JA Osaka Returns After Two-Year Hiatus; Big Jump in ITF Junior Rankings for Evans and Rice; Center Sweeps Titles at Dominican Republic J4; Fairfield Challenger Underway; Rubin to Pursue Career in Pickleball

The ITF Grade A in Osaka Japan was not played the past two years due to the pandemic, but it is back for 2022, with the bulk of the competitors from the home country. Three American boys are in this week's field: Adhithya Ganesan, the No. 14 seed, Quang Duong, the No. 16 seed, and Jonathan Irwanto. The fact that Ganesan and Duong are seeded, with rankings of 189 and 203 demonstrate how few top juniors made the trip. Irwanto and Ganesan played last week at the JB1 in Nicholasville Kentucky, Duong did not. Gerard Campana Lee of Korea and Rei Sakamoto of Japan are the top boys seeds.

Six US girls are in the draw: No. 12 seed Sage Loudon, No. 14 seed Anya Murthy, No. 15 seed Maya Iyengar, No. 16 seed Martina Marica, Annette Robertson and Claire An. Iyengar and Murthy won their first round matches today.  Iyengar, Marica, Robertson and An played Nicholasville, Loudon and Murthy did not. College Park J1 champion Sara Saito of Japan, who made the semifinals of a ITF's World Tennis Tour women's $25K in Japan last week as a wild card, is the top seed. Sayaka Ishii of Japan is the the No. 2 seed.

Titles at the ITF JB1 Pan American Closed provided a big boost to the junior rankings to champions Tatum Evans and Keegan Rice, with Evans entering the Top 50 and Rice the Top 100 for the first time. 

The 17-year-old Evans is now at 43 in the world junior rankings, up from 79 the previous week, and has almost no points to defend the rest of the year; the 16-year-old Rice, up to 78 from 169 last week, has no points to defend until next June. My coverage of the Pan American Closed finals can be found here.

With last week's tournament in Nicholasville the major event in North America, lower level tournaments were sparse last week. But there was a J4 in the Dominican Republic, where 16-year-old blue chip Olivia Center swept the titles, her first two ITF Junior Circuit titles. The unseeded 16-year-old from Southern California, who had played just three ITF Junior Circuit events prior to this one, defeated unseeded Ishika Ashar 6-2, 6-2 in the all-US singles final. In doubles, again unseeded, Center and her partner Ginger Foster won the title with a 6-2, 6-2 decision over No. 4 seeds Manuela Gomez and Mariapaz Ospina of Colombia.

The only other title for Americans was a boys doubles title for 13-year-old Carel Ngounoue at a J4 in Togo. Ngounoue and partner Abubakari Yakubu-Lea of Ghana, the No. 1 seeds, defeated No. 3 seeds Raphael Ankrah and Caleb Aryettey of Ghana 7-5, 6-4 in the final. 

Qualifying is complete and main draw matches have begun at the ATP Challenger 80 in Fairfield California. Four of the six qualifiers are Americans and all have D-I college backgrounds: Alafia Ayeni(Cornell/Kentucky), Tennys Sandgren(Tennessee), Alfredo Perez(Florida) and Sam Riffice(Florida). 2022 NCAA finalist August Holmgren(San Diego) of Denmark and Alexandr Cozbinov(UNLV) of Moldova are the international qualifiers.

Denis Kudla, who retired from his semifinal match with Ben Shelton in Tiburon last week, was to be the No. 1 seed, but pulled out; Stefan Kozlov the No. 2 seed. Wild cards were given to Christian Langmo(Miami), Jacob Fearnley(TCU) of Great Britain and Aidan Mayo. Langmo defeated Govind Nanda(UCLA) 6-4, 6-4 for his first Challenger main draw win in six attempts. Mayo plays No. 4 seed Ben Shelton; Tiburon champion Zachary Svajda, the two-time Kalamazoo 18s champion, received a special exemption into the main draw this week and will play Holmgren.

2014 Wimbledon boys and Kalamazoo 18s champion Noah Rubin announced today that he will be pursuing a career in professional pickleball, after decided a few weeks ago that he did not want to continue playing on the ITF/ATP circuits. His video announcement can be found here. ESPN spoke with him about his new venture, which he was not planning when he retired from tennis. If you're interested in a look at the burgeoning professional pickleball leagues, see this article from the New Yorker.