Tennis Recruiting Network recap of the Zach Svajda's 18s title centers on his equally impressive march through the draw, although he had plenty of experience to draw on, having won in 2019. Going undefeated in a Kalamazoo singles career, with his record 14-0 in the two tournaments he played, gives him a special place in the 78-year history of the tournament.

In the girls 18s, Ashlyn Krueger's sweep of both titles in San Diego were the big news; the TRN article on that championship is here.  Links to recaps of all eight finals are here. 

Americans Ann Li and Claire Liu, both 21, are the oldest of the four semifinalists at the WTA 125 in Chicago. Liu, who defeated qualifier Vitalia Diatchenko of Russia 6-2, 6-3, will face 18-year-old wild card Emma Raducanu of Great Britain, who advanced when Jule Niemeier of Germany retired after losing the first set 7-6(4).  No. 3 seed Li, who beat Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan 6-4, 2-6, 6-3, will face 18-year-old Clara Tauson of Denmark. Tauson took out Australian Storm Sanders 7-5, 6-3 in today's quarterfinals. 

The qualifying draws have been released for the College Park J1, with two rounds scheduled for Saturday at two sites: the Junior Tennis Champions Center and the University of Maryland. There were byes in both qualifying draws, and only eight seeds in the girls, with that the number of girls entered with any ITF junior ranking at all. The top girls seed in qualifying is Japan's Mao Mushika, who is ranked 153, which would have easily gotten her into the main draw had she entered. The No. 2 seed is Ena Koike of Japan, who is 594.

Rohan Belday, ranked 510, is the top seed in the boys qualifying draw. Nearly all the players in qualifying are from the United States.

I'll be providing onsite coverage of the tournament for the seventh year beginning Monday.

The draws for next week's ATP 250 Winston-Salem Open have been released, with no wild cards given to players from the US, and only four Americans in the draw: Tennys Sandgren(Tennessee), Steve Johnson(USC), Marcos Giron(UCLA) and No. 13 seed Frances Tiafoe. 

More Americans are in the 16-player qualifying draw: Denis Kudla[2], Sekou Bangoura, wild cards Eduardo Nava and Donald Young, JC Aragone and Noah Rubin[8].