USTA Nationals 12s and 14s Wild Cards; 16-Year-Old Ngounoue Posts Best Career Win at Dallas $25K; Anthrop Advances at Edwardsville $25K; Ayeni and Zhu Face Off in Winnipeg Challenger Quarterfinals

I posted the wild cards for the USTA Boys and Girls 16s and 18s on Monday, but didn't have any information on the 12s and 14s until today. As you can see, there is much less demand for a wild card in those age divisions, but because there is no designation on the draws, it's important to those of us reporting on the tournaments to have access to that information somehow.

B12s:

Gaurbaaz Narang
Quint Freeman
Payton Yea

G12s:
Nala Gorham
Welles Newman  (USTA 12s Clay Court finalist)
Bella Arwood
Lola Llach

B14s:
Joshua Miller
Udaijot Sangha
Jack Lindstrom
Juan Parrilla
Harrison Glickstein

G14s:

none

Clervie Ngounoue has shown no sign of rust since returning to competitive tennis this week at the $25,000 USTA women's Pro Circuit tournament in Dallas. The 16-year-old from Washington DC hadn't played since retiring from her semifinal match at a $15K in Morocco in March, but today she picked up the best win of her career, defeating No. 4 seed and WTA No. 241 Marcela Zacarias of Mexico 7-5, 6-3. Next up for Ngounoue, who is using the Dallas tournament as a warmup for the USTA Girls Nationals next month in San Diego, is 18-year-old Katrina Scott, the No. 5 seed. Scott, who is not playing San Diego, defeated wild card Kylie McKenzie 6-2, 6-0. 

An American champion is already guaranteed in Dallas, with the other three quarterfinal matches also between US players.

Top seed Robin Anderson(UCLA) will face Alexa Glatch; No. 6 seed Elvina Kalieva will play NCAA champion Peyton Stearns, and Hina Inoue takes on No. 2 seed Hanna Chang.

The quarterfinals are not quite set at the $25,000 Men's Pro Circuit tournament in Edwardsville Illinois, after play was canceled for the day due to rain with Michael Zheng leading No. 6 seed Peter Bertran(South Florida) of the Dominican Republic 6-1, 2-3.  The other seven singles matches were completed.

Georgia redshirt freshman Ethan Quinn's Pro Circuit winning streak ended at six, when last week's Champaign champion retired trailing qualifier Jack Anthrop 5-2. Anthrop will face No. 8 seed Nathan Ponwith(Arizona State). Ponwith won their second round meeting earlier this month at the Lakewood $15K 6-1, 6-1.

In the other quarterfinals, unseeded Karlis Ozolins(Illinois) of Latvia will play qualifier James Trotter(Ohio State) of Japan after both took out seeds. Ozolins defeated No. 7 seed Makoto Ochi of Japan 7-6(5), 6-2 and Trotter outsted No. 2 seed Martin Damm 6-4, 6-4. Patrick Kypson(Texas A&M), who beat Ronan Jachuck(Harvard) by the bizarre score of 6-1, 0-6, 6-1, will face No. 5 seed Zeke Clark(Illinois), who advanced when Stefan Dostanic(USC) retired trailing 5-2.

Sam Riffice(Florida) beat top seed Pedja Krstin of Serbia 6-2, 6-1 and will play the winner of the Zheng-Bertran match in the quarterfinals.

Today's action at the ATP Challenger 80 in Winnipeg, which was washed out yesterday, saw qualifiers Evan Zhu(UCLA) and Alafia Ayeni(Cornell) advance to a quarterfinal meeting. Zhu, who defeated No. 5 seed Kaichi Uchida of Japan 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, will be playing in his second Challenger quarterfinal. Ayeni defeated qualifier Kyle Edmund the former ATP No. 14 from Great Britain,  7-6(2), 6-2 with Edmund returning to competition this week after injuries have kept him out for the better part of two years. It's Ayeni's first quarterfinal at the Challenger level. 

Andres Martin of Georgia Tech played his second round ATP Atlanta Open match against lucky loser Adrian Mannarino of France today, and although he got off to an excellent start, leading 4-1 in the first set, the rising junior lost to the ATP No. 78 7-5, 6-3.  No. 6 seed Jenson Brooksby(Baylor) defeated Mackenzie McDonald(UCLA) 6-3, 6-4 in the other second round day match in Atlanta. NCAA champion Ben Shelton(Florida) plays No. 2 seed John Isner(Georgia) later tonight.