Kuzmova Takes Title in Lubbock $25K; McHale Wins First WTA Tournament in Tokyo; Smith, Thomas Earn Titles in Israel; Zink, Harris Collect ITF Grade 5 Titles; Baylor's Bendeck Takes Napa Shootout

Eighteen-year-old Viktoria Kuzmova is no stranger to the winner's circle in ITF Pro Circuit events, having collected eight titles at the $10,000 level in the past two years.  The Slovakian, fresh off an appearance in the final of the US Open girls championships in New York, went to Lubbock, Texas this week, while working her way west and eventually to Australia.  That schedule proved beneficial when she won her first pro title at the $25,000 level today, with the No. 2 seed beating No. 5 seed Freya Christie of Great Britain 6-0, 7-5 in the final.

Top seed Elise Mertens of Belgium won the $50,000 USTA Pro Circuit event in Atlanta, beating Melanie Oudin 6-4, 6-2 in the final, played indoors due to inclement weather.

At the WTA International tournament in Quebec, Lauren Davis lost in the final to 19-year-old Oceane Dodin of France 6-4, 6-3, but Davis will return to the WTA Top 100, while Dodin will enter it for the first time.

Overnight in Tokyo, Christina McHale claimed her first WTA title, winning five consecutive three-setters, including in the final over 20-year-old Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. The 24-year-old from New Jersey will move back into the WTA Top 50 with the title.

None of the US men in USTA Pro Circuit finals today were victorious, with qualifier Evan Zhu falling to Sebastian Fanselow of Germany 7-5, 6-7(3), 6-3 at the $10,000 Claremont Futures and Ernesto Escobedo going down to qualifier James McGee of Ireland 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 in the ATP $50,000+H Challenger in Cary, North Carolina.  Unseeded Austin Krajicek and Stefan Kozlov also lost in today's doubles final in Cary, to the Canadian team of Peter Polansky and Philip Bester, seeded No. 2, 6-2, 6-2.

For more on Zhu's run to the final, see this report from yesterday by Steve Pratt, the tournament press aide.

Connor Smith, the No. 3 seed, won his second consecutive $10,000 Futures title in Israel, defeating No. 4 seed Neil Pauffley of Great Britain 6-1, 6-0 in the final.  The former Ohio State standout has lost only one set in his ten wins the past two weeks, in the first round this week against 16-year-old Danny Thomas.  Thomas and Smith won their second straight doubles title this week, beating Nathaniel Lammons and Dane Webb in the final, 6-0, 7-6(3). Thomas and Smith have not lost a set in their eight victories on this trip.

At the ITF Grade 5 in Honduras, 15-year-olds Tyler Zink and Jordan Harris came away with titles, and did it without the loss of a set.  It was the first career ITF junior singles title for Zink, with the No. 3 seed taking out unseeded Alan Sau Franco of Mexico 7-5, 6-1 in the final. The unseeded Harris, who won her first ITF title last year, defeated top seed Rut Galindo of Guatemala 6-4, 6-1 in the final. Alfredo Casso partnered Pedro Gutierrez Arreaga of Guatemala to take the boys doubles title.

The Porsche Napa Valley Classic finished today, with Baylor sophomore Jimmy Bendeck winning the shootout that earns him a USTA Pro Circuit wild card.  Below are the shootout results.  None of the eight USTA players invited to compete with the collegians qualified for the shootout.  Complete results can be found here.  The complete round robin draw is here.

Zhu Reaches Claremont Futures Final, Kuzmova One Step from Lubbock $25K Title; Another Doubles Championship for Neel

Evan Zhu wasn't awarded a wild card into Kalamazoo this year, which was unfortunate, given that he had an ATP point and was having success in Futures qualifying most of the year.  Ready to start his freshman year at UCLA next week, Zhu has added at least 10 ATP points to his resume after today's 7-6(2), 6-1 win over Alex Blumenberg of Brazil at the $10,000 Claremont, California Futures put him in his first Pro Circuit final.  The 18-year-old qualifier, who trains at the Dent Academy, will play former Pepperdine All-American Sebastian Fanselow of Germany in the final.

