Kwiatkowski and Dolehide Win USTA Pro Circuit Titles; Krajicek Claims First Masters 1000 Title in Monte Carlo; Texas Men, Michigan Women Earn Top 10 Wins, Conference Championships

2017 NCAA singles champion Thai Kwiatkowski won his first title since 2020 today at the $15,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Sunrise Florida. The 28-year-old University of Virginia graduate's previous title came at an ATP Challenger 125 right before the pandemic, and he got to a career-high of 181 in the ATP rankings right after that, but did not have the same success post-pandemic and played sparingly, using a protected ranking, in 2022.

Kwiatkowski, who received a wild card into the Sunrise tournament, defeated No. 3 seed Tristan McCormick 6-4, 7-6(5) in today's final and did not drop a set in his five victories.

Caroline Dolehide ended an even longer title drought today at the $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Boca Raton, with the No. 5 seed defeating unseeded Hailey Baptiste 6-4, 6-4. The 24-year-old, whose WTA career-high ranking is 102, dropped just one set, to top seed Emma Navarro, during the week.

Former North Carolina Tar Heels Jamie Loeb and Makenna Jones won the doubles title today, with the No. 2 seeds defeating No. 4 seeds Sofia Sewing(Miami) and Fanni Stollar of Hungary 5-7, 6-3, 10-8 in today's final.

At the ATP Challenger 125 in Sarasota, no Americans reached the quarterfinals in singles. In today's final, No. 5 seed Daniel Altmaier of Germany defeated No. 3 seed Daniel Elahi Galan of Colombia 7-6(1), 6-1.  Top seeds Julian Cash(Mississippi State/Oklahoma State) and Henry Patten(UNC-Asheville) won the doubles title without dropping a set, beating the unseeded team of Guido Andreozzi and Guillermo Duran of Argentina 7-6(4), 6-4 in the final. 

A second NCAA champion won a title today, with 2011 doubles champion Austin Krajicek earning his first ATP Masters 1000 title in Monte Carlo. The former Texas A&M star and partner Ivan Dodig of Croatia, seeded fifth, saved two match points in the final, defeating the unseeded wild card team of Romain Arneodo of Monaco and Sam Weissborn of Austria 6-0, 4-6, 14-12.  The 32-year-old Krajicek is now up to No. 3 in the ATP doubles rankings, a career-high. For more on the final, see this article from the ATP website.

Friday's match between the No. 3 Duke and No. 1 North Carolina women wasn't as close as expected, and No. 8 NC State handled No. 9 Virginia with no problems, but the other two Top 10 battles this weekend produced some tension.

Last night's 5-2 win by the top-ranked Texas men over No. 3 TCU in front of a record crowd in Austin, saw five of the six singles matches go to a third set, after the Horned Frogs had taken the double point. The Longhorns, who had beaten TCU 4-1 last month in Fort Worth, clinched the regular season conference title with the win and have likely secured the top seed in the NCAA team championships. 

Today's 4-1 win by the sixth-ranked Michigan women over No. 7 Ohio State was closer than the score might suggest. Michigan took the doubles point and four first sets in singles, but Ohio State fought back to force third sets at lines 5 and 6. After Kari Miller had made it 2-0 Michigan, Ohio State got on the board at line 2, but Lily Jones came back from a set down to win at line 4 to make it 3-1 and Julia Fliegner clinched at line 3, with Ohio State close to victories at lines 5 and 6.

With the win, Michigan clinched the Big Ten regular season title.

The second-ranked Texas A&M women completed their second straight undefeated SEC regular season, securing the conference title with a 4-1 win over Vanderbilt. The Georgia men also finished the SEC regular season undefeated in conference play.

The Big 12 women's regular season title is shared by Oklahoma and Texas, both of whom had 8-1 records. Texas beat Oklahoma, but lost to Oklahoma State in conference play.

The Virginia men, like the North Carolina women, finished ACC regular season play undefeated, with the Cavaliers beating Georgia Tech 6-1 today in Charlottesville to end conference play with a 12-0 record.

The Pac-12 has another weekend of conference matches before their regular season champions are determined.