Top Seed Baris Among Nine Seeds Ousted in All-American Championships First Round, All Top Eight Women's Seeds Advance; Grant and Kennedy Lead US Teams for Junior Billie Jean King and Davis Cups

The All-American Championships were considered wide open on the men's side this year, and the first day did nothing to discourage that view with nine of the 16 seeds, including top seed Ozan Baris of Michigan State, eliminated in their first round matches.

Graduate student Theo Dean of Cal, No. 44 in the ITA Division I preseason rankings, beat No. 1 Baris, a 2024 NCAA singles semifinalist, 6-2, 2-6, 6-1. Dean played at Yale prior to joining the Bears for this season.

Baris was one of four top 8 seeds to lose: No. 6 seed Radu Papoe of Cornell lost to Pedro Vives of TCU 6-1, 6-0; No. 7 seed Gavin Young of Michigan lost to Peter Makk of Southern Cal, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 and No. 8 seed Jack Anthrop of Ohio State was beaten by Casey Hoole of South Carolina 6-2, 7-5.  

The five 9-16 seeds who lost are Mississippi State's Petar Jovanovic, Thomas Pausell of Georgia, Paul Inchauspe of Princeton, Shunsuke Mitsui of Tennessee and Pedro Rodenas of Duke. Qualifier Sam Landau of Duke defeated Jovanovic 6-4, 2-6, 6-2; Sebastian Gorzny of Texas beat Paulsell 6-2, 7-5; qualifier Aidan Kiim of Ohio State defeated Inchauspe 4-6, 6-3, 7-5; Kalamazoo 18s champion Matt Forbes of Michigan State, a wild card entry, defeated Mitsui 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 and Jaden Weekes of Kentucky beat Rodenas 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-4.

Weekes, who came through pre-qualifying, has now won six matches in the past five days. He will play qualifier Corey Craig of Florida State next. Max Sheldon of Michigan State is the other pre-qualifier advancing to Thursday's second round. He defeated Fons Van Sambeek of NC State 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. More than half the men's first round matches, 17 to be exact, went to a third set.

There were upsets in the women's first round as well, but they were all confined to players seeded 9-16. The two pre-tournament favorites, top seed and defending champion Mary Stoiana of Texas A&M and No. 2 seed Dasha Vidmanova of Georgia, started with straight-sets victories. Stoiana defeated Sydni Ratliff of Ohio State 6-1, 6-1 and Vidmanova beat qualifier Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer of UCLA 6-2, 6-4.

No. 9 seed Anastasiya Komar of Oklahoma State was beaten by Lily Jones of Michigan 6-1, 7-5; No. 11 seed Amelia Honer of UC-Santa Barbara lost to Oyiniomo Quadre of Florida International 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-4; No. 12 seed Emma Charney of Southern Cal dropped a 2-6, 6-3, 6-1 decision to Tatum Evans of North Carolina; No. 13 seed Julia Garcia Ruiz of Oklahoma was beaten by Sofia Johnson of Old Dominion 6-1, 6-1; No. 15 seed Carolina Gomez Alonso of Arkansas lost to qualifier Catherine Aulia of Tennessee 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-1 and No. 16 seed Mia Kupres of Texas A&M was beaten by Ellie Coleman of Duke 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Note that the consolation tournament this year is a feed-in through the round of 16, after previously being confined to first round losers. This is because the two consolation finalists receive entry into the NCAA singles field in November, joining the quarterfinalists from this event as qualifiers.

As with the men, two players who came through pre-qualifying advanced to the second round with their sixth wins of the tournament: Carmen Andreea Herea of Texas beat wild card Eleana Yu of Duke 7-6(2), 6-3 and Imogen Haddad of Southern Cal defeated qualifier Guillermina Grant of Georgia 7-6(4), 2-6, 6-4.

Doubles action is still underway, but there have already been major upsets in the first round, with men's No. 2 seeds Niels Ratiu and Freddy Blades of Georgia falling to Gavin Young and Benjamin Kittay of Michigan 7-5, 6-3, and women's top seeds Ange Oby Kajuru and Anastasiya Komar of Oklahoma State losing to Reece Carter and Alexia Jacobs of Washington 3-6, 7-6(1), 10-3. No. 3 seeds Luciana Perry and Sydni Ratliff of Ohio State lost to Mao Mushika and Jessica Alsola of Cal 6-4, 6-4.

The second round of singles and doubles and the first round of qualifying in singles and doubles is scheduled for Thursday. See the ITA YouTube channel for the Cracked Racquets coverage. IonCourt is handling the live scoring: men's here, women's here.

The women's draws are here; the men's draws are here.

The ITF has announced the team nominations for November's Junior Billie Jean King Cup and Junior Davis Cup, which is limited to players 16 and under. The tournament is being held in Turkey, November 11-17.

The United States Junior BJK Cup team, captained by Georgi Rumenov, consists of Tyra Grant, Kristina Penickova and Julieta Pareja. Grant was on the US team that won the Cup last year, with Alanis Hamilton and Iva Jovic, who are no longer age-eligible.

Other strong teams include Great Britain, with Hannah Klugman and US Open champion Mika Stojsavljevic, the Czech Republic, with Julie Pastikova and Tereza Krejcova and Germany, with Julia Stusek and Sonja Zhenikhova.

The rosters for all 16 teams can be found here.

The United States Junior Davis Cup team, captained by Jose Caballeros, consists of Jack Kennedy, Jack Secord and Keaton Hance. Other strong teams in the boys competition include France and Germany. 

The rosters for all 16 teams can be found here.