Ngounoue Opens ITF World Junior Finals with Win Over Ishii; All-USA Quarterfinals Thursday at ITF J60 in South Carolina; Ekstrand Earns First Pro Circuit Victory

Wednesday's results in the first day of round robin play at the ITF Junior Finals in Chengdu China featured a few surprises, although the two players with the highest ITF junior rankings in the fields: No. 1 girl Clervie Ngounoue of the United States and No. 2 boy Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez of Mexico both won their opening matches. 

As a refresher, here are the girls two round robin groups:

Girls group A, with ITF rankings in parentheses:

Clervie Ngounoue[1], USA
Laura Samsonova[6], CZE
Sayaka Ishii[9], JPN

Ena Koike[11], JPN

Girls Group B:
Alina Korneeva[2], RUS
Renata Jamrichova[3], SVK
Kaitlin Quevedo[7], USA
Sara Saito[12], JPN

Wednesday results and Thursday's matches:
Group A:

Ngounoue d. Ishii 6-3, 6-3 

Samsonova d. Koike 6-1, 6-3

Ngounoue v Koike

Ishii v Samsonova

Group B:

Korneeva d. Quevedo 6-3, 7-6(5)

Saito d. Jamrichova 3-6, 6-4, 6-3

Quevedo v Saito

Korneeva v Jamrichova

The loss by Jamrichova, No. 3 in the ITF junior rankings, was an upset by ranking(interesting that the World Tennis Number hasn't been mentioned in this competition). And two-time junior slam champion Korneeva needed two hours and 34 minutes, in the day's longest match, to beat Quevedo in two sets.

The boys round robin groups:

Group A:

Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez[2], MEX
Iliyan Radulov[8], BUL
Yi Zhou[12], CHN
Arthur Gea[13], FRA

Group B:
Yaroslav Demin[3], RUS
Joel Schwaerzler[7], AUT
Federico Cina[10], ITA
Branko Djuric[14], SRB

Wednesday's results and Thursday's matches:

Group A:

Pacheco Mendez d. Zhou 6-2, 7-6(7)

Radulov d. Gea 6-3, 6-4

Radulov v Zhou

Gea v Pachecho Mendez

Group B:

Schwaerzler d. Djuric 6-3, 1-6, 6-2

Cina d. Demin 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-3

Schwaerzler v Demin

Cina v Djuric

The third-ranked Demin was the upset in the boys matches Wednesday.

There will be a third round robin match played Friday, with the top two finishers in each group advancing to the semifinals.

Replays of the matches played on Centre Court can be found at the ITF YouTube channel, with Ngounoue's win over Ishii the first match Wednesday available here.

Live scoring and results are here.

The quarterfinals are set at the ITF J60 in Lexington South Carolina, with few seeds and no international players still in contention for a title.

Fourteen-year-old Jerrid Gaines, the No. 15 seed, advanced when top seed Shrikeshav Murugesan retired at 6-6 in the first set. Thirteen-year-old Michael Antonius is through to the quarterfinals after beating seeds in his last two matches; wild card Jack Satterfield, the reigning 16s Clay Court champion, and Benjamin Sparks are the other two unseeded players in the quarterfinals. No. 3 seed Mark Krupkin is the highest seed remaining.

The No. 3 seed in the girls draw, Eva Oxford, is also the highest seed surviving after three rounds, but she is just one of three seeds in the quarterfinals, with No. 13 Ava Rodriguez and No. 8 Addison Bowman the others. Fourteen-year-old qualifier Ellery Mendell, a semifinalist at the USTA National 14s this summer, is through, as are two wild cards: Abby Lee and Alston Myatt.

Sixteen-year-old Monika Ekstrand won her first match on the Pro Circuit today in the first round of the $15,000 women's tournament in Jackson Tennessee. Ekstrand, a wild card, defeated Auburn's Selin Ovunc of Turkey, a qualifier, 6-7(0), 6-3, 6-2.

Roland Garros girls finalist and Texas A&M freshman Lucciana Perez Alarcon of Peru, who was eligible to compete in the ITF Junior Finals this week, is playing the Jackson tournament instead, and she advanced to the second round with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Ashton Bowers.