Qualifier Stoiana Defeats Li to Reach Dallas $60K Quarterfinals; Tien Advances at Edwardsville $25K; Shnaider Makes WTA Hamburg Semis; Maymi Returns to Michigan as Head Coach

Mary Stoiana hasn't played many USTA Pro Circuit events, but the 20-year-old rising junior at Texas A&M has made her tournaments count. Stoiana, who finished her sophomore year No. 2 in the ITA season-ending rankings, has played three tournaments this summer as a member of the USTA's Summer Collegiate Team. She qualified for the first, a $60K in Sumter, losing in the first round to Yuliia Starodubtseva(Old Dominion) of Ukraine, who went on to win the tournament. She qualified for a SoCal Pro Series $15K in Lakewood and made the final, retiring to Hanna Chang at 1-1 in the first set.

At this week's $60,000 tournament in Dallas, Stoiana needed a wild card to get into qualifying, but made the main draw, beating Ashley Lahey(Pepperdine) in the first round. Today she earned the best win of her career,  beating No. 3 seed Ann Li, a former WTA Top 50 player, 6-1, 6-3. Stoiana will face No. 6 seed Himeno Sakatsume of Japan in the quarterfinals Friday.

The other Americans advancing to the quarterfinals are Makenna Jones(UNC), a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Hanna Chang, and top seed Madison Brengle, who beat qualifier Chloe Beck(Duke) 6-1, 6-7(1), 6-2. Brengle will face Starodubtseva, who is up to 248 in the WTA live rankings.

2022 Kalamazoo 18s champion Learner Tien is warming up for his title defense this week at the $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Edwardsville Illinois, and the 17-year-old advanced to his second $25K quarterfinal today, beating No. 7 seed  and fellow teenager Michael Zheng(Columbia) 6-3, 6-1. Five of today's round of 16 matches have not yet finished, with four not even starting, including Cooper Williams' match with qualifier Quinn Vandecasteele(Oregon).  Tien will play the winner of the match between top seed Aidan Mchugh(Great Britain) and Colin Markes(Texas).

Four Americans are through to the quarterfinals at the $15,000 men's USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Pittsburgh, with wild card Felix Corwin(Minnesota) and No. 4 seed Bruno Kuzuhara, the 2022 Australian Open boys champion, set to face off on Friday.  Another junior grand slam champion, 2021 Wimbledon champion Samir Banerjee(Stanford), will play No. 3 seed Ignacio Monzon of Argentina. Top seed Kyle Seelig(Ohio State) faces last week's $15K champion in Rochester, No. 6 seed Darian King of Barbados.

Nineteen-year-old Russian Diana Shnaider will move back into the WTA Top 100 next week after the 2023 NC State star advanced to her first WTA 250 semifinal this week in Hamburg. Shnaider, who finished No. 4 in the ITA rankings after her freshman year with the Wolfpack, defeated No. 3 seed Bernarda Pera 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 in today's quarterfinals, her second win over the WTA No. 56 in the past two weeks. Shnaider, who won a WTA 125 title last fall in South America, will play wild card and fellow 19-year-old Noma Noha Akugue of Germany Friday for a place in the final.

One day after I gave up and posted all the accumulated college tennis coaching news, the University of Michigan announced that the final significant vacant coaching position has been filled. University of Nebraska head coach Sean Maymi, who twice served as an assistant/associate coach at Michigan, has been named to replace Adam Steinberg, who took the University of Florida men's head coaching job last month.

Maymi, who left Michigan in 2018 to take the head coaching job at Nebraska, will need to replace the Wolverines top 3 from last year's NCAA quarterfinalists, and Switzerland's Patrick Schoen, who just won the European Championships, is not expected to enroll in Ann Arbor now. The University of North Carolina is  expected to be his destination in January of 2024.