ITA All-American Championships Pre-Qualifying Begins Saturday; Main Draw Selections Feature Two Notable Freshmen Wild Cards; Basavareddy Reaches Columbus Challenger Semis; All-US Weekend Set at San Rafael W35

Pre-qualifying begins Saturday for the men's and women's All-American Championships, with the men in Tulsa Oklahoma and the women in Cary North Carolina. This is earlier in the season than usual for these events, which have always been in October, due to the major changes in the fall calendar. Qualifying begins Monday and main draw begins Wednesday.

The main draw acceptance lists were posted today, and with qualification for November's NCAA singles and doubles championships available to the All-American quarterfinalists (and the consolation finalists), the fields are strong.

2024 NCAA singles semifinalists Ozan Baris of Michigan State and Colton Smith of Arizona are in the men's field, as is NCAA finalist Michael Zheng of Columbia. NCAA champion Filip Planinsek of Alabama is not competing this fall.

Kalamazoo 18s champion Matt Forbes of Michigan State received a wild card, as did Stanford sophomore Kyle Kang. The host school receives a wild card, and Reiya Komagata of Tulsa was awarded that one. Texas and Duke have the most players in the main draw with three.

The men's list of main draw and qualifying competitors can be found here.

The prequalifying draw is here.

The women's main draw has finally expanded; after being a 32-player draw for decades, it now is the same as the men: a 64-draw.

Texas A&M's Mary Stoiana has entered, as has Georgia's Dasha Vidmanova; 2024 NCAA singles finalist Anastiasiia Lopata of Georgia is showing under the Players tab here, but not on the Google document, so we may have to wait for the main draw to be posted to see if she's playing. 

2024 USTA 18s finalist Valerie Glozman of Stanford received a main draw wild card. Tatum Evans of North Carolina received the host wild card. 2022 National 18s champion Eleana Yu, who transferred to Duke after her freshman year at Stanford, is one of five players from Duke in main draw. Yu received a wild card as the ITA National Summer champion. 

Cracked Racquets will again provide coverage of the event, beginning next Wednesday, with the start of the main draw.

The semifinals are set at the ATP Challenger 75 in Columbus, with no seeded players remaining in the draw. Nineteen-year-old Nishesh Basavareddy, who is taking the fall off from Stanford and is unsure about returning in January, reached his fifth Challenger semifinal with today's 6-0, 6-2 win over Las Vegas finalist Tristan Boyer(Stanford). Basavareddy will face Ohio State graduate James Trotter of Japan, who defeated Ernesto Escobedo of Mexico 7-6(3), 6-2.  Top seed Chris Eubanks(Georgia Tech) lost to Naoki Nakagawa of Japan 2-6, 7-6(4), 7-6(4); Nakagawa had never been beyond the second round of a Challenger until this week. Nakagawa will face qualifier Kyle Edmund of Great Britain, whose comeback from injury has gone on more than two years. This is the former ATP No. 14's first Challenger semifinal since 2019.

At the W35 in San Rafael California, American champions are guaranteed with all four singles semifinalists and both doubles finalists from the United States.

Two former USTA 18s champions will square off in the top half, with top seed Kayla Day, the 2016 San Diego champion, playing qualifier Ashley Kratzer, the 2017 San Diego champion. Day defeated No. 5 seed Katherine Sebov of Canada 7-5, 6-4 while Kraztzer beat No. 3 seed Iryna Shymanovich of Belarus 6-3, 6-1.

In the bottom half, No. 6 seed Robin Anderson(UCLA) defeated No. 2 seed Gabriela Knutson(Syracuse) of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-2 to set up a semifinal contest with No. 4 seed Sophie Chang. Chang defeated Lea Ma(Georgia) 6-1, 6-4 in today's quarterfinals.

The doubles final will feature No. 2 seeds Anderson and Alana Smith(NC State) against No. 4 seeds Jamie Loeb(UNC) and Makenna Jones(UNC). Jones, the 2021 NCAA doubles champion, had not played singles or doubles since last November, so it's great to see her back on the court this week and winning matches, even if she is only playing doubles.