Fanselow spoiled an all-UCLA final by outlasting wild card Martin Redlicki 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(4) in a two-and-a-half-hour semifinal battle. In the doubles final on Friday, Fanselow and Sebastian Bader of Austria, the No. 2 seeds, lost to top seeds Luis Patino of Mexico and Alexios Halebian 7-5, 6-4.

US Open girls finalist Viktoria Kuzmova had no time to relax after her run in New York, heading directly to the $25,000 Lubbock tournament, where she is the No. 2 seed.  The 18-year-old from Slovakia did get a Wednesday start, and the heavy schedule appears to be agreeing with her, as she has reached Sunday's final, where she will play 18-year-old Freya Christie of Great Britain.  Christie, the No. 5 seed, beat 17-year-old qualifier Ashley Kratzer 7-6(2), 6-2 in today's semifinal, while Kuzmova beat unseeded Ana Veselinovic of Montenegro 6-2, 6-2.

The doubles title went to Catherine Harrison and Emina Bektas.  Harrison, a recent UCLA graduate who is now a volunteer assistant at TCU, and Bektas, the 2015 Michigan graduate, were unseeded, but didn't lose a set in their four victories.  They defeated No. 1 seeds Ema Burgic Bucko of Bosnia and Renata Zarazua of Mexico 6-3, 6-4 in the final.  Burgic Bucko is a former Baylor star.

Melanie Oudin has reached the final of the $50,000 tournament in Atlanta, where she will face top seed Elise Mertens of Belgium.  Mertens defeated Kristie Ahn 7-6(9), 6-4 to prevent the all-US final, while Oudin took out US Open girls quarterfinalist Tessah Andrianjafitrimo of France 6-4, 6-1.

Eighteen-year-old Ingrid Neel won her sixth USTA Pro Circuit doubles title with her fifth different partner in Atlanta.  Neel and Pepperdine sophomore standout Luisa Stefani of Brazil defeated Taylor Townsend and Alexandra Stevenson 4-6, 6-4, 10-5 in the final.

At the $50,000+H ATP Challenger in Cary, North Carolina, Ernesto Escobedo will face James McGee of Ireland in Sunday's final.  For the second time in three months, Escobedo defeated Frances Tiafoe in a third set tiebreaker. The previous time was the final of the Lexington Challenger; today it was the semifinals in Cary, with Escobedo taking the victory by a 6-3, 6-7(5), 7-6(2) score.  McGee, the former North Carolina State standout, defeated defending champion and top seed Dennis Novikov 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

The $25,000 Futures in Canada was completed today, with Rhyne Williams going one for two in finals.  He and Hans Hach of Mexico, the No. 2 seeds, won the doubles title, beating juniors Benjamin Sigouin of Canada and Juan Carlos Aguilar of Bolivia 6-3, 6-3 in the final.

In today's singles final, Williams, the No. 7 seed, lost to No. 2 seed Filip Peliwo of Canada 6-3, 6-4.  Peliwo, now 22, has struggled on the Pro Circuit since making all four junior slam finals (and winning two titles) back in 2012. This is his first Futures title of 2016, after winning two last year.

US Open Junior Championships Recap, Slide Show

My review of last week's US Open Junior Championships, with Southern Californians Kayla Day, Ena Shibahara and Jada Hart sweeping the girls titles, is available now at the Tennis Recruiting Network.

The slideshow below departs a bit from my usual ones, with photos of all the US juniors participating in the main draw of the US Open Junior Championships, singles and doubles, 43 players in all.  Due to USTA/US Open restrictions on video, I am not able to provide any YouTube videos, but if you have access to ESPN3, some junior matches, including both singles finals and the girls doubles final are available for replay.

The direct link to the Google Photos album is here.

Pro Circuit Update; Thompson Retires; Bellis Reaches Quebec Quarterfinals

Four US tournaments and one in Canada mean plenty of Americans on the Pro Circuit this week, with many juniors who competed in the US Open in New York last week also finding success on the professional circuit.

