Three JTCC Wild Cards Advance to Round of 16; Both No. 4 Seeds Ousted in Second Round of College Park ITF J300; Nine Americans Advance in US Open Qualifying

©Colette Lewis 2023--

College Park MD--

All three boys wild cards from the Junior Tennis Champions Center took advantage of their familiar surroundings and the home crowd support Tuesday, beating seeded players to advance to the round of 16 at the ITF J300 Wayne K. Curry Prince George's County International Junior Tennis Championships presented by Laurel Spring School.

Cyrus Mahjoob, who just completed a whirlwind courtship with the University of Georgia, has lost only three games in his two matches this week.

Yesterday he defeated Nicolas Oliveira of Brazil 6-1, 6-1; today he took out No. 9 seed Fernando Cavallo of Argentina 6-0, 6-1, with both matches barely an hour in length.

Mahjoob, who reached the 18s Clay Court Nationals final last month, attributed much of his success to keeping his error level low.

"Right off the bat today, I wasn't giving anything away for free," said Mahjoob, who turns 18 next month. "I was making him play every ball, hitting the ball very well, making him feel he needs to do something special with the ball. Not giving him anything, I think I broke his confidence pretty early in the match and made him go for more."

The comfort level that Mahjoob has at JTCC, where he has trained for 11 years, obviously made it easier for him to adjust to last week's chaos, when he contacted Georgia about a possible spot on their team, was accepted and enrolled in the space of four days.

"I had to move down, I signed up for classes Friday morning and actually went to class 45 minutes later," said Mahjoob, who had de-committed from Michigan after the coaching change there. "The professors didn't even know what I was doing in there; I had to introduce myself, tell them, 'I'm sorry, I'm not in the database right, but I swear I'm in the right place.'"

Georgia's associate head coach Jamie Hunt, who has been in College Park this week, called it the "quickest recruitment ever," but has certainly liked what he's seen of Mahjoob the past two days.

"I have been just super impressed," Hunt said. "The thing that stands out is the competitor he is. He wants to win every single point and is disappointed when he doesn't. He did so many things well out there, stepped up in the court, applied pressure when he had the opportunity to finish at the net, defended really well; his winner error ratio was like 10 to zero."

After losing to Kyle Kang in the round of 16 at Kalamazoo, Mahjoob had a fortuitous meeting with head coach Manny Diaz in the TSA security line.

"He told Manny, hey coach my best friend Ryan Colby is coming to you guys," Hunt said of the impromptu meeting. "They started talking and Manny texted me and Ryan and said he'd met Cyrus and that he'd been released from Michigan, so obviously we were very interested. We asked if he could come on a visit, he came on a visit 24 hours later, and committed on Monday night. It was the quickest recruitment ever, but he fits everything we're looking for."

Mahjoob will play unseeded Atakan Karahan of Turkey, who defeated No. 8 seed Kaylan Bigun 6-0, 7-6(5).

Stiles Brockett, another of the JTCC wild cards, is working considerably longer hours for his victories, having beaten Volodymyr Iakubenko of Ukraine 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Monday and No. 10 seed Kevin Edengren of Sweden, a recent University of Florida recruit, 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 today. Brockett's next opponent is No. 6 seed Rei Sakamoto of Japan.

While Mahjoob and Brockett have a long history at JTCC, the third wild card, Kase Schinnerer, has been in College Park only since the beginning of this year. Schinnerer, who won his wild card in a tournament last week, got the biggest win of the three today, taking down No. 4 seed Tomaz Berkieta of Poland 6-1, 6-2.

"I knew from the start he was going to hit the ball bigger than me," said the 17-year-old from Pennsylvania. "But if I could just hang in there at the start, get up. And he started a little slow, missed a few shots going for it, and I was like, just stay in there, stay in there, keep making him play. He had a little bit of an off day, so I was able to dictate without being in control of points. I was a little bit defensive, but it worked; I changed things up with the slice, changed up my serve, so yeah, it was a good match today."

Schinnerer noted the benefit of training with players of the calibre of Mahjoob and Brockett.

"They are some of hardest working guys you'll ever see," said Schinnerer. "I'm from a small town in Pennsylvania and my mom coached my brother(14s Nationals finalist Erik) and I. Coming from somewhere like that, first in Florida and now here, having the coaches we have here, the players who have come of out of here. All the things we've been working on, things are starting to come together."

While Berkieta was the highest seed to lose, he was far from alone, with 7 of the 16 falling today.

