Top Two Seeds in B16s USTA Winter Nationals, No. 1 Seed in B18s, No. 2 and 3 Seeds in Girls 18s Fall; Quarterfinals Set for Sunday

The quarterfinals are set for New Year's Day at the USTA 18s and 16s Winter Nationals in Lake Nona, with very few top seeds still in the mix for a gold ball.

Unseeded 14-year-olds Carel Ngounoue and Keaton Hance took out the top two seeds in the Boys 16s, with Ngounoue, the brother of top junior Clervie Ngounoue, beating No. 1 seed Dominick Mosejczuk 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-2, and Hance, the brother of UCLA sophomore Kimmi Hance, defeating No. 2 seed Dylan Long 6-2, 6-3.

In the Boys 18s, unseeded Matthew Fullerton defeated No. 1 seed Xander Barber 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-1, and is one of six unseeded players in Sunday's quarterfinals.

I'm not sure if the World Tennis Number was used for seeding in this tournament, but if it was, these results are certainly not a good advertisement for it. The highest seed remaining in any of the four divisions in Lake Nona is No. 3 Leena Friedman in Girls 16s; half of the 32 quarterfinalists are unseeded.

Most of the top seeds in the Girls 16s lost before today, but in the Girls 18s, No. 2 seed Esha Velaga was beaten by Alana Boyce, a No. 17 seed, 6-4, 6-3, and No. 3 seed Susanna Maltby lost to another No. 17 seed, Gayathri Krishnan, 6-3, 6-4.

Live streaming is available, via Playsight, is here.

Sunday's quarterfinal matchups:

Boys 18s
Matthew Fullerton vs Waleed Qadir[16]
Kase Schinnerer vs Declan Galligan
Brandon Carpico vs Mikel Anderson
James Lian[10] vs Saahith Jayaraman

Boys 16s

Carel Ngounoue vs Stephen Faraci

Brody Nejedly Krall[3] vs Maximus Dussault

Mitchell Sheldon[13] vs Benjamin Sparks

Noah Johnston[8] vs Keaton Hance

Girls 18s

Ariel Madatali vs Amber Yin[8]

Sari Woo[17] vs Alanis Hamilton[16]

Aspen Schuman[7] vs Gayathri Krishnan[17]

Tianmei Wang vs Alana Boyce[17]

Girls 16s

Summer Chandler vs Nadia Barteck[17]

Leena Friedman[3] vs Kenzie Nguyen[17]

Thea Latak vs Christina Lyutova[16]

Sophia Holod[6] vs Monika Ekstrand

Officials at the USTA Winter Nationals 12s and 14s in Tucson must have looked at the same weather forecast as I did yesterday, because they changed the day with two matches scheduled from Sunday to today. After rain the first day put the tournament behind, in order to finish it, two singles matches in the same day were necessary, so those are taking place today. The round of 32 is complete, with the round of 16 later today and the quarterfinals on Sunday (weather permitting). I will post the results of the quarterfinals in tomorrow's post.

Samir Banerjee fell short in his quest for a first ITF men's World Tennis Tour final today, falling to No. 2 seed Bogdan Bobrov of Russia 7-6(1), 7-6(4) at the $15,000 tournament in Tunisia, but it was still the best week on the Pro Circuit for the 19-year-old Stanford freshman as he prepares for the dual match season.