Lopez, Hovde, Miller and Braswell Reach Quarterfinals at Mexico J1; Round Three of NLI Signings; Wolf and Kozlov Reach Champaign Challenger Quarterfinals

A day after beating top seed Leo Borg of Sweden, Kurt Miller backed it up with another straight-sets win over a seed, beating fellow American Sebastian Sec[15] 6-1, 6-3 in the third round of the J1 in Guadalajara Mexico. The 17-year-old is playing in just his second J1; he lost in the first round in the other this August in College Park Maryland.

Miller will face No. 5 seed Gerard Campana Lee of Korea in Thursday's quarterfinals. 

The other US boy to advance to the quarterfinals is also unseeded: Jonah Braswell, who recently signed with the University of Florida for 2022. Braswell defeated No. 8 seed Dinko Dinev of Bulgaria 6-3, 6-3 in the second round and today took out No. 10 seed Juan Manuel La Serna of Argentina 6-7(6), 6-2, 7-5. He will play No. 3 seed Ignacio Buse of Peru next in a rematch of last year's Orange Bowl 16s final, which Braswell won 6-0, 6-1.

No. 5 seed Qavia Lopez and No. 6 seed Liv Hovde are the two US girls in the quarterfinals. Lopez defeated 14-year-old Les Petits As champion Mathilde Ngijol Carre of France 6-4, 6-3 in today's third round, setting up a meeting with top seed Linda Fruhvirtova of the Czech Republic. Hovde, who beat No. 12 seed Mao Mushika of Japan 6-1, 6-2, will play No. 2 seed Brenda Fruhvirtova, Linda's younger sister, in Thursday's quarterfinals. Brenda has lost three games in three matches so far.

It's been a week since National Signing Day, and schools continue to post announcements, as they will undoubtedly do for the next several weeks. Here's the latest, since last Friday. My previous two updates can be found here and here.

MEN:

Arizona has signed Jay Friend of Japan.

Duke has signed Teddy Truwit.

Indiana has signed Luc Boulier of Chile, Ekansh Kumar, Sam Landau and Andrew Meier.

LSU has signed Kent Hunter, a transfer from Cal, who will start in January.

Middle Tennessee has signed Ondrej Horak of the Czech Republic.

Ohio State has signed Jack Anthrop and Preston Stearns. Anthrop will start in January.

Vanderbilt has signed Nathan Cox.

Washington has signed Tristan Messerli.

WOMEN:

Cal has signed Katja Wiersholm, who will start in January.

Colorado has signed Carrington Hayes.

Florida has signed Rachel Gailis, Anastasia Sysoeva and Sophie Williams. Sysoeva, who represents Russia, played frequently in the United States as a junior in 2018. 

Kansas State has signed Vanesa Suarez of Venezuela and Kristina Paskauskas of Great Britain.

Memphis has signed Micah Pierce.

Mississippi State has signed Dharani Niroshan of Canada.

Purdue has signed Kennedy Gibbs, as well as Antonia Pareja and NC State graduate transfer Elizabeth Norman.

Rutgers has signed Arina Valitova, who plays on the ITF Junior Circuit representing St. Kitts and Nevis. 

Texas A&M has signed Daria Smetannikov and Mia Kupres of Canada

TCU has signed Jade Otway of New Zealand and Yu-Chin Tsai of Taiwan.

Utah has signed Marcela Lopez. 

Western Michigan has signed Audrey Smitek.

The USTA's men's Australian Open wild card challenge will extend through Friday matches at the Champaign Challenger now, with both JJ Wolf(Ohio State) and Stefan Kozlov winning their second round matches today in straight sets. Wolf defeated Kaichi Uchida of Japan 6-3, 6-4 and Kozlov downed qualifier Keegan Smith(UCLA) 6-3, 6-1. Wolf faces 2016 Kalamazoo 18s finalist Vasil Kirkov, a wild card, in the quarterfinals; Kozlov will play No. 2 seed Mitchell Krueger. Should they advance to the semifinals, they would play each other, with the winner getting the wild card. Maxime Cressy(UCLA), who still has an outside chance to win the wild card, won his first round match in France today.