Crawley and Lahey Meet in Sunday's Final at USTA Pro Circuit W35; Gauff Reaches WTA Auckland Final; Former Collegians Start Year with Challenger Titles; Eddie Herr 14s Videos

University of North Carolina senior Fiona Crawley extended her USTA Pro Circuit winning streak to nine matches today, defeating 19-year-old Central Florida freshman Olivia Lincer of Poland 6-2, 6-4 in the semifinals of the USTA Pro Circuit W35 in Arcadia California.

No. 6 seed Crawley, who won the title at the $25K in Florence South Carolina last October,  will face former Pepperdine star Ashley Lahey, who will be playing in her first Pro Circuit final in over a year.  The 2018 NCAA singles finalist, seeded No. 5, defeated No. 8 seed Fangran Tian of China 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 in today's semifinals; Tian won the 2023 NCAA singles title as a freshman at UCLA in May. 

Lahey will go into tomorrow's final with one title already in hand; she and Angela Kulikov(USC) won the doubles championship this afternoon. The top seeds defeated No. 3 seeds Haley Giavara(Cal) and Brandy Walker(Northern Arizona) 6-3, 6-2 in the final. Lahey won three ITF Pro Circuit doubles title last year, although this is the first title for Lahey and Kulikov.

Coco Gauff is in the final of the WTA 250 ASB Classic in Auckland, where the top seed is defending her 2023 title. Gauff defeated No. 4 seed Emma Navarro(Virginia) 6-3, 6-1 in Saturday's semifinals and will face No. 2 seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine later this evening (Sunday in New Zealand). Gauff has yet to drop a set in her nine victories in Auckland over the past two years.

There are four ATP Challengers this week, and two former collegians have started 2024 with victories. Top seed Dominik Koepfer, a former Tulane All-American from Germany, defeated 18-year-old Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic, the 2022 Australian Open boys finalist, 6-3, 6-2 for the title at the Challenger 125 in Canberra Australia. Koepfer, 29, had been as high as 50 in the ATP rankings back in 2021; with his third Challenger title in the past nine months, he is now back up to 61 after falling outside of the Top 200 in 2022.

Valentin Vacherot, the former Texas A&M All-American, won the second ATP Challenger title of his career, with both of them coming in Nonthaburi Thailand. The 25-year-old from Monaco won his first title at a Challenger 50 there in August of 2022; today he claimed the title at the Challenger 75 in Nonthaburi when fellow qualifier and former ATP Top 10 player Lucas Pouille of France retired at 3-2 in the first set of the final. Vacherot is now up to a career-high of 223 in the ATP live rankings.

I've processed the videos of the Eddie Herr 14s finals, with the videos of champions Joyce Geng and Michael Antonius below. The videos of finalists Charlie Celebrini and Matei Chelemen can be viewed by clicking on their names. I apologize for the brevity of these videos, but with the 12s, 14s and 16s boys and girls finals all played at once, time was limited.