College tennis continues its time in the spotlight, with current Division I stars earning five titles last month, and recent collegians picking up 10 more. The ITF also crowned champions at the World Junior Finals, two Americans claimed titles at the Pan American Closed and two 16-year-olds captured ITF women's World Tennis Tour titles at the $75,000 level.
Mary Stoiana
The Texas A&M senior, No. 1 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association preseason rankings, has alternated between ITA and Pro Circuit events this fall. The 21-year-old from Connecticut won her first professional singles title as an unseeded wild card last month in Edmond, Oklahoma, defeating former North Carolina State All-American Alana Smith 7-5, 6-3 in the championship match. With the title, and a quarterfinal appearance at the W100 last week in Tyler, Texas, Stoiana is now at a career-high WTA ranking of 299.
Nishesh Basavareddy
The Stanford junior, who is taking the fall off to compete on the Challenger circuit, is putting up results that cast doubt on his return to college in the spring, earning his first Challenger title last month at the ATP 75 in Tiburon, California. The unseeded 19-year-old from Indiana, who is 26-9 in Challenger play since the end of May, defeated Texas's 2024 ITA Player of the Year Eliot Spizzirri 6-1, 6-1 in the championship match to earn his first win in four Challenger finals. Now 197 in the ATP rankings, Basavareddy has an Australian Open qualifying berth locked up.
Murphy Cassone
The Arizona State senior did not enroll this fall, with the goal of establishing a Challenger-level ATP ranking in pro tournaments this semester. He accomplished that mission in October, winning his first title at the ATP 75 in Calgary, Canada, then reaching the semifinals the following week at the ATP 75 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The 22-year-old from Kansas, who had not progressed past the quarterfinal round in a Challenger before Calgary, defeated fellow qualifier Govind Nanda, a former UCLA standout, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the final. Cassone now has reached a career high of 328 in the ATP rankings.
Amelia Honer
The UC Santa Barbara senior won her first professional title last month as a wild card at the W35 in Bakersfield, California. The 21-year-old from Pennsylvania defeated unseeded 15-year-old Julieta Pareja 6-4, 6-3 in her first Pro Circuit final, after twice coming from a set down to advance earlier in the week. Now 685 in the WTA rankings, the 2024 NCAA singles quarterfinalist then went on to win the Southwest Regional title to guarantee herself a spot in the NCAA individual championships in Waco, Texas.
Anastasiya Lopata
A surprise NCAA singles finalist in May, the University of Georgia junior has been a standout on the USTA Pro Circuit this fall, and last month picked up her first professional title at the W35 in Hilton Head, South Carolina. After falling to Stoiana in the semifinals of the W75 in Edmond, the 19-year-old from Ukraine entered Hilton Head via the ITA Accelerator program two weeks later, winning every match prior to the final in three sets, including a second round win over teammate Dasha Vidmanova. In the final, she took out top seed Elvina Kalieva 6-3, 6-2 and will move into the WTA Top 600 when the points are added.
Learner Tien
The two-time Kalamazoo 18s champion won his third ATP Challenger title last month, with the top seed defeating No. 7 seed Bernard Tomic of Australia 6-0, 6-1 at the Fairfield, California 75, in what was an ATP Challenger final record time of 39 minutes. The 18-year-old left-hander from Irvine, California, who is 30-6 in Challenger competition this year and 55-9 overall, saw his ATP ranking climb to 124 with the title, after starting 2024 ranked 453. (Photo credit:Jon Mulvey/USTA SoCal)
Borna Gojo
The 26-year-old from Croatia saw his ATP ranking fall from 72 to 448 this year after a back injury kept him out of action from January until August, before regaining his form last week at the ATP Challenger 75 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The 2018 NCAA singles finalist while at Wake Forest, Gojo came through qualifying to take the title, beating No. 2 seed Mitchell Krueger in the first round to establish himself as a title contender. In his fifth Challenger final, Gojo defeated Arizona senior Colton Smith 6-1, 7-5 to claim his second career Challenger title. (Photo credit:Jason Harris/MarketBeat Open)
Lea Ma
The 23-year-old from New York won her first professional title last month at the USTA Pro Circuit W35 in Redding, California. The former University of Georgia All-American, who was unseeded, defeated the No. 6 and No. 3 seeds en route to the final, where she took out top seed Maria Mateas 6-3, 6-2. Ma went on to reach the quarterfinals at both the W35 in Edmonton, Canada and the W100 in Macon, Georgia, with those results boosting her WTA ranking to a career-high 359. (Photo credit:Conor Kvatek/USTA)
Johannus Monday
The 22-year-old left-hander from Great Britain has been on a roll since completing his eligibility at Tennessee this past spring. The four-time singles All-American won his first title this year at a $25K in July, but really picked up the pace last month, when he won three $25K titles in three weeks on the USTA Pro Circuit. Unseeded in Louisville, Kentucky, Monday defeated No. 4 seed Tyler Zink 6-2, 6-3 in the final; in Harlingen, Texas, the No. 5 seed beat qualifier Tadeas Paroulek of the Czech Republic 6-0, 6-1, and in Norman, Oklahoma, again unseeded, Monday defeated unseeded Juan Carlos Aguilar of Canada 6-1, 6-3 in the final. Now 26-4 in $25Ks this year, Monday will climb to 416 in the ATP rankings when the Norman points are added.
