One Top Seed Survives, One Falls in Third Round of ITF J300 in College Park, Qualifier Schuman Reaches Quarterfinals; Fourteen More Americans Advance to Second Round of US Open Qualifying; Isner Announces Retirement
©Colette Lewis 2023--
College Park MD--
Court 14 is not the usual court assignment for top seeds, as they typically play their matches at the ITF J300 at the Junior Tennis Champions Center on the Stadium Court 17, the Pershing Square Court. But with that court reserved for two of the JTCC wild cards in the round of 16, Joao Fonseca of Brazil and Mayu Crossley of Japan played on Court 14 in Wednesday's third round, with Fonseca losing 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 to No. 13 seed Alex Razeghi and Crossley saving match points in her 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 win over No. 16 seed Alexia Harmon.
"I've always kind of been the guy to fight, that's how people remember me," said Razeghi, a 17-year-old left-hander from Texas. "So I didn't want it to be easy for him. Even if he were to beat me, I still was going to make him fight for it."
Although the temperature was in the 70s with low humidity during the morning match, Razeghi felt he had the edge when it came to the physical side of the match.
"I feel like physically I'm up there with some of the good juniors, so I thought I could get him a bit tired here, make him play a lot of points," Razeghi said. "He kind of gave me a couple things, but I had to play pretty well."
There were no breaks of serve in the second set until Razeghi broke for a 4-3 lead. He immediately went down 0-30 in his service game, with a double fault and an error, but won the next four points to go up 5-3.
"Down 0-30, I just told myself to make him earn it," Razeghi said of that crucial hold. "I hit some really good shots down the stretch, so I'm happy with that."
Fonseca couldn't match Razeghi when it came to winning the important points in the last three games and he was broken at 15-40 to end it.
"This is my best win," Razeghi said, in reviewing his ITF junior career. "I beat [former ITF No. 1 junior Rodrigo] Pacheco on grass courts, but obviously I feel Pacheco is more of a clay court player. I feel like [Fonseca] is probably the best player I've ever played, so it was great to get that experience under my belt, so I know what's next."
Razeghi's quarterfinal opponent is No. 6 seed Rei Sakamoto of Japan, who ended the run of wild card Stiles Brockett 6-4, 6-2. Razeghi is 2-0 in their head-to-head, having beaten Sakamoto in the third round at last year's tournament here 6-2, 6-3.
No. 3 seed Branko Djuric of Serbia defeated Matthew Forbes 6-4, 6-2 and will play No. 7 seed Nicolai Budkov Kjaer of Norway, who beat No. 11 seed Roy Horovitz 7-5, 6-3.
After saving match points in the second round, Iliyan Radulov of Bulgaria breezed into quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-0 win over No. 13 seed Yuvan Nandal. He will face wild card Cyrus Mahjoob, who came from 5-2 down in the third set to beat Atakan Karahan of Turkey 6-4, 4-6, 7-5, much to the delight of the fans surrounding the Pershing Square court.
The fourth quarterfinal will feature two unseeded players, Charlie Robertson of Great Britain and Alexander Frusina. Robertson won his third consecutive three-setter, beating No. 12 seed Lasse Poertner of Germany 6-4, 2-6, 6-3, while Frusina also won his third straight match from a set down, beating wild card Kase Schinnerer 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Girls top seed Mayu Crossley followed Fonseca on Court 14, and it appeared that it would be the graveyard of her chances for a title too, before she came from 5-2 down in the third set to beat No. 16 seed Alexia Harmon 2-6, 6-2, 7-5.
Crossley had a one word description of her performance at the start of the match. "First set was bad," said the 17-year-old from Japan, who trains at the Evert Academy in Boca Raton. "In the second set, I figured out how I should play, but in the third set I started a little bit slow."
Broken serving at 4-2, Crossley escaped Harmon's first attempt to serve out the match, but serving at 3-5, she faced match points when Harmon had the ad. Unwilling to go down meekly, Crossley stepped up, forcing errors on both the match points with aggressive ground strokes, and she held for 5-4.
"I was playing not my best, but I was fighting every point," said Crossley. "She was also fighting, but she got very tight the last few games, so I took chances to go for it and it worked. I got better when she felt much pressure, when she thought she could win."
Harmon's second chance to serve out the match was filled with errors, with Crossley just needing to keep the ball in play to break. An easy hold by Crossley and the pressure was on Harmon again, and her backhand, usually a strength on her game, let her down, with three errors from that side giving Crossley an improbable win.
"The last few games I fight even more, compete," said Crossley, who cited her experience in big matches as an edge in that situation. "It was mental."
Crossley will face No. 8 seed Rositsa Dencheva of Bulgaria, who defeated unseeded Emily Sartz-Lunde of Norway 7-5, 6-0. Crossley beat Dencheva in the quarterfinals of both the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl last December, tournaments Crossley went on to win.
"It was clay, so a little bit different," said Crossley, who admits she prefers that surface to the hard courts.
The other quarterfinal in the top half will feature the only two Americans remaining, both unseeded. Ashton Bowers took down a seed for the second straight day, beating No. 13 Maya Joint of Australia 6-4, 6-2; qualifier Aspen Schuman got her sixth win in five days, beating No. 12 seed Tatum Evans 6-1, 5-7, 6-2.
