Winter Nationals Top Seeds Ousted in Third Round of 16s and 18s, Quarterfinals Set in 12s and 14s; Florida Tennis Magazine Founder Jim Martz Dies

The USTA Winter Nationals always take place when the calendar changes to a new year, and several players ended 2023 with a bang today in Lake Nona by beating top seeds in third round action.

Unseeded Anna Frey, who you remember as a recent UTR Pro Tennis Tour champion from my post a few days ago, beat girls 18s top seed Capucine Jauffret 6-2, 6-1. The blue chip sophomore from Utah, who reached the semifinals of the Easter Bowl and San Diego Nationals in the 16s this year, somehow didn't break into the seedings for the 18s Winter Nationals.

Frey wasn't the only unseeded player to take out a top seed today at the USTA National Campus, with Reagan Levine beating Nicole Weng in the 16s 6-1, 6-2. Levine, a semifinalist at the 14s Clay Courts and finalist at the 14s Nationals in Rome, also didn't find those results helpful in getting seeded in the older age group.

In the boys 18s, No. 17 seed Zachary Cohen defeated No. 2 seed Shaurya Bharadwaj 6-3, 6-2. Top seeds William Manning(18s) and Nicholas Mekhael(16s) did reach the third round.

I've noticed that the seeding has been much better in the 12s and 14s in San Antonio, with no unseeded players left in the quarterfinals of any of the four divisions. In contrast, six of the 16 remaining players in the girls 16s and boys 18s are unseeded, three of the 16 remaining players in the girls 18s and boys 16s are unseeded. 

Here are the quarterfinals matchups for Monday in San Antonio:

Boys 12s
Tristan Ascenzo[1] v Vallab Kumar[7]
Daniel Gardality[3] v James Borchard[16]
Jiarui Zhang[5] v Rex Kulman[4]
Andres Quijada[6] v Smyan Thuta[2]

Girls 12s:
Daniela Del Mastro[1] v Isha Manchala[7]
Cissy Adams[3] v Madeline Cleary[8]
Olivia De Los Reyes[16] v Tanvi Pandey[30]
London Evans[6] v Nikol Davletshina[2]

Boys 14s:
Safir Azam[1] v James Ross[8]
Rowan Qalbani[4] v Tyler Lee[6]
Tristan Stratton[5] v Owen Conley[13]
Andrew Johnson[7] v Tabb Tuck[10]

Girls 14s:
Elana Zaretsky[9] v Aarini Bhattacharya[5] (corrected)
Bailey Scott[4] v Camilla Kostik[8]
Goldie Kregar[22] v Kayden Johnson[3]
Anjani Vickneswaran[6] v Raya Kotseva[2]

There has been no posted notice of what day the 18s and 16s will play two matches--it could be either tomorrow or Tuesday--so I'm putting up the round of 16 matches, just in case.

B16s:

Nicholas Mekhael[1] v Jeremiah Braswell

Gregory Bernadsky[7] v Lucas Smith[17]

Nischal Spurling[4] v Avner Wong[16]

Lixing Jiang v Benedict Graft[17]

Ethan Chung[10] v Yannik Alvarez[8]

David Wu[15] v Zavier Augustin[17]

Amrith Kodumuri v Gavin Goode[5]

Arjun Prabhakar[17] v Jon Gamble[2]

G16s:

Reagan Levine v Sena Yoon

Alston Myatt[17] v Daniela Chica

Isabelle DeLuccia[4] v Amiya Bowles[17]

Audrey Feng[7] v Alyson Shannon[11]

Emerey Gross[17] v Zimora McKnight

Elena Zhao[15] v Georgia Kulevich[17]

Shravani Chennamsetty v Maggie Sohns

Ireland O'Brien[17] v Bella Payne[2]

B18s: 

William Manning[1] v Troy Kudrjavtsev[13]

Prathinav Chunduru v Alex Feies

Ronin Kasday[4] v Karan Raghavendra[17]

Saahith Jayaraman v Adam Bain

Edward Liao[14] v Niels Hoffmann[17]

Dylan Long v Noah McDonald[17]

Keaton Hance v Xavier Calvelo[8]

Lachlan Gaskell[9] v Zachary Cohen[17]

G18s:

Anna Frey v Blair Gill[14]

Ariel Madatali[17] v Karlin Schock[17]

Kayla Chung[3] v Avery Nguyen[16]

My-Anh Holmes v Anita Tu[12]

Kaede Usui[17] v Alexis Nguyen

Katiana Gonzalez[17] v Claire Shao[17]

Kristina Penickova[13] v Alana Boyce[5]

Shannon Lam[10] v Aspen Schuman[2]

Word came today of the unexpected passing of Jim Martz, the founder and editor of Florida Tennis Magazine. Martz, who was 80, was a pillar of the tennis community in Florida, writing and editing not only one of the last actual paper magazines specializing in tennis, but also producing several books, including a biography/memoir of renowned tennis coach Rick Macci. A regular presence at the Eddie Herr, Orange Bowl and Junior Orange Bowl over the years, always interested in any player with Florida ties, Martz was not as ubiquitous at those events more recently, although he did come out to the Orange Bowl one day to drop off free copies of his magazine. Although Martz had recently sold the magazine, which he had owned and operated for decades, the current issue, like all before it, contained articles written by him--on the Floridians at the US Open and on Coco Gauff, while tapping Rick Macci for his thoughts on Venus Williams and her retirement. I hope the magazine can continue without him, but he was its heart and soul, so I am concerned about its future.

In addition to his dedication to Florida tennis, the former reporter at the Miami Herald also had a huge impact on the University of Miami sports scene, covering football, basketball, baseball and many other sports for CaneSport magazine. For more on Martz's work there and on his life in the Florida sports community, see this remembrance from Gary Ferman.