Four Americans Among Entries for Next Week's ITF J500 Cairo; SMU's Feisel Sues NCAA; Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Men and Women Stay No. 1 in Latest D-III Team Rankings; Update on Zootennis Daily Email Issues

The second ITF J500 of the year, just three weeks after the first one in Brazil, is scheduled for next week in Cairo Egypt. Four Americans have made the trip, with two of them also in Cairo for this week's J300.  Both Carel Ngounoue and Tucson ITF J300 champion Camille Allegre, a qualifier, lost in the second round this week, although Ngounoue is through to the doubles final with partner Alejandro Mateo Berge Nourescu of Romania.

Allegre is currently only two spots out of the main draw of the J500, which is a 48-draw, not a 32-draw like the J300, and will probably move into the main draw. The other US girl in the acceptances is Ireland O'Brien; the other US boys in the acceptances is Zavier Augustin.

The two ITF Top 20 boys in the acceptances are Nikita Belozertsev of Uzbekistan, 14, and ITF J300 Bradenton finalist Dimitar Kisimov of Bulgaria, 19. There are no Top 20 girls, with Germans Sonja Zhenikhova, 22, and Ida Wobker, 32, with the highest rankings.

The ITF Junior site has provided this preview.

SMU women's tennis student-athlete Gina Feistel has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, contending that the rule denying eligibility to players competing in organized competition after the age of 20 unlawfully restrains that labor market. The 23-year-old, who has not competed for SMU but is on the roster this season as a senior, is seeking a temporary restraining order. Feistel, who was born in Germany, but represents Poland on the ITF Circuit, has been playing ITF women's tournaments all semester and won a W15 title last month in Mexico.

The link to the filing is here.

The latest ITA Division III team rankings came out yesterday, with both the men's and women's teams at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps retaining the No. 1 spots, which they assumed after winning the Team Indoor Championships. The men suffered their first loss of the season 4-3 to No. 2 Tufts on March 21 at the Stag-Hen Invitational in Claremont, but kept the No. 1 ranking. The women's only loss was their first match of the year, to Division I UC-Riverside. 

I've been experiencing technical problems with the email signup form in the past few days, and for two days, in the email itself being distributed. It appears the distribution is back on schedule, but I'm still trying to work through several issues with securing the form from spam bots. If you have not received emails the past few days, please sign up again. The form no longer fits the site properly on all browsers, but I believe it is fully functional.