USTA Nationals Kalamazoo Seeds; Lajal Saves Five Match Points to Win Bloomfield Hills Challenger, Another Title for Caty McNally; Honer, Jubb Claim Titles in Florence and Champaign

The seeds have been published for the USTA National 16s and 18s Championships, which begin Friday August 1 in Kalamazoo. The top 32 seeds, all of whom receive first round byes, are listed below. The 33 seeds can be found at the USTA PlayTennis website. Draws are expected to be posted Monday.

Boys 18s:
1. Darwin Blanch

2. Cooper Woestendick

3. Jack Kennedy

4. Benjamin Willwerth

5. Ronit Karki

6. Keaton Hance

7. Noah Johnston

8. Jack Satterfield

9. Dominick Mosejczuk

10. Maxwell Exsted

11. Maximus Dussault

12. Gus Grumet

13. Ilija Palavestra(WC)

14. Roy Horovitz(WC)

15. Lukas Phimvongsa

16. Braeden Gelletich

17. Ian Mayew

18. Dylan Long

19. Nav Dayal

20. Ryan Cozad

21. Gavin Goode

22. Matisse Farzam

23. Simon Caldwell(WC)

24. Lachlan Gaskell

25. Nischal Spurling

26. Cooper Han

27. Jacob Olar(WC)

28. Shaan Patel

29. Yashwin Krishnakumar

30. Nikolas Stoot

31. Tanishk Konduri

32. Ethan Chung

Boys 16s:

1. Michael Antonius(WC)

2. Andrew Johnson

3. Roshan Santhosh

4. Vihaan Reddy

4. Marcel Latak

6. Keshav Muthuvel

7. Safir Azam

8. Tristan Stratton

9. Sean Grosman(WC)

10. Jerrid Gaines Jr

11. Izyan Ahmad

12. Shaan Majeed

13. Navneet Raghuram

14. Joseph Lee

15. Mason Vaughan

16. Colin McPeek

17. Ilias Bouzoubaa

18. Erik Schinnerer

19. Aditya Pandey

20. Daniil Berezin

21. Sebastian Bielen(WC)

22. Ryan Bedwick

23. Lucas Smith

24. Lennart Hammargren

25. Artem Dmytrenko

26. Rafael Lopez

27. Gadin Arun

28. Peter Jorniak

29. Sebastian Inaki Godoy

30. Rowan Qalbani

31. Joseph Nau

32. Cristobal Plasencia Robles

The final at the ATP Challenger 100 in Bloomfield Hills Michigan was a three-and-a-half hour roller coaster ride, with unseeded Mark Lajal of Estonia saving five match points to beat wild card Andres Martin(Georgia Tech) 6-7(7), 7-5, 7-6(9) and claim his second Challenger title.

Lajal had three set points in the first set at 6-4 and 7-6 in the tiebreaker, but Martin saved the first when Lajal netted a forehand and the second with a drop shot that Lajal couldn't get back in play. Martin hit an ace up the T on the third set point, got a backhand error for his first set point, then converted it by bringing Lajal forward and bunting the reply into the open court.

There were no breaks in the second set until 5-all, but Lajal had to save two break points to serve it out, with the match two hours in duration at the juncture.

Martin had a break lead twice in the third set, at 2-0 and 3-1, but immediately lost serve both times, with the heat and the length of the match beginning to lead to more errors and less depth on the ground strokes.

After those four consecutive breaks, Martin had his first two match points after a double fault with Lajal serving at 4-5, 15-40. Martin failed to get a second serve return in play, then Lajal got a fortunate bounce off a let cord that led to him passing Martin on the second.

As in the first set tiebreaker, Lajal went up 6-4 in the third set tiebreaker, but double faulted to squander his first match point opportunity. Martin then played one of his most aggressive points of the final game, knocking off a backhand volley to save the second match point. Martin earned his third match point when Lajal netted an approach shot, but Martin's short second serve return led to a Lajal forehand winner to save it for 7-7. Lajal's backhand caught the tape and went wide to give Martin his fourth match point, but Martin sent a forehand way long in response to Lajal's return of Martin's first set to save it. Martin got his fifth and final match point when Lajal netted another forehand for 9-8, but Lajal saved that one with a good first serve and a plus-one forehand.  The next two points were also claimed by Lajal's forehand, with Lajal pounding one so deep that Martin couldn't handle it on his third and final match point of the day.

The 22-year-old Lajal is now up to a career-high ATP ranking of 147 with the title; the 24-year-old Martin is at a career-high ATP ranking of 276 after reaching the final. 

The other three USTA Pro Circuit finals today were decided with less drama, all in straight sets.

Caty McNally won her tenth straight match, with the No. 3 seed beating 2024 NCAA fall singles champion Dasha Vidmanova(Georgia) of the Czech Republic, the No. 7 seed, 7-5, 6-4 in the W100 Evansville Indiana final. McNally is now up to 116 in the WTA rankings and will no doubt lead the USTA's US Open Wild Card Race, which began for women this week.

In today's doubles final, No. 2 seeds Arianne Hartono(Ole Miss) of the Netherlands and Prarthana Thombare of India defeated unseeded Ayana Akli(Maryland, South Carolina) and NC State rising freshman Tori Osuigwe 6-3, 6-3.

Wild card Amelia Honer won her second USTA Pro Circuit title today, with the 22-year-old UC-Santa Barbara All-American defeating top seed Robin Anderson(UCLA) 6-3, 7-6(3) at the W35 in Florence South Carolina.  Honer, who completed her eligibility just two months ago, won her first Pro Circuit singles title at a W35 in Bakersfield California last fall.

At the M25 in Champaign Illinois, top seed Paul Jubb(South Carolina) of Great Britain won his 12th Pro Circuit title, beating No. 8 seed Blaise Bicknell(Florida, Tennessee) of Jamaica 6-1, 7-6(4). The 2019 NCAA singles champion has a long climb back to his ATP career-high ranking of 180, but he does have a second M25 title this year to build on in the second half.