Juniors Flood Vero Beach $15K; Urhobo Qualifies at Charlottesville $75K; Schwaerzler Beats Top Seed Wolf at Savannah Challenger; USTA Roland Garros Wild Card Race Update; No Change Atop ITF D-I Rankings
The USTA Pro Circuit features three tournaments this week: a $15K in Vero Beach Florida for men, the ATP Challenger 75 in Savannah Georgia and a W75 for women in Charlottesville Virginia.
With the ITF's Junior Reserve program, the $15,000 tournaments always feature top juniors, but given the paucity of events at this level this year, the Vero Beach is particularly popular with younger players, especially those preparing for a trip to Europe next month for the Milan ITF J500 and the Roland Garros Junior Championships.
The boys who received main draw entry based on their junior rankings are Alexander Razeghi, Cooper Woestendick and Kaylan Bigun. ITF J300 Indian Wells champion Rudy Quan received a wild card, and Mitchell Lee won a wild card tournament for his spot in the main draw. Nikita Filin qualified for the main draw today, as did 19-year-old Cody Benton, a North Carolina State signee. Filin will play Razeghi in the first round; Razeghi is 4-0 in their previous meetings, but the most recent was back in the semifinals of Kalamazoo in 2021, where Razeghi claimed the 16s title.
The other two wild cards were given to Chad Kissell(Valparaiso) and Matthew Segura.
Christian Langmo(Miami) is the top seed; Garrett Johns, in his fifth year at Duke, is the No. 2 seed.
The field for the women's tournament in Charlottesville obviously has attracted a significant number of top players, including top seed Kayla Day, currently 84 in the WTA rankings.
Qualifying concluded today, with 17-year-old Akasha Urhobo reaching the main draw with a three-hour 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 win over former Baylor standout Melany Solange Krywoj of Argentina. Other Americans qualifying include Sophie Chang, Jaeda Daniel(Auburn/NC State), Victoria Flores(Georgia Tech/Pepperdine), Gabriella Price and Rasheeda McAdoo(Georgia Tech).
Wild cards were awarded to University of Virginia senior Hibah Shaikh, Texas signee Ashton Bowers, Katrina Scott and Alana Smith(NC State). Bowers lost 6-3, 6-4 to Louisa Chirico, whom she had beaten two weeks ago in Boca Raton. The other three wild cards play qualifiers in the first round Wednesday.
The latest USTA Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge standings have changed dramatically with two weeks remaining for women and just one, this week, for men. Tallahassee Challenger finalist Mitchell Krueger has tied Nicolas Moreno de Alboran atop the men's race,and Sachia Vickery has moved into women's top spot. Standings below, with the current ATP/WTA rankings in parentheses.
Men's Standings:
T1. Nicolas Moreno de Alboran (138) -- 63
T1. Mitchell Krueger (239) -- 63
3. Michael Mmoh (114) -- 50
4. Stefan Kozlov (451) -- 38
5. Tennys Sandgren (260) -- 28
Women's Standings:
1. Sachia Vickery (129) -- 110
2. Katie Volynets (105) -- 57
3. Katrina Scott (407) -- 49
4. Varvara Lepchenko (244) -- 48
5. Akasha Urhobo (564) -- 37
Krueger is through to the second round of the Savannah Challenger after beating No. 8 seed Clement Tabur of France 6-3, 6-2 this afternoon. His quarter has opened up with No. 2 seed Michael Mmoh retiring in his match with alternate Aidan Mayo at 4-6, 6-4, 2-0. The other two players in Krueger's quarter are qualifiers.
JJ Wolf's struggles continue, with the former Ohio State All-American losing in the first round for the third straight week. As was the case last week, Wolf lost to a top ITF junior using the ATP Accelerator program to secure entry, with No. 1 junior Joel Schwaerzler beating Wolf 6-2, 6-1 tonight in Savannah. Schwaerzler, who lost to Krueger in the quarterfinals last week at the Tallahassee Challenger, is up to 740 in the ATP live rankings.
The latest Division I team and individual rankings came out today, and these are the last ones before the NCAA selection show, which is Monday April 29 for the men's and women's team events. The individual selections will be announced via a press release Tuesday April 30.
The biggest change is the move of the Big 12 conference champions Texas men, who are now No. 2, behind Ohio State. I'm including the Top 17 in the women's singles and doubles, due to the injury to North Carolina's Reese Brantmeier, who will not be participating despite her rankings.
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