At the $25,000 women's event in Lubbock, Texas the only American remaining in singles is qualifier Ashley Kratzer, while four British girls are into the final eight.  Kratzer, a 17-year-old from California, beat USC sophomore Jessica Failla 6-4, 6-1 and will play Great Britain's Katie Boulter in Friday's quarterfinals.  No. 2 seed in the tournament is US Open finalist Viktoria Kuzmova of Slovakia, who advanced to the quarterfinals with a 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 win over Wesleyan's Division III champion Eudice Chong of Hong Kong. Kuzmova had beaten 2015 Wimbledon girls champion Sofya Zhuk of Russia 6-1, 6-2 in the first round.  Katie Swan of Great Britain is also into the quarterfinals, having eliminated top seed Ana Vrljic of Croatia in the first round.

The $50,000 women's event in Atlanta has two American quarterfinalists, neither of them seeded: Melanie Oudin and Kristie Ahn.

Oudin will face another player coming back from injury, Great Britain's Laura Robson, while Ahn meets No. 3 seed Michaela Krajicek of the Netherlands.  Tessah Andrianjafitrimo of France, a quarterfinalist at the US Open Juniors last week, has also advanced to the final eight. She will play Elizaveta Ianchuk of Ukraine, who upset No. 2 seed Taylor Townsend in today's second round.

Canada is hosting a $25,000 men's Futures event this week, with the semifinals set for Friday.

Rhyne Williams, the No. 7 seed, beat top seed Kaichi Uchida of Japan 6-2, 6-2 in today's quarterfinals and will play wild card Benjamin Sigouin of Canada.  The 17-year-old Sigouin, who lost in the first round of singles at the US Open junior championships last week and reached the doubles final, defeated No. 3 seed Takanyi Garanganga of Zimbabwe 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 in today's quarterfinal.  Former Columbia star Winston Lin, the No. 8 seed, will play 2012 US Open boys champion Filip Peliwo of Canada, who is the No. 2 seed in this week's tournament.

Sigouin and Williams have reached the double final, although not as partners.  Sigouin is playing with Juan Carlos Aguilar of Bolivia, who won the US boys doubles title last week, playing against Sigouin, while Williams is partnering former Abilene Christian star Hans Hach of Mexico this week, and they are seeded No. 2.

Also of note from the Canada Futures, 18-year-old qualifier Mwendwa Mbithi picked up his first ATP point with a first round win Tuesday.

At the $10,000 men's Futures in Claremont, California, wild card Martin Redlicki and qualifier Evan Zhu, both UCLA Bruins, have advanced to the quarterfinals, as has Alexios Halebian, the No. 5 seed.  Redlicki, a junior who won the NCAA doubles title back in May, beat top seed Jan Choinski of Germany in the opening round and Ty Trombetta in today's second round match.

The 18-year-old Zhu, a freshman at UCLA, reached his first Futures quarterfinal by beating No. 2 seed and former UCLA All-American Clay Thompson 6-4, 6-4.  After the match, the 24-year-old Thompson, who brought entertainment value to any tennis match he played, announced he was retiring from pro tennis.  Thompson won one ITF singles title, last year in Mexico, and reached a career-high of 408 in the ATP rankings earlier this year.

At the $50,000+H Cary, North Carolina ATP Challenger, the bottom half of the draw is all-American.  No. 2 seed Frances Tiafoe will play unseeded Tennys Sandgren in the quarterfinals, while Ernesto Escobedo, the No. 8 seed, will face No. 4 seed Stefan Kozlov.  In the top half, No. 1 seed and defending champion Dennis Novikov plays No. 5 seed Peter Polansky of Canada and wild card Brayden Schnur of Canada faces James McGee of Ireland.  The 21-year-old Schnur, who turned pro after his junior year at North Carolina, won a $25,000 Futures title earlier this month and reached the quarterfinals of a Challenger for the first time with a 7-6(1), 6-1 win over Eric Quigley tonight.

