Fifteen-year-old Ionescu Qualifies for W75 in Rome Georgia; Wild Cards Cassone, Vandecasteele Advance at ATP 75 Challenger in Cleveland; USA Faces Ukraine in Davis Cup Qualifying Thursday in Lithuania

The USTA Pro Circuit events this week are confined to one each for the men and women, both indoors, with the men's event an ATP Challenger 75 in Cleveland and the women's event a W75 in Rome Georgia.

Qualifying concluded in Rome today, with two American teenagers reaching the main draw: 17-year-old Victoria Osuigwe, who has verbally committed to North Carolina State, and 15-year-old Elizabeth Ionescu, who won the 18s USTA National Indoor Title back in November.

Osuigwe is a veteran of qualifying on the USTA Pro Circuit, with her 6-2, 6-3 win today over No. 4 qualifying seed Jessica Failla(USC/Pepperdine), Osuigwe, who has a WTA ranking of 717, has now qualified for five USTA Pro Circuit tournaments at the 60K level or higher (the 60K level has been eliminated by the ITF for 2024). 

Ionescu has much less experience on the USTA Pro Circuit, with this just her third event, although she did qualify for the main draw in her previous two events, a 15K and a 25K last year. The York Pennsylvania resident, who reached the third round of the Orange Bowl last month as a wild card, doesn't have a WTA ranking yet, but her 6-3, 6-2 win over No. 7 seed and WTA No. 532 Martina Okalova(Tulsa) of Slovakia should remedy that next week. She will face another Pennsylvania native, No. 3 seed Ann Li, in the first round Wednesday.  Osuigwe's first round opponent is former Princeton star Victoria Hu.

Other Americans advancing to the main draw via qualifying wins today are Dalayna Hewitt, Ava Markham(Wisconsin) and Sara Daavettlia(North Carolina). 

Wild cards were given to Clervie Ngounoue, who lost today to No. 4 seed and doubles partner Robin Montgomery 7-5, 6-4, and No. 2 seed Hailey Baptiste. Former USC star Madison Sieg is listed as a junior exempt entry, but that is more likely to be an entry via the ITA/ITF Accelerator program, given her status as a Top 5 collegiate player.

The top seed in Rome is last week's champion at the Vero Beach W75+H, Maria Carle(Georgia) of Argentina.  

Qualifying concluded Monday at the Cleveland Challenger, with Will Grant(Florida), Patrick Maloney(Michigan) and Stefan Kozlov the three American qualifiers. Grant lost to Sebastian Fanselow(Pepperdine) of Germany in the first round today; Maloney defeated lucky loser Zeke Clark(Illinois) 6-2, 6-3 and will face top seed James Duckworth of Australia in the second round. Kozlov also picked up a win in the opening round, beating Strong Kirchheimer(Northwestern) 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(3) today.

Wild cards were awarded to Oregon senior Quinn Vandecasteele, Arizona State junior Murphy Cassone and former UCLA All-American Keegan Smith. Smith lost to No. 4 seed Dennis Kudla 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the first round today; Cassone defeated last week's Wesley Chapel $25K champion Roberto Cid(South Florida) of the Dominican Republic 6-1, 7-6(7) this evening and Vandecasteele beat 2022 Australian Open boys champion Bruno Kuzuhara 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(3) yesterday in first round action.

2014 Kalamazoo 18s champion Noah Rubin(Wake Forest) won his first Challenger match since April of 2022, after his break from tennis that also included a brief flirtation with a Pickleball career. Rubin saved four match points in defeating qualifier Matija Pecotic(Princeton) of Croatia 5-7, 6-3, 7-5. 

Rubin is one of a host of Kalamazoo champions or finalists in the draw this week, joining No. 5 seed Patrick Kypson(16s champion 2015, 18s champion 2017), Kozlov(18s finalist 2015), No. 6 seed Tennys Sandgren(16s champion 2007), No. 8 seed Aidan Mayo(16s finalist 2019), Zachary Svajda (2019 and 2021 18s champion), and Ethan Quinn(18s finalist 2022). The two-time reigning Kalamazoo 18s champion Learner Tien withdrew with an injury.

After their loss to Finland last September kept them from advancing to the finals, the US Davis Cup team is required to play a World Group qualifying match this week against Ukraine to continue to compete at the top level qualifying this coming September. Seeded No. 7, the US has drawn Ukraine, and although Ukraine was to get the home match, they obviously couldn't host due to the Russian invasion, so the match will be held Thursday and Friday in Lithuania. 

The American team consists of Taylor Fritz, Christopher Eubanks, Sebastian Korda, Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram; The Ukrainian team, without a top 150 player, consists of Vitaliy Sachko, Oleksii Krutykh, Viacheslav Bielinskyi, Valdyslav Orlov and Illya Belobordodko.

Chicago junior development coach Mark Bey is accompanying the team to Lithuania this weekend to assist Captain Bob Bryan and assistant Dean Goldfine; Tristan Boyer(Stanford) is serving as the hitting partner. 

Notes on the two teams can be found here. Quotes from the pre-match press conference are available here.