Fearnley Ousts Top Seed at Chicago Challenger; Ngounoue Among Seven Americans in Dallas W50 Quarterfinals; Six US Quarterfinalists at Champaign $25K; European Championships Move to September; Olympic Draws

The strong field at the ATP Challenger 75 this week in Chicago resulted in Great Britain's Jake Fearnley needing to get through qualifying to earn a place in the main draw. But the recent TCU graduate continues to show he'll contend for Challenger titles all summer, reaching the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 1-6, 7-6(3) win today over top seed Terence Atmane of France.

Fearnley, who won the Nottingham Challenger last month as a qualifier, earned his first ATP Top 100 win, over China's Jerry Shang, in that event. His win today over ATP 118 Atmane, from 2-4, 15-40 down in the third set, is the second best by ranking of his career.

Fearnley will play Brandon Holt(USC) in Friday's quarterfinals, after Holt defeated Marc Polmans of Australian 6-4, 7-6(4) to reach his eighth Challenger quarterfinal of the year.

Wild card Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) lost to No. 3 seed Hugo Grenier of France 6-4, 6-0. 

The three Americans in the Chicago quarterfinals--Learner Tien, Mitchell Krueger and Holt--are by far the fewest on the USTA Pro Circuit this week.

Seven US women have advanced to the quarterfinals at the W50 in Dallas, including Clervie Ngounoue, who turned 18 last week. Ngounoue, who like Fearnley was the top seed in qualifying, defeated No. 7 seed Victoria Hu(Princeton) 7-6(7), 6-4 and will face the only non-American remaining, No. 4 seed Manachaya Sawangkaew(Oklahoma State) of Thailand, who beat wild card Katrina Scott 7-6(6), 6-3.

Sophie Chang and top seed Kayla Day will meet in the other top half quarterfinal, while in the all-US bottom half, Mary Stoiana(Texas A&M) will play Catherine Harrison(UCLA) and Elvina Kalieva will face Robin Anderson(UCLA). None of the four quarterfinalists in the bottom half are seeded.

The men's $25K in Champaign features six American quarterfinalists, including wild card Colton Smith(Arizona) and qualifier Gavin Young(Michigan). Seeded Americans advancing are No. 3 Cannon Kingsley(Ohio State), No. 4 seed Andre Ilagan(Hawaii) and No. 6 Harrison Adams(Texas A&M). The sixth American in the quarterfinals is former Texas A&M star Noah Schachter. Top seed Aidan McHugh of Great Britain, a finalist at last week's $25K in East Lansing, and rising Illinois junior Kenta Miyoshi of Japan, a wild card, are the other two quarterfinalists.

McHugh plays Smith, Kingsley faces Schachter, Young gets Ilagan and Adams plays Miyoshi.

I heard at Wimbledon that the European Championships, usually played in July, have been moved, for all three divisions, to September. I wasn't able to work out why they moved, but the 14s will be in Most Czech Republic the week of September 9th, the 18s ITF J300 Closed will be in Oberpullendorf Austria the week of September 16th, and the 16s will be in Parma Italy, the week of September 23rd.

Usually the points earned from the ITF J300, which had been held for many years in Klosters Switzerland, would count toward the US Open Junior acceptances, but they will not be of any help this year. 

Links to the information on these events can be found at the Tennis Europe site.

The draws for the Paris Olympic tennis events were released this morning. Play begins Saturday at Roland Garros.

Women's singles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12851/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-womens-singles-draw.pdf

Men's singles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12852/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-mens-singles-draw.pdf

Women's doubles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12849/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-womens-doubles-draw.pdf

Men's doubles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12850/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-mens-doubles-draw.pdf

Mixed doubles: https://www.itftennis.com/media/12848/paris-2024-olympic-tennis-event-mixed-doubles-draw.pdf