US Open Entries Announced; No More Service Lets for Women in College Tennis; Stearns, Wolf and McNally Awarded Cincinnati Qualifying Wild Cards; 14s Clay Court Recaps; Quinn, Williams Advance at Champaign $25K

The USTA released the entry lists for the US Open today, with the rankings from Monday used to determine who makes the main draw (the qualifying field is based on the rankings from August 1).

The United States has the most competitors of any country, and this is before wild cards, with 15 women and 13 men. The cutoffs, as of today, are 99 for women (with six players using a protected rankings) and 101 for men (with four players using a protected ranking). Jack Sock, Stefan Kozlov and JJ Wolf are 3, 4 and 5 on the alternate list, so they should get in. As of today, unvaccinated non-citizens can't enter the United States, so if this doesn't change, at least one man, Novak Djokovic, will have to withdraw.

The men's list is here; the women's list is here.

The ITA announced the rule changes for the upcoming 2022-23 season and the big news is that women will now play service lets (if the serve hits the net and goes into the proper service box, the ball is in play)..  The men have been treating a let serve as any other shot for years now, but the women stuck with the pro standard until today. Juniors on the ITF Circuit have been playing service lets since 2018 and I prefer it; Wimbledon is the only junior slam that didn't adopt that change and found I have little patience for that do-over now; so as far as I'm concerned, this is a positive step for college tennis, not least because both genders have the same rule.

It's obvious from the number of rules addressing it that bench and support staff sportsmanship was a problem last year, and several of the changes are an attempt to reign that in. 

Sportsmanship overall has been deemed a Point of Emphasis for the upcoming season with "stricter enforcement of all sportsmanship-related ITA rules including unsportsmanlike conduct rules for on-court players, unsportsmanlike conduct rules for coaches and bench player harassment rules."

In yet another release I received today, the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati announced that qualifying wild cards are being awarded to three players from Ohio: Caty McNally, JJ Wolf(Ohio State) and NCAA singles champion Peyton Stearns(Texas). The player lists for the main draw of the tournament, which begins with qualifying on Saturday August 13, is here.

The Tennis Recruiting Network's articles on the 14s Clay Court Championships went up today, with this recap of Jack Kennedy's sweep of the boys titles, and Julieta Pareja's victory in the girls singles.

Two juniors advanced to the second round of the $25,000 USTA Men's Pro Circuit tournament in Champaign today, with 18-year-old Ethan Quinn(Georgia) defeating lucky loser Alex Brown(Illinois) 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 and 17-year-old Harvard recruit Cooper Williams, a qualifier, beating Tristan McCormick(Georgia) 7-6(2), 6-4. It's Williams second main draw win on the Pro Circuit and the first on the $25K level; Quinn now has 16 singles wins on the men's Pro Circuit this year.

The $60,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit tournament in Evansville Indiana has been plagued by heat and humidity, with only two matches completed this morning before the heat index went to and remained over 100 degrees all day. With first round matches yet to be played, they are moving indoors Thursday, according to the order of play.

At the $25,000 tournament in Saskatoon Canada, Victoria Mboko won the battle of Canadian teens, defeating wild card Kayla Cross 6-4, 6-1. Two other teenagers advanced to the quarterfinals with wins today: 17-year-old Canadian Maria Stakusic and 19-year-old Madison Sieg.  Stakusic, who beat No. 2 seed Elvina Kalieva 6-4, 6-1 last night, defeated qualifier Hibah Shaikh(Virginia) 6-3, 6-3 today. Sieg, the rising freshman at USC, defeated No. 7 seed Ena Shibahara(UCLA) of Japan 6-3, 6-4.

Three Americans have advanced to Friday's quarterfinals at the ATP Challenger 80 in Indianapolis with wins today. Aleks Kovacevic(Illinois) defeated qualifier Sho Shimabukuro of Japan 6-3, 6-4; No. 8 seed Chris Eubanks(Georgia Tech) beat qualifier Jerry Shang of China 7-5, 6-3 and wild card Alex Rybakov(TCU) defeated Alexis Galarneau(North Carolina State) 6-4, 5-7, 6-3. Ben Shelton is the only American in singles action on Thursday; he plays No. 2 seed Tim van Rijthoven of the Netherlands for a place in the quarterfinals.