CiCi Bellis has reached her first WTA tournament quarterfinal as a pro (she was still an amateur earlier this summer when she made the quarterfinals at the Bank of the West WTA event at Stanford) this week in Quebec City, and she will face Julia Boserup for her first WTA semifinal.  With top seed Genie Bouchard's loss tonight, none of the quarterfinalists are seeded, with Lauren Davis, at 104, the highest ranked player remaining in contention for the WTA International level title.

Hayley Carter, Mikael Torpegaard Top ITA Preseason Rankings; ACC Moves Conference Championships from Cary NC; Q and A with Martin Blackman, More

The ITA announced its preseason rankings yesterday, with Hayley Carter of North Carolina and Mikael Torpegaard of Ohio State starting the fall tournament season at the No. 1 positions.  I had hoped that another set of national rankings would be run after the All-American tournaments and Regionals, but the ITA's ranking page says the next edition of the rankings will be on January 5th, when the first team rankings also come out.   These early rankings also include a one-time set of Newcomer rankings, with North Carolina's Sara Daavettila and Virginia's Carl Soderlund No. 1 on those lists.

The women's top 10:

1. Hayley Carter, North Carolina

2. Luisa Stefani, Pepperdine

3. Francesca Di Lorenzo, Ohio State

4. Ellen Perez, Georgia

5. Sinead Lohan, Miami

6. Brooke Austin, Florida

7. Maegan Manasse, Cal

8. Jasmine Lee, Mississippi State

9. Belinda Woolcock, Florida

10. Katarina Adomvic, Oklahoma State

The women's top freshmen/newcomers:
1. Sara Daavettila, North Carolina
2. Ena Shibahara, UCLA
3. Aliona Bolsova, Oklahoma State
4. Bianca Turtati, Texas
5. Ashley Lahey, Pepperdine
6. Meible Chi, Duke
7. Emily Arbuthnott, Stanford
8. Rosie Johanson, Virginia
9. Emma Higuchi, Stanford
T-10. Madison Battaglia, Yale
T-10. Marie Leduc, Clemson

The complete women's singles rankings are here.

The women's top 5 doubles teams:
1. Mami Adachi and Aldila Sutjiadi, Kentucky
2. Brooke Austin and Kourtney Keegan, Florida
3. Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr, Cal
4. Mira Ruder-Hook and Brienne Minor, Michigan
5. Miho Kowase and Anna Sanford, Ohio State

The complete women's doubles rankings are here.

The men's top 10:

1. Mikael Torpegaard, Ohio State
2. Cameron Norrie, TCU
3. Aleks Vukic, Illinois
4. Thai Kwiatkowski, Virginia
5. Christopher Eubanks, Georgia Tech
6. Tom Fawcett, Stanford
7. Skander Mansouri, Wake Forest
8. Petros Chrysochos, Wake Forest
9. Arthur Rinderknech, Texas A&M
10. Ronnie Schneider, North Carolina

The men's top freshmen/newcomers:
1. Carl Soderlund, Virginia
2. Ronit Bisht, Texas Tech
3. Yuya Ito, Texas
4. Leonardo Telles, Texas
5. Thibault Cancel, Alabama
6. Brandon Holt, USC
7. Lucas Poullain, Florida State
8. Simon Soendergaard, North Carolina
9. Robert Levine, Duke
10. Nathan Ponwith, Georgia

The complete men's singles rankings are here.

The men's Top 5 doubles teams:

1. Julian Cash and Arjun Kadhe, Oklahoma State

2. Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat, Cal

3. Skander Mansouri and Christian Seraphim, Wake Forest

4. Mikael Torpegaard and Herkko Pollanen, Ohio State

5. Luis Valero and Jack Schipanski, Tennessee

The complete men's doubles rankings are here.

In more news on sporting events in North Carolina, the ACC has decided to move its neutral site championships out of the state, which includes the conference championships for men's and women's tennis, also held in Cary, North Carolina.  The release announcing this decision does not provide any information on where these ten championships may go.

