Grant and Leach Celebrate Junior Davis Cup and Junior Billie Jean King Cup Selections with Third Round Victories at ITF J300 Pan American Closed

©Colette Lewis 2023--
Houston Texas--

On Tuesday, the International Tennis Federation announced the teams for the 2023 Junior Davis Cup and Junior Billie Jean King Cup in Spain later this fall; on Wednesday two of the players named to the United States teams who recorded victories at the ITF J300 Pan American Closed at the Giammalva Racquet Club expressed their excitement in representing the United States in the ITF's competition.

Top seed Tyra Grant is only 15, so she will be a year younger than most of the competitors representing their countries in Cordoba for the 16 and under team competition. Due to injury, Grant was unable to compete in the ITF's 14 and under World Junior Tennis competition last year, so she is especially eager to be a part of the team this year, along with Iva Jovic and Alanis Hamilton.

"I really like playing team competitions, you can really bring your energy out there," said Grant, who played Tennis Europe tournaments when she was younger but has never been to Spain. "It's all about having fun and showing your best tennis. Last year I played 14s and I should have played in the Czech Republic, but I got injured, so I just played the qualies in Mexico. I'm really, really looking forward to it. It's going to be so much fun, I can't wait."

In previous years the boys and girls competitions were held at the same venues on the same dates, but this year, the boys will play first in Cordoba, October 30-November 5, and the girls will follow November 6-12.

"We're playing a different week from the boys, but we'll be there the week before, so we'll be able to cheer them anyway," Grant said. 

Grant injured her knee in a first round victory at Wimbledon Junior Championships this year, and is just getting back to competition, with a 7-5, 6-3 first round loss to No. 6 seed Ena Koike of Japan in the US Open Junior Championships her first match since Wimbledon.

"It was a bone bruise, maybe a fracture, but we're happy it healed quickly," Grant said. "I wasn't ready probably to compete yet at the US Open, but I felt like, it's a slam, I'm not going to skip it. It didn't work out the way I wanted it to because I had a tough draw and she was a really good player. I didn't play my best, but I'm happy I got to play and had no pain."

Grant defeated No. 16 seed Riley Crowder 6-2, 6-3 in today's third round, a scoreline that she said didn't indicate the quality of the match.

"Riley's one of my closest friends," Grant said. "It was 6-2, 6-3 and I was up 5-1 in the second, but the match was really close. I had to play really well to bring it home. I'm really happy I got another match under my belt, and that's just more experience, you know."

Grant will play wild card Alexis Nguyen in Thursday's quarterfinals, after Nguyen fought back to defeat No. 11 seed Shannon Lam 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the last girls match to be completed Wednesday. Grant and Nguyen played this spring on clay at the ITF J100 in Delray Beach with Grant taking the second round match 2-6, 6-1, 6-3.

Leach, the No. 7 seed, found himself in a third set after relinquishing control of second to unseeded Xavier Cavelo, but saved himself from drama in the third set of his 6-4, 6-7(8), 6-0 victory.

"Toward the end of the first set, he was dictating play, he was just making a few more errors," Leach said. "I thought that might be a winning solution if he was missing a few more balls. But toward the end of the second, he started to find his groove, hit a lot of big winners and I said, ok, I need to be the one dictating play in this third set. I need to be pushing him, he can't be pushing me around. So every point I focused on moving him around the court and building points and that seemed to work really well in the third set."

The 16-year-old Leach, who will be playing his first J300 quarterfinal against No. 16 seed Rafael Botran Neutze of Guatemala, said he never dreamed that at the start of 2023 he would compete for the United States in Junior Davis Cup, with Darwin Blanch and Maxwell Exsted the other two members of the team.

"It's one of the biggest honors," Leach said. "Before the year started I couldn't even imagine that goal, and now I've achieved a goal I didn't even think about. I'm so happy to be able represent my country, and I believe we can do really well there. I'm so excited for the opportunity."

Leach has followed in the footsteps of both his parents, who played in the competition when it was known as the World Youth Cup.

Leach's mother Lindsay Davenport said she remembers losing in to Paraguay on the Barcelona clay, while Leach's father Jon was on the team that reached the finals in Australia.

"I've heard stories about it since I was seven or eight years old," Leach said. "They would always talk about it. My dad and his team lost in the finals and he's still bummed about it, 'aw man we could have had it'. I'm so excited to be the third family member to play it."

The complete list of competitors for each of the 16 teams are available at the ITF website. The girls teams announcement is here; the boys teams announcement is here.

Unlike Grant, Leach and Hamilton, a fourth USA team member playing here in Houston wasn't able to advance to the quarterfinals. No. 4 seed Exsted lost to No. 13 seed Kuang Qing Xu of Canada 7-6(5), 6-4. The first set, 90 minutes in length, was followed by a quick 4-1 lead for Exsted in the second, but Xu roared back to take the last five games and the match. Xu will face unseeded Jordan Reznick, who defeated No. 8 seed Stiles Brockett 6-1, 6-4.

Top seed Alex Frusina defeated No. 15 seed Maximus Dussault 6-2, 6-3 and will play No. 10 seed Matthias Uwe Kask of Canada, after Kask posted a marathon of a win, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 over unseeded Matisse Farzam; No. 2 seed Alex Razeghi took out No. 14 seed Kase Schinnerer 7-6(4), 6-2 and will play wild card Ian Mayew, who beat No. 6 seed Nikita Filin 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(7) in three hours and 15 minutes.  Filin had a match point at 6-3, 5-3 but missed a volley and didn't get another until 6-5 and 7-6 in the final set tiebreaker. Mayew saved both with volley winners, and after forcing an error to go up 8-7, Mayew converted his first match point when Filin's forehand approach flew long.

Girls No. 2 seed Maya Joint eliminated wild card Anita Tu 6-2, 6-4 and will play unseeded Tianmei Wang, who beat qualifier Hadley Appling, 6-3, 6-3.

No. 10 seed Aspen Schuman defeated No. 6 seed Katie Rolls 6-1, 6-2 and will take on unseeded Monika Ekstrand, who ran her ITF Junior Circuit winning streak to ten matches with a 6-1, 6-2 win over qualifier Kori Montoya.

No. 12 seed Victoria Osuigwe defeated No. 7 seed Kate Fakih 6-3, 6-4 and will play No. 4 seed Hamilton, who won the rematch of this spring's Easter Bowl Girls 16s final 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 over No. 14 seed and doubles partner Claire An.  An had beaten Hamilton in three long sets to take the Easter Bowl title and today's match was equally as taxing for both; they later teamed up to take their doubles match and advance to Thursday's quarterfinals.

The seeded doubles teams took the court today for the first time and just one Top 4 seed fell, with Noah Johnston and Benjamin Willwerth defeating No. 3 seeds Rohan Belday and Matthew Forbes 6-4, 6-7(5), 10-5.  Boys top seeds Exsted and Cooper Woestendick and No. 2 seeds Brockett and Filin won in match tiebreakers. Girls top seeds Ariana Pursoo and Joint and Kaitlyn Rolls and Schuman won in straight sets.

All eight quarterfinals in singles are scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday, with doubles quarterfinals set to begin not before 1:30 p.m.