United States Teams Announced for ITF World Junior Tennis Competition in Czech Republic; Qualifying Complete at This Week's Three USTA Pro Circuit Tournaments

The International Tennis Federation's 14-and-under World Junior Tennis Competition begins August 7th, with 16 boys teams and 16s girls teams from across the globe traveling to Prostejov Czech Republic, for the six-day team tournament.

The United States is one of ten countries sending both boys and girls teams.

USA's Girls WJT Team:

Kristina Penickova

Annika Penickova

Nancy Lee

Captain: Thierry Champion

USTA's Boys WJT Team:

Jordan Lee

Marcel Latak

Izyan Ahmad

Captain: Jon Glover

The girls team from Serbia, featuring Wimbledon 14U and European 14U champion Luna Vujovic will be one of the favorites, with Great Britain and France sending strong boys teams.

For the nominations for all 32 teams, see this article from the ITF Junior website.

As was the case last week, there are three USTA Pro Circuit tournaments, a $60K for women and a $25K and 15K for men, this week.

The women are in Dallas, at a rare summer indoor hard court tournament. Qualifying was completed today, with all eight qualifiers Americans: Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M), Allie Kiick, Madison Sieg(USC), Ravenna Kingsley, Chloe Beck(Duke), Mccartney Kessler(Florida), Dalayna Hewitt and Reese Brantmeier(UNC). Top qualifying seed Grace Min, who lost to Stoiana, received entry as a lucky loser.

Madison Brengle and Yafan Wang of China are the top two seeds. Main draw wild cards were awarded to Hadley Doyle(SMU), Chloe Henderson(NC State), 16-year-old Alanis Hamilton and Eryn Cayetano(USC). 

The men's $25,000 tournament in Edwardsville Illinois also had eight Americans win their final qualifying matches today: Quinn Vandecasteele(Oregon), Axel Nefve(Notre Dame/Florida), Alex Petrov(Illinois), Ishaan Ravichander(Columbia), Alejandro Moreno(Auburn), Pierce Rollins(Texas A&M), Daniel Milavsky(Harvard) and Gabrielius Guzauskas(Illinois).

Last week's champion in Champaign, Aidan Mchugh of Great Britain, is the top seed, with Naoki Nakagawa of Japan the No. 2 seed.

Wild cards were given to Hunter Heck(Illinois), Michael Zheng[7](Columbia) and Kyle Kang(Stanford), with Ozan Baris(Michigan State) receiving an ITF Junior Exempt entry.  

2022 Kalamazoo 18s champion Learner Tien received direct entry and will face Ravichander in the first round. Should Zheng defeat Heck, he and Tien will meet in the second round. Wimbledon boys semifinalist Cooper Williams is a third Kalamazoo entrant in the main draw (Tien and Kang); he will face No. 8 seed Makoto Ochi of Japan in the first round.

At the $15,000 men's tournament in Pittsburgh, on outdoor clay, 

Kyle Seelig(Ohio State) and Tristan McCormick(Notre Dame/Georgia) are the top two seeds. 

Qualifiers included five Americans, two of whom are Kalamazoo entrants: Cyrus Mahjoob(Michigan) and wild card Stiles Brockett. Also reaching the main draw are Alex Bancila(Illinois/Tulane), Ryan Dickerson(Duke/Baylor) and Tyler Stice(Auburn). 

Wild cards were awarded to Loren Byers(Penn State), Thomas Brown(South Carolina/Charlotte), Felix Corwin(Minnesota) and Henrik Wiersholm(Virginia). Four first round singles matches were played today, with Corwin winning his match over Evan Bynoe and Wiersholm falling to Juan Carlos Aguilar(Texas A&M/TCU) of Canada.

The first round at the ATP 250 Atlanta Open will finish this evening with the final match featuring 18-year-old qualifier Jerry Shang of China and 20-year-old Ben Shelton(Florida), the No. 6 seed.

Maxime Cressy got his revenge against Alex Michelsen, who had beaten him in the first round at Newport last week, with the former UCLA standout taking a 6-3, 6-3 decision in Atlanta this afternoon.  John Isner, who is a six-time champion in Atlanta, lost to Dominik Koepfer(Tulane) of Germany 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-6(3). 

Chris Eubanks, the No. 5 seed, defeated wild card Andres Martin 6-2, 6-4 in the College Night match between Georgia Tech Yellowjackets.  Eubanks' next opponent Brandon Nakashima(Virginia) defeated Max Purcell of Australia 6-3, 7-6(5). JJ Wolf(Ohio State), the No. 8 seed, beat qualifier Jason Jung(Michigan) 6-2, 6-1 last night and will play Cressy in the second round.