Crawley Takes Arcadia W35 Title, Extends USTA Pro Circuit Winning Streak; Fearnley Sweeps Titles in Luxembourg; Australian Open Qualifying Underway with 14 Americans; Gauff Defends Auckland Championship; Eddie Herr 16s Videos

North Carolina senior Fiona Crawley won her second consecutive USTA Pro Circuit tournament today in Arcadia California, with the 21-year-old from Texas defeating No. 5 seed Ashley Lahey 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 in the W35 event. It was cold and windy in Southern California for today's final, but No. 6 seed Crawley navigated the tough parts of the two-hour and 38-minute final. After her 4-2 lead in the third set slipped away, with former Pepperdine star Lahey winning three straight games, Crawley held, broke and held, saving two break points in the final game for her tenth consecutive Pro Circuit win.

Another returning collegian who started 2024 with a title, two in fact, is TCU fifth-year senior Jake Fearnley of Great Britain, who swept the titles at the $25,000 ITF men's World Tennis Tour event in Luxembourg. Fearnley, a qualifier, defeated 2019 US Open boys champion Jonas Forejtek of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-4 for his second Pro Circuit title. The 22-year-old also swept the titles at a $25K indoor hard court event in England in October. Fearnley and former TCU All-American Alex Rybakov won the doubles title, with the top seeds defeating unseeded Raphael Calzi of Luxembourg and Amaury Raynel of France 6-3, 6-3 in the final.

Qualifying for the Australian Open gets underway Monday(tonight) in Melbourne, with eight US men and six US women set to compete for a place in the main draw.

Four of the 14 are in first round action tonight, with their names asterisked below.  

Twenty-four former collegians are in the qualifying draw. See this graphic from the ITA for their names and school affiliations.

Americans in Australian Open qualifying:

MEN:
Maxime Cressy[19]
Michael Mmoh[5]*
Aleks Kovacevic[7]
Moreno de Alboran
Brandon Nakashima[25]
Zachary Svajda[32]
Denis Kudla*
Emilio Nava*

WOMEN:
Elvina Kalieva
Katie Volynets[3]
Elli Mandlik[8]
Hailey Baptiste[19]
Sachia Vickery[31]*
Ann Li

*Monday first round matches

Top seed Coco Gauff defended her title at the WTA 250 ASB Classic in Auckland New Zealand Sunday, defeating No. 2 seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-3. It's her seventh title in eight WTA-level finals; her only loss in a final was to Iga Swiatek at Roland Garros in 2022.

I've made a big push the past three days to finish processing the Eddie Herr videos and all eight finals are now available after the 16s went up today.  See the tenniskalamazoo YouTube channel for videos of the 12s, 14s, 16s and ITF finals.

16s champions Jack Secord and Kristina Penickova are below. For finalists Jack Satterfield and Katerina Shabashkevich, click on their names to view their videos.