Tien and Anisimova Win US Open Wild Card Challenge; Kessler and Zheng Claim USTA Pro Circuit Titles Last Week; Fearnley, Cash and Tracy Champions at Lincoln Challenger; Cary NC Challenger 100 Underway

The wild card announcements for the US Open are expected Tuesday, but several players could begin making their plans for New York after results this weekend.

Amanda Anisimova, 22, who lost in tonight's all-American WTA Masters 1000 final in Toronto to No. 3 seed and defending champion Jessica Pegula 6-3, 2-6, 6-1, wasn't in the picture until the Washington DC 500, where she qualified and reached the quarterfinals to take the lead in the race. She has most certainly set a record for the highest number of points in any of these USTA wild races by making the final in Toronto. 

Tien will play in the US Open as a wild card for the third consecutive year, with the 18-year-old receiving the Boys 18s National Champion's wild card the previous two years. Tien, who won the Bloomfield Hills Challenger and reached the semifinals and quarterfinals in the Chicago and Lexington Challengers, was challenged by Nishesh Basavareddy, who had a chance to overtake Tien if he had won the Lincoln Challenger. The 19-year-old Stanford rising junior lost in the semifinals, but did finish second in the race.

The final standings:

MEN
1. Learner Tien -- 109
2. Nishesh Basavareddy -- 74
3. Mitchell Krueger -- 53
T4. Eliot Spizzirri -- 51
T4. Colton Smith -- 51

WOMEN
1. Amanda Anisimova -- 783
2. Alycia Parks -- 133
3. Robin Montgomery -- 110
4. Sophie Chang -- 103
5. Maria Mateas -- 75

On Sunday, Iva Jovic and Matt Forbes earned their wild cards by winning the 18s titles in San Diego and Kalamazoo. Here is the usopen.org article on their championships.

There were no singles titles above the J30 level for Americans in the past two weeks of the ITF Junior Circuit, but check out the seven USA J30 champions on the ITF results page.

All three of the pro events in the United States last week ended with current or former collegians as the champions. In the two USTA Pro Circuit tournaments, former Florida All-American McCartney Kessler and current Columbia rising junior Michael Zheng took the titles. 

Kessler, the No. 5 seed, ended a frustrating week of constant rain at the W100 in Landisville Pennsylvania by avenging her Roland Garros qualifying loss to Olivia Gadecki in the final.  Kessler defeated the unseeded Australian 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 and has cracked the WTA Top 100 in the live rankings. She is playing the W100 in Cary North Carolina this week, and again the No. 5 seed, is scheduled to take on a qualifier in the first round. I imagine she is extremely interested in the forthcoming US Open main draw wild card announcement. The 25-year-old from Georgia lost in the final round of qualifying in New York last year as a wild card.

Doubles were abandoned in Landisville due to all the rain.

Zheng, who has already been announced as the recipient of a men's qualifying wild card at the US Open by virtue of his runner-up finish at the NCAA singles championship, won his first pro title at the $25,000 tournament in Southaven Mississippi, where six Americans made the quarterfinals and all four semifinalist were US collegians. Unseeded, Zheng defeated recent Georgia Tech graduate Andres Martin, the No. 2 seed, 6-4, 6-2 in the semifinals and recent Oklahoma State graduate and wild card Tyler Zink 6-4, 7-6(3) in the final. Zink had defeated Stanford rising sophomore Kyle Kang, also unseeded, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 in the semifinals.

Zheng also captured the doubles title, playing with TCU rising senior Lui Maxted of Great Britain. The unseeded pair defeated Martin and his teammate Keshav Chopra, also unseeded, 6-2, 6-4 in the final. 

Recent TCU graduate Jake Fearnley won his second ATP Challenger title since helping the Horned Frogs secure their first NCAA team title in May yesterday at the 75-level event in Lincoln Nebraska.

The unseeded 23-year-old from Great Britain defeated top seed Chris Eubanks in the second round and No. 5 seed Yunchaokete Bu of China in the semifinals. He faced unseeded Coleman Wong of Hong Kong in the final, and came away with a 6-4, 6-2 win, just his second straight-sets victory of the week. Fearnley is now up to 162 in the ATP live rankings.

2024 NCAA doubles champions Robert Cash and JJ Tracy of Ohio State won their first title as a team, beating top seeds Ariel Behar of Uruguay and Luke Johnson(Clemson) of Great Britain 7-6(6), 6-3 in the final. Recent graduates Cash and Tracy, who have already been awarded a US Open main draw wild card, will be competing at the Cincinnati Open this week as wild cards. 

The Cary ATP Challenger 100, which, like the Lincoln Challenger, is not a part of the USTA Pro Circuit, is underway in North Carolina, with the qualifying concluding Sunday. Emilio Nava, the only American to qualify, lost his first round match today.  

Wild cards were given to Cooper Williams, a rising sophomore at Duke, Tristan Boyer(Stanford) and North Carolina State rising senior Braden Shick.  Williams and Shick lost their first round matches, but Boyer picked up the best win by ranking of his career, beating No. 2 seed and ATP No. 77 Alexandre Muller of France 7-6(5), 6-4.  Nishesh Basavareddy received a special exemption into the main draw, as qualifying started the same day as he was playing the semifinals in Lincoln.