Matthew Forbes defeated No. 14 seed Jangjun Kim of Korea, Schinnerer's next opponent, Alexander Frusina, defeated No. 16 seed Tianhui Zhang of China, and Charlie Robertson of Great Britain defeated No. 5 seed Arthur Gea of France 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 6-0. Forbes faces No. 3 seed Branko Djuric of Serbia, who beat wild card Calvin Baierl 6-3, 6-3.

Top seed Joao Fonseca of Brazil breezed to a 6-0, 6-1 win over Mikael Arseneault of Canada, but No. 2 seed Iliyan Radulov of Bulgaria had to save two match points trailing 3-6, 3-5 to end the run of qualifier Nikita Filin 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. Fonseca's opponent in the round of 16 is No. 13 seed Alexander Razeghi, who defeated qualifier Nicolas Arseneault of Canada 6-0, 6-3.

The only qualifier remaining in either draw is 16-year-old Aspen Schuman, who defeated No. 6 seed Mara Gae of Romania 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. Other girls seeds to fall in their first singles matches of the tournament are No. 10 seed Lily Taylor of Australia, who was beaten by University of Michigan recruit Emily Sartz-Lunde of Norway 6-4, 6-2; No. 15 seed Elizara Yaneva of Bulgaria, who lost to Hephzibah Oluwadare of Great Britain 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, and No. 4 seed Mingge Xu of Great Britain, who dropped a three-and-a-half-hour match to Ashton Bowers 7-6(2), 1-6, 6-4.

Bowers admitted the match was a war of attrition by the third set.

"I honestly felt really tired," said Bowers, a 17-year-old from Georgia who has committed to Auburn for 2024. "At the beginning it wasn't very hot outside, but the heat definitely caught up to both of us and I think the pace of the match was getting slower, but I feel pretty good right now."

Bowers had not seen Xu play, but had a strategy from what she had heard about Xu's game style.

"I knew she was a very powerful player, liked her forehand and has a big serve," Bowers said. "So I had to neutralize the points and serve well myself, which I did."

Bowers went up 3-0 in the final set, and winning those early deuce games steeled her resolve when Xu began to creep closer.

"I won all three deuce games, so I was feeling really confident, even after losing 1-6 in the second," Bowers said. "I had the confidence, even after she won a few games, that I had a good chance to win the match."

Bowers will next face friend Maya Joint, the No. 13 seed, who defeated qualifier Monika Ekstrand 7-5, 4-6, 6-2. Joint recently changed to representing Australia, where her father is from.

Top seed Mayu Crossley had a tough first set against Katie Rolls, but came through in straight sets, 7-6(3), 6-0. No. 2 seed Emerson Jones of Australia defeated Krisha Mahendran of India 6-3, 6-2.

The top seeds in girls doubles lost in their first match of the tournament, with Alanis Hamilton and Kayla Chung beating No. 1 seeds Teodora Kostovic of Serbia and Gloriana Nahum of Benin 6-3, 6-4. In the quarterfinals, Hamilton and Chung will meet Olivia Center and Kate Fakih in a rematch of the Girls 18s final 10 days ago in San Diego, which Center and Fakih won 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-4.

The first day of qualifying is complete at the US Open with five men and four women advancing to the second round. Current collegians Fiona Crawley, a senior at North Carolina and Michael Zheng, a sophomore at Columbia picked up the first slam qualifying victories of their careers.

First round qualifying results of Americans, Tuesday August 22:

Patrick Kypson(Texas A&M) d. Juri Rodionov[7] 6-4, 6-4

Brandon Holt(USC) d. Alexander Ritschard(Virginia) 6-1, 6-4

Martin Damm[WC] d. Federico Delbonis 6-4, 4-6, 7-5

Michael Zheng(Columbia)[WC] d. Franco Agamenone 6-2, 6-3

Aidan Mayo[WC] d. Federico Ferreira Silva 3-6, 6-1, 6-4

Elli Mandlik d. Amandine Hesse 6-3, 6-4

Katie Volynets[25] d. Barbors Palicova 6-3, 6-4

Sachia Vickery d. Irene Burillo Escorihuela 6-7(8), 6-3, 6-0

Fiona Crawley(North Carolina)[WC] d. Reka Luca Jani 6-1, 6-7(5), 7-6(6)

The San Diego and Kalamazoo 18s finalists both lost their first round matches, although Svajda certainly held his own in the first set against ATP No. 111 James Duckworth of Australia.

Eugenie Bouchard d. Katherine Hui[WC] 6-2 6-3

James Duckworth[12] d. Trevor Svajda 7-6(12) 6-2

The full results can be found here. Wednesday's schedule, featuring 16-year-old Valerie Glozman, who won a round in qualifying last year as a wild card from the 18s Nationals, and 2022 US Open girls finalist Lucie Havlickova, 18, of the Czech Republic.