There's so much tennis reporting that I miss when I'm covering the US Open juniors and the American Collegiate Invitational, and here's several I've run across as I've tried to catch up on what others are writing.

Karen Pestaina at Tennis Panorama spoke with USTA General Manager of Player Development Martin Blackman about his background in tennis, the USTA's increased emphasis on the college pathway, the newly structured support for young professionals, the recent partnership with Adidas and other topics in this question and answer session.

The New York Times talked with players about no-ad scoring for this article. It's mostly professional doubles players who are quoted, but also Ronit Yurovsky, who played most of her last two seasons at Michigan using no-ad scoring for singles and doubles.

And ESPNW looked at the impressive number of US junior girls on the horizon in this article, which features quotes from Kayla Day, Carson Branstine, Ashley Lahey and USTA head of women's tennis Ola Malmqvist.

CiCi Bellis Turns Pro: My Exclusive Interview with the Rising American Teenager

CiCi Bellis announced today that she has signed with IMG, who will represent her as she pursues a career as a professional tennis player.  The 17-year-old from Atherton, California, who now lives in Florida, had recently verbally committed to Stanford University for 2017, but her run at the US Open, where she earned $144,000 for reaching the third round in singles as a qualifier, convinced her the time was right to turn pro.  Currently ranked a career-high 120 and into the second round of the WTA International tournament in Quebec City this week, Bellis spoke to me last week about her decision.

"I think the past summer, and the WTA tournaments that I've done and my recent tournament here at the US Open, changed that decision for me," Bellis told me. "That's kind of what did it."

Bellis said her ability to compete and win matches on the WTA tour, where her current record for 2016 is 6-3, figured into her decision.

"I really just believed in myself, that I can do it and I can do it in the future," Bellis said. "That I can compete at this level consistently."

Bellis says she will miss playing for a team, having led the US girls to the 2013 14-and-under ITF World Junior Tennis team title and the 2014 16-and-under Junior Fed Cup title.

"I've always loved playing team tournaments," Bellis said. "Every single one I play, I always bring out my best tennis. I think I will definitely miss that about college tennis, but I definitely would like to play Fed Cup someday, so that would make up for it."

Bellis selected IMG to represent her primarily due to her relationship with Marijn Bal, an agent based in Bradenton.

"We were talking about the first time he talked to my dad and watched me play, at the 12s Orange Bowl semifinals, after I won," said Bellis, who lost to Claire Liu in the 2011 final. "He's literally been with me since then, obviously not officially, but he's helped me so much with wild cards in the past, about social media, what to say. He's basically been my agent without officially signing for the past four years.  I talked to a few other agencies, but I've know him so long and we're obviously great friends too. It's not just business."

Bellis was an overnight sensation in New York back in 2014, when, as the USTA National 18s champion, she defeated No. 12 seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia in the first round to become the youngest American to win a match at the US Open since Mary Joe Fernandez in 1986. Two years later, after wins over two French Open quarterfinalists (Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium in final round of qualifying and Shelby Rogers in the second round of the main draw), Bellis was again a favorite with the New York crowds, who had no trouble recognizing her when she walked the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

"I've gotten so, so much [positive feedback from fans]. I'm just so grateful for all the support I've been given, throughout the this tournament and throughout the whole summer," said Bellis, who had the encouragement of all Bay Area tennis fans when she reached the third round of the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford. "It's been amazing."

Bellis, who is coached by the USTA's Anibal Aranda, will be moving from her current home in Boca Raton to the USTA's new campus in Lake Nona, near Orlando, in January. She will complete her senior year of high school online via the K-12 International Academy while playing professionally, although she is limited by WTA age restriction rules until next April, when she turns 18.

I asked Bellis what she was most looking forward to, now that she has made her decision to forgo college.

"Just being able to do what I love every single day, not for the rest of my life, I can't say that, but for a very long time," she answered. "Competing at these tournaments is what I love so much, and to be able to do that for a very long time, I'm so excited."