Schuman, who has just begun to travel to ITF tournaments this year, reached her first quarterfinal at a J300 by withstanding all the physical challenges of a three-hour-plus marathon on top of all her time on court the previous four days.
"I feel pretty good," said the 16-year-old from Northern California, who is accustomed to playing a USTA schedule that often has two matches a day. "It's pretty normal for me, I'm pretty used to it. It is hot here though."
Schuman admitted that getting over dropping the second set was a challenge.
"That's always tough," said Schuman, who reached the final of a $15,000 USTA SoCal Pro Series tournament in San Diego in June, losing to NCAA champion Fangran Tian of UCLA. "I just do the best I can, take a few deep breaths, just remember there's another set to play, that it happens against good players at good tournaments and it's ok, just keep trying."
Bowers and Schuman will be playing for the first time.
The quarterfinal between No. 7 seed Gloriana Nahum of Benin and No. 3 seed Teodora Kostovic of Serbia will feature two players who survived lengthy three-setters Wednesday, Kostovic rebounded to beat No. 14 seed Ariana Pursoo 0-6, 7-6(4), 7-6(5), while Nahum needed three hours and 20 minutes to get past No. 11 seed Mika Buchnik of Israel.
The other bottom half quarterfinal is between No. 2 seed Emerson Jones of Australia, a 6-4, 7-5 winner over Hephzibah Oluwadare of Great Britain, and No. 9 seed Monika Stankiewicz of Poland, who defeated No. 5 seed Wakana Sonobe of Japan 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-1.
The top two seeds in boys doubles lost in the first matches of the tournament, having had byes in the first round. Boys No. 1s Djuric and Arthur Gea of France lost to Meecah and Kaylan Bigun 4-6, 6-3, 10-1 and No. 2 seeds Budkov Kjaer and Poertner fell to Andrew Delgado and Forbes 7-6(7), 6-4.
The boys doubles are a round behind the girls, so they will play their quarterfinals Thursday, while there are no girls doubles scheduled.
The girls doubles semifinals are set for Friday, with Kayla Chung and Alanis Hamilton playing No. 8 seeds Crossley and Oluwadare. Chung and Hamilton convincingly avenged their loss in the San Diego 18s final to Olivia Center and Kate Fakih 6-1, 6-1, while Crossley and Oluwadare beat unseeded Jessica Bernales and Savannah Webster 6-1, 6-3.
Evans and Sonobe, the No. 3 seeds, will take on the 13-year-old Penickova twins in the other semifinal. Evans and Sonobe defeated No. 5 seeds Pursoo and Joint 7-5, 4-6, 10-8, while Annika and Kristina Penickova took out No. 2 seed Mara Gae of Romania and Lily Taylor of Australia 4-6, 6-4, 11-9.
Matches begin with boys singles quarterfinals at 10 a.m. Thursday, followed by girls singles quarterfinals and boys doubles quarterfinals. Live scoring will be available here.
The first round of qualifying is complete at the US Open, with 14 Americans picking up wins today in New York.
Sixteen-year-old Valerie Glozman, who won a round in women's qualifying last year, repeated that accomplishment, saving two match points in her 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-1 win over 34-year-old Olga Govortsova.
Texas fifth year Eliot Spizzirri also claimed his second US Open qualifying victory, with a 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-1 decision over Matteo Gigante. Spizzirri won a round in men's qualifying in 2021, but with his wrist injury still an issue last year, did not have an opportunity to compete in New York.
Overall, Americans went 23-12 in the first round of qualifying, with the women 11-7 and the men 12-5. (See Tuesday's results here). The second round of qualifying, consisting of 64 matches, is scheduled for Thursday.
Katrina Scott[WC] d. Natalija Stevanovic 6-2, 3-3 ret.
Emina Bektas[26] d. Marcela Zacarias 6-2, 6-1
Elvina Kalieva d. Maria Timofeeva[27] 7-6(4), 7-5
Louisa Chirico d. Nao Hibino[1] 7-6(3), 6-3
Mccartney Kessler[WC] d. Yue Yuan[7] 4-6, 6-2, 7-6(4)
Valerie Glozman[WC] d. Olga Govortsova 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-1
Ann Li d. Carlota Martinez Cirez 7-6(1), 6-2
Tennys Sandgren(Tennessee) d. Denis Kudla 7-6(6), 6-4
Maxime Cressy(UCLA) d. Vit Kopriva 6-3, 6-3
Zachary Svajda d. Ivan Gakhov 7-6(1), 6-7(5), 7-6(6)
Nicolas Moreno De Alboran[25](UC-Santa Barbara) d. Elias 6-4, 6-2
Eliot Spizzirri[WC](Texas) d. Matteo Gigante 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-1
Emilio Nava d. Tomas Barrios Vera 7-5, 6-2
Aleks Kovacevic[18](Illinois) d. Tung-Lin Wu 3-6, 6-2, 6-3
John Isner has announced the US Open will be his last tournament. I'll be linking to as many articles as possible on what the former University of Georgia star has meant to college tennis and to the ATP tour in the next several weeks.
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