Two more Americans earned spots in the main draw at Roland Garros, with Emilio Nava and Claire Liu joining Ashlyn Krueger, Sloane Stephens and Michael Zheng(Columbia) as qualifiers. With those five, there are now 19 US women and 18 US men in the main draw, with playing beginning Sunday.
No. 3 seed Nava, who finished second to Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford) in the USTA’s annual reciprocal Wild Card Challenge, defeated Pedro Martinez of Spain, the No. 24 seed in qualifying, 6-3, 6-3. It’s the second time he’s made the main draw via qualifying in Paris, with 2023 the other year. He won the USTA’s wild card race last year and reached the second round.
Claire Liu, who won an ITF WTT W75 last week in Slovakia, defeated No. 5 seed Lulu Sun(Texas) of New Zealand 6-1, 6-0 in less than an hour. The unseeded 25-year-old, who lost just six games in her three victories, plays Moyuka Uchijima of Japan in the first round. An interview with Liu is available now at Inside American Tennis. Nava, who also did not drop a set in getting through qualifying, will face Camilo Ugo Carabelli of Argentina in the opening round.
Reigning Kalamazoo 18s champion Darwin Blanch, the third American in today’s final round of qualifying, lost to Luka Pavlovic of France 6-2, 6-4.
Jack Kennedy and Keaton Hance, who won a doubles title last week at an M25 in Spain, played today in the singles quarterfinals of another M25 in that country, with Kennedy winning a three-hour battle 7-6(2), 2-6, 7-5. Kennedy has now won all three of their meetings on the Pro Circuit and the last two times they met in ITF juniors, but except for a walkover in juniors and one blowout by Kennedy last November at an M15 in Orlando, they have all gone three sets, with this the closest one they’ve played. No. 2 seed Kennedy plays No. 3 seed Alex Marti Pujolras of Spain in his fourth M25 semifinal of the year; he also reached the singles semifinals last week.
The 2025 US Open boys doubles champions also reached a second consecutive doubles final, but saw their winning streak come to an end to No. 4 seeds Pavel Lagutin of Russia and Younes Lalami of Morocco 6-3, 6-4.
Rain in Pelham Alabama, the site of a women’s USTA Pro Circuit W50, kept the quarterfinals from being completed, although one quarterfinalist is known, with No. 2 seed Madison Brengle getting a 2-0 retired walkover from Dana Guzman(Oklahoma) of Peru. Top seed Katrina Scott(Tennessee) and Bella Payne had both won their first sets; Savannah Broadus and Amelia Honer(UC-Santa Barbara) were in a first-set tiebreaker when the rain arrived. The semifinals are also scheduled for Saturday.
Capucine Jauffret has reached the doubles final via a walkover from Guzman. The Florida recruit and partner Kaitlyn Carnicella(Auburn, South Carolina) await their opponents, which will be either top seeds Alicia Herrero Linana(Baylor) of Spain and Anna Rogers(NC State) or Jaedan Brown(Michigan) and Megan Heuser(Illinois).
The University of Chicago men won their third NCAA Division III team title today, indoors in the rain-plagued tournament in Chattanooga, beating Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 4-3.
Chicago might have been expected to be more comfortable indoors than CMS, but CMS had claimed the ITA Men’s Team Indoor title in February with a 4-1 win over Chicago.
This afternoon, CMS took a 2-1 lead by getting the doubles point and a win from 2025 NCAA singles champion Advik Mareedu, but Chicago had taken No. 6 singles and then added No. 4 and No. 5 for a 3-2 lead. The other two matches went to third sets, with Henry Wilson of CMS closing out Alexander Ekstrand(older brother of Monica) at line 3 to make it 3-3. At that stage, Chicago’s Emil Grantcharov, who had been up 5-1 over Warren Pham at line 2, was struggling in his attempt to close out the championship. Grantcharov had a match point/deciding point with Pham serving at 1-5, and had two match points serving at 5-3, 40-30. Serving for it for a second time, Grantcharov finally got over the finish line at 40-30 to deliver another NCAA championship trophy. The Maroons won their first NCAA title in 2022 and their second in 2024.
The full box score is available here.
The D-III men‘s individual tournament is scheduled to begin Saturday, but there are thunderstorms in the forecast all weekend. CMS’s Mareedu is the No. 1 seed, with Michael Melnikov of Swarthmore seeded No. 2 in singles.
The D-III women were scheduled to play two matches today as their individual tournament began, but only the first round results have been posted. Matia Cristiani of Babson, who won the doubles title last year, is the top seed in singles. No. 2 seed Maegan Deng of Redlands lost in the first round today 6-3, 6-0 to Saina Deshpande of MIT.
The final is set for the D-II women’s team championship in Surprise Arizona, with No. 4 seed Catawba beating No. 1 seed Mississippi College 4-3 and No. 3 seed Nova Southeastern defeating No. 2 seed Grand Valley State 4-2. The final is set for 4 p.m. Eastern and will be streamed at ncaa.com.
The men’s D-II semifinals Saturday feature No. 1 seed Barry versus No. 5 Catawba and No. 2 West Florida versus No. 6 Flagler. Those matches are scheduled for noon Eastern and will also be streamed at ncaa.com.