Rolls and Bonding Claim ITF J500 Banana Bowl Titles; Grant Completes Sweep at W15 in Turkey; Bigun, Kostovic Top Seeds at ITF J300 Indian Wells; Texas Deals No. 1 Ohio State Men First Loss; Michigan Women Beat Pepperdine in Top Ten Battle

Seventeen-year-old Katie Rolls won her first ITF J500 match last December at the Orange Bowl, and lost in the first round last week at the Porto Alegre J300 warmup event for this week's J500 in Blumenau Brazil. Yet the ninth seed found the best form of her junior career at the Banana Bowl, beating three Top 8 seeds in her six victories, and finishing in style today, with a 7-6(3), 6-2 win over top seed and defending champion Mayu Crossley of Japan. Rolls is not playing the ITF J300s in the United States the next two weeks--she trains in Florida and has always been more comfortable on the clay, with her last four titles coming on clay--but with this title, she will not have to worry about getting into the junior slams this summer.

Sixteen-year-old Oliver Bonding of Great Britain, seeded No 7, won the boys title, defeating unseeded Naoya Honda of Japan 7-5, 6-4 in today's final. Bonding, who had more than his share of tough draws in the junior slams in 2023, has had consistently good results outside of the slams, and this, his first title on clay, will solidify his ranking as he looks to Roland Garros later this spring.

Fifteen-year-old Tyra Grant added a second ITF women's World Tennis Tour title to the doubles championship she captured Saturday at the W15 in Turkey, her first competition since the Australian Junior Championships. Grant, who was unseeded, defeated 18-year-old Anja Stankovic of Serbia, also unseeded, 6-0, 6-4 in the final. Grant, the 2023 Orange Bowl finalist, has now won four of her five singles titles (three junior titles and this women's title) on clay. 

None of the three champions crowned today are competing in the Indian Wells or San Diego.

The Indian Wells ITF J300 qualifying, which features two rounds today, is not yet finished but the draws have been posted. The two additional girls wild cards are Welles Newman and Maggie Sohns. Dominick Mosejczuk, originally a wild card, got in on his own ranking; Jack Satterfield received that wild card instead. Seeds do not play until Tuesday.

BOYS

1. Kaylun Bigun(USA)

2. Cooper Woestendick(USA)

3. Alex Razeghi(USA)

4. Viktor Frydrych(GBR)

5. Tianhui Zhang(CHN)

6. Max Exsted(USA)

7. Matthew Forbes(USA)

8. Jagger Leach(USA)

9. Ian Mayew(USA)

10. Jack Kennedy(USA)

11. Noah Johnston(USA)

12. Nikia Filin(USA)

13. Matisse Farzam(USA)

14. Kase Schinnerer(USA)

15. Maximus Dussault(USA)

16. Hugh Winter(AUS)

GIRLS

1. Teodora Kostovic(SRB)

2. Iva Jovic(USA)

3. Thea Frodin(USA)

4. Shannon Lam(USA)

5. Aspen Schuman(USA)

6. Kate Fakih(USA)

7. Christasha McNeil(USA)

8. Alanis Hamilton(USA)

9. Ariana Pursoo(USA)

10. Mia Slama(USA)

11. Claire An(USA)

12. Monika Ekstrand(USA)

13. Maya Iyengar(USA)

14. Kristina Penickova(USA)

15. Sarah Fajmonova(USA)

16. Maya Dutta(USA)

The two top Division I college matches today involved highly ranked Big Ten teams, with the No. 1 Ohio State men suffering their first loss of the season to No. 12 Texas and the No. 2 Michigan women getting past No. 8 Pepperdine.

Ohio State has struggled when they begin the transition to outdoors, and that was definitely the case today against Texas in Austin. The Longhorns, who were considered the most talented team coming into the season, had struggled to get a big win this year, losing to Virginia, Arizona and, last weekend, TCU. With Siem Woldeab back in the lineup, Texas shuffled its doubles lineup, which has been shaky all season, and Woldeab made an instant contribution partnering with Eliot Spizzirri at line 1. The pair clinched the doubles point with a 7-6(5) win over Robert Cash and JJ Tracy, while Cleeve Harper, who had been playing with Spizzirri at line 1, dropped down to line 3 and won there with Micah Braswell.

Ohio State has dropped plenty of doubles points this year and still found a way to dominate in singles, but the Buckeyes lost all six first sets, and the climb was just too steep from there. Texas got straight-sets wins from Spizzirri at 1, Braswell at 2 and Gilles Bailly at 3, making it 4-0 at the clinch. The match continued, and Ohio State got points from Alexander Bernard at 5 and Jack Anthrop at 4 to avert a shutout, but the 5-2 final score was not as close as that might suggest.

The box score is available here.

The Michigan women, playing indoors with temperatures here in Michigan in the 30s with a dusting of overnight snow, looked ice cold in doubles. Pepperdine took No. 3 doubles 6-1 and No. 2 doubles 6-0 to in less than 30 minutes to take a 1-0 lead, and with the strength of their top three, a path to the upset was there. But Michigan took five first sets, and more importantly, quickly closed out their matches at 1 and 2, with No. 5 Kari Miller beating No. 13 Lisa Zaar 6-3, 7-5 and No. 18 Julia Fliegner taking out No. 6 Savannah Broadus 6-3, 6-3. Janice Tjen had beaten Jaedan Brown at line 3 6-3, 6-4, so the score was 2-2 as the matches at 4, 5, and 6 went to third sets. Lily Jones was the first to finish, beating Jasmine Conway 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 at line 6, and Piper Charney clinched for the Wolverines with a 7-5, 3-6, 6-0 win over Nikki Redjelijk at line 5. The match at line 4 between Michigan's Gala Mesochoritou and Anna Campana was abandoned, with Mesochoritou up 4-2 in the third.

A full recap of the match is available at mgoblue.com.