Qualifier Ngounoue Beats Top Seed Day, Reaches Dallas W50 Final; Wild Card Smith Advances to Second $25K Final This Month in Champaign; Tien's Streak Ends in Chicago Challenger Semifinals; Fritz Wins, But Rain Disrupts First Day of Olympic Tennis

Eighteen-year-old qualifier Clervie Ngounoue has advanced to the biggest final of her professional career, defeating top seed Kayla Day 6-3, 6-4 in a battle of USTA National 18s champions at the USTA Pro Circuit W50 in Dallas. 

2023 USTA National 18s champion Ngounoue, who has now won six matches in six days, lost a set in her first qualifying match, but she has not dropped one since, beating the No. 7 Victoria Hu, No. 4 Manachaya Sawangkaew and No. 1 Day in succession. Day, the 2016 USTA National 18s champion, is currently 125 in the WTA rankings, but it's not close to Ngounoue's best win. The 2023 Wimbledon girls champion has two Top 100 wins, both in the past 12 months, over No. 35 Anna Blinkova of Russia in the Washington WTA qualifying last July and over No. 70 Claire Liu last September in the San Diego WTA qualifying.

At the WTA 125 this week in Poland, qualifier Alycia Parks defeated No. 5 seed Maya Joint of Australia, a rising freshman at Texas, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the final, which will give Parks the lead in the USTA's US Open Wild Card Challenge which has two more weeks to go. The 18-year-old Joint is now 140 in the WTA live rankings, the fourth-best ranking for any woman aged 18 or younger.

Her opponent in Sunday's final is unseeded 31-year-old Robin Anderson(UCLA), who defeated Texas A&M rising senior Mary Stoiana 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 in a three-hour semifinal.

In the Dallas doubles final, the unseeded team of Katrina Scott and Usue Arconada won their first title together, beating unseeded Jessica Hinojosa Gomez(Baylor) of Mexico Hiroko Kuwata of Japan 6-3, 6-3 for the championship. It's the first pro doubles title for the 20-year-old Scott; Arconada has eight now, many with Caroline Dolehide, but this is her first since 2021, after a long absence from the sport in 2022 and 2023.

At the men's $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Champaign, 21-year-old wild card Colton Smith, a rising senior at Arizona, has advanced to his second $25K final of the month. Smith, who lost to Adam Neff as a qualifier two weeks ago in Dallas, defeated No. 3 seed Cannon Kingsley(Ohio State) 6-3, 6-7(7), 6-4 in today's semifinals. Smith will face No. 4 seed Andre Ilagan(Hawaii), who beat No. 6 seed Harrison Adams(Texas A&M) 6-0, 6-7(5), 7-5. The 23-year-old Ilagan, who won two $15Ks last year, will be playing in his first final of 2024.

The doubles title went to Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State) and Canada's Cleeve Harper(Texas), with the No. 3 seeds beating the unseeded Ohio State team of Kingsley and Preston Stearns 6-4, 6-4. It's the second title for the pair, with the first coming at a $15K in Pittsburgh in 2022. Harper now has two pro doubles titles, Zink, the 2019 US Open boys doubles champion, has 13.

The 28-match winning streak of 18-year-old Learner Tien(USC) came to an end today in the semifinals of the ATP Challenger 75 in Chicago, with the wild card losing to No. 6 seed Yunchaokete  Bu of China 6-4, 7-5. Bu avenged his second round loss to Tien at the Bloomfield Hills Challenger earlier this month with a much more patient game plan, which proved more sustainable than his blasting winners strategy in Michigan. 

Bu will face former University of Kentucky All-American Gab Diallo of Canada, with the No. 4 seed defeating qualifier Jake Fearnley(TCU) 6-2, 6-3 in the top half semifinal.

The unseeded Australian team of Luke Saville and Li Tu won the doubles title in Chicago, beating No. 3 seeds and former North Carolina Tar Heels Mac Kiger and Canada's Benjamin Sigouin 6-4, 3-6, 10-3. 

Rain all day in Paris confined the first round Olympic tennis matches to the two covered courts at Roland Garros, so most of the singles and doubles matches are now on Sunday's schedule. Taylor Fritz, the No. 7 seed, had his match moved inside, and he advanced to the second round with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan. The only other Americans to play Saturday were top women's doubles seeds Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff, who defeated Daria Saville and Ellen Perez(Georgia) of Australia 6-3, 6-1.

Below are the USA singles matches scheduled for Sunday, with this information provided by the USTA.

(2) Coco Gauff (USA) vs Aja Tomljanovic (AUS) – Court Philippe-Chatrier – 3rd match - NB - 19:00

 

(5) Jessica Pegula (USA) vs Vikorja Golubic (SUI) – Court Suzanne-Lenglen – 3rd match

 

Marcos Giron (USA) vs (13) Felix Auger-Aliassime (CAN) – Court Simonne-Mathieu – 1st match

 

(9) Danielle Collins (USA) vs Laura Siegmund (GER) – Court Simonne-Mathieu – 2nd match

 

(9) Tommy Paul (USA) vs Luciano Darderi (ITA) – Court 7 – 3rd match

 

(11) Emma Navarro (USA) vs Julia Grabher (AUT) – Court 10 – 5th match

 

Chris Eubanks (USA) vs Benjamin Hassan (LBN) – Court 11 – 2nd match