Four Americans Qualify for Charleston Challenger; Les Petits As Regional Qualifying Underway; Career High Junior Rankings for Pan Am Closed Finalists; USTA Girls 18s and 16s Nationals Highlight Show Now Available for Viewing

Qualifying for the ATP Challenger 75 in Charleston South Carolina was completed today, with four Americans advancing to the main draw.

Stefan Dostanic, in his fifth year at USC, posted two wins today, with his first round match Sunday with Evan Zhu(UCLA) interrupted. Dostanic won that match 4-6, 7-5, 6-0, then beat Stefan Kozlov 6-2, 6-1 to qualify for the main draw, where he'll play No. 8 seed Alexander Ritschard(Virginia) of Switzerland. Another Kalamazoo 16s finalist, Aidan Mayo, reached the main draw with a 6-2, 6-4 victory of Darian King of Barbados. Twenty-eight-year-old Strong Kirchheimer(Northwestern), who has been toiling away in Futures and, lately, Challenger qualifying for six years now, defeated Elmer Moller of Denmark 6-1, 6-3 to reach the main draw at a Challenger for the eighth time this year. 2017 NCAA champion Thai Kwiatkowski(Virginia) qualified with a 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 win over Skander Mansouri(Wake Forest) of Tunisia, who also made the main draw as a lucky loser, with No. 2 seed Emilio Gomez(USC) a late withdrawal.

The other two qualifiers are Ernesto Escobedo of Mexico and 2022 NCAA singles finalist August Holmgren(San Diego) of Denmark.

Wild cards were given to Duke's Garrett Johns, who won his first round match today, Oliver Crawford(Florida) and Toby Kodat. 

Enzo Couacaud of France is again the top seed, as he was in Columbus; Denis Kudla, the Columbus champion as the No. 2 seed, is No. 7 this week. 2023 NCAA singles champion Ethan Quinn(Georgia) received entry via the ATP Accelerator Program and will face No. 5 seed Alexis Galarneau(NC State) of Canada, the finalist in Columbus last week.

The USA Playoffs for the January 2024 Les Petits 14-and-under tournament in France began this week with Regional Qualifying. UTR has partnered with Lacoste Le Mondial and Top Five Management for the five regionals, the first of which was scheduled to finish today in Houston, followed by regionals in Bradenton Florida, Fullerton California, Norfolk Virginia and Philadelphia Pennsylvania. The winners of the regionals will be among the entrants in the USA National Playoff, which begins October 30th at Tropical Park in Coral Gables Florida.

The Les Petits As website has the list of the direct acceptances into the USA National Playoffs, currently including eight girls and six boys. Two of the top 2010 boys, Michael Antonius, who won the Les Petits As consolation tournament last year, and Jordan Lee currently are among the top five 2010s in the Tennis Europe 14s rankings so they probably don't need to compete in the National Playoffs to earn spots in Tarbes.

All four of the finalists at last week's ITF J300 Pan American Closed reached new career highs in the ITF junior rankings released today.

Boys champion Alex Frusina is up to 17, with his previous high 24 just two weeks ago.  Boys finalist Alex Razeghi is now at 23, with his previous high 34.

Girls finalist Tyra Grant moved to 21, with her previous career high 22; singles and doubles champion Maya Joint is up to 31, with her previous best ranking 43.

There is no change at the top of the rankings, with Alina Korneeva of Russia and Joao Fonseca of Brazil continuing as No. 1s.

The highlight show produced about the USTA Billie Jean King Girls 18s and 16s National Championships last month in San Diego, which appeared during the US Open on Tennis Channel, is now available for viewing via the ustagirlsnationals.com website. Click on the Southern California Tennis Association Foundation ad to the left to go to the website, and you'll see a button to click to watch "Breaking Barriers." The show not only features current players and champions, but also delves into the history of the event, including interviews with Billie Jean King, Tracy Austin, Pam Shriver and Kathy Rinaldi.

Make sure to enter the password BB (upper case) to view the 45-minute program.