Daria Frayman
The former Princeton All-American won back-to-back titles last month at ITF W15 events in Tunisia. The 22-year-old, now representing Cyprus, was the No. 2 seed in the first tournament, beating unseeded Madelief Hageman of the Netherlands 6-3, 6-0 in the final. The following week, as the No. 1 seed, Frayman claimed the fifth singles title of her career with a 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(1) win over Luisa Meyer Auf Der Heide of Germany, resulting in a career-high WTA ranking of 513. (Photo credit:Conor Kvatek/USTA)
Malaika Rapolu
Like Frayman, Rapolu took W15 titles in consecutive weeks at the same venue, with the former University of Texas standout's run coming in Mexico. The unseeded 21-year-old Texan defeated No. 3 seed Dasha Plekhanova of Canada 7-6(3), 7-5 in the first final, after beating top seed Katarina Jokic of Serbia in the quarterfinals, while also claiming the doubles title. Last week, she claimed her second career singles title, again unseeded, beating the No. 2 seed in the first round and top seed Yuliana Monroy of Colombia 7-6(3), 6-2 in the final. (Photo credit:Conor Kvatek/USTA)
The 16-year-old from California, an Ace in September after claiming the W35 in Berkeley, won the biggest title of her career the following week at the W75 in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Unseeded, the 2024 USTA 18s champion defeated No. 3 seed Ena Shibahara of Japan 6-3, 6-3 in the final for her third career title. Last week, Jovic reached the final of the W100 in Texas, a result that has put her in position to claim the USTA's reciprocal Australian Open wild card. No. 4 in the ITF junior rankings, Jovic is now at a career-high 212 in the WTA rankings.
Mia Pohankova
The 16-year-old from Slovakia, who had not cracked the ITF junior top 50, had a stunning run as a wild card at the ITF World Tennis Tour women's W75 in Bratislava. She defeated three seeds, including a semifinal win over WTA No. 94 and top seed Oceane Dodin of France, en route to the final, where she encountered two-time 2024 junior slam champion and compatriot Renata Jamrichova. Pohankova passed that test too, earning a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory that boosted her WTA ranking to 512.
Mees Rottgering
The 17-year-old left-hander from the Netherlands won the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals last month in Chengdu, China, avenging a 6-4, 7-6(4) round robin loss two days earlier to top seed and US Open boys champion Rafael Jodar of Spain. No. 3 seed Rottgering, the Wimbledon boys finalist, posted a 6-4, 7-6(2) victory in the final, ending Jodar's ITF Junior Circuit winning streak at 15. Rottgering collected $17,500 in travel grants and 850 ranking points, boosting his ITF junior ranking to 3, a career high.
Emerson Jones
The 16-year-old from Australia was the top seed in the girls field at the ITF WTT Junior Finals in Chengdu and the ITF junior No. 1 went undefeated in round robin group play and in the two knockout rounds. The two-time junior slam finalist avenged her US Open loss to Great Britain's Mika Stojsavljevic in the semifinals, then defeated No. 3 seed Laura Samson of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-4 in the final. Jones, the first Australian girl to participate in the ITF Junior Finals, collected $19,000 in travel grants.
The 16-year-old from New York won his second ITF J300 title at the Pan American Regional Championships in Spring, Texas. Seeded No. 3, the 2024 Kalamazoo 18s finalist dropped only one set in his five wins, defeating No. 4 seed Ian Mayew 2-6, 6-1, 6-4 in the final. Kennedy, who had beaten Mayew to claim his first J300 title in San Diego last March, then went on to earn his first ATP point the following week as a wild card at the $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Harlingen, Texas. Now ranked No. 27, he is the only boy born in 2008 in the top 30 in the ITF junior rankings.
The 17-year-old from Arizona had been searching for a breakout tournament at the top levels of the ITF Junior Circuit and it came last month at the Pan American J300 in Texas. Seeded No. 5, Iyengar defeated No. 3 seed Nadia Lagaev of Canada in the quarterfinals and No. 2 seed Annika Penickova in the semifinals to advance to the final, where she avenged two previous losses this year to No. 6 seed Aspen Schuman 6-3, 4-6, 6-4. With the title, Iyengar's junior ranking reached the top 40 for the first time.
Jana Kovackova
The 14-year-old from the Czech Republic has been eligible to compete in ITF Junior Circuit events only since June of last year, but she has already climbed into the ITF junior Top 25, the only girl born in 2010 in the Top 100. Last month, the 2024 Wimbledon 14U champion won two J300 tournaments, the first as the No. 6 seed in Morocco, where she defeated 2023 Wimbledon 14U champion Luna Vujovic of Serbia, seeded eighth, 6-4, 6-2. Although the final in Spain the following week featured the same score, it was a much tougher match, with unseeded Jana defeating her top-seeded sister Alena for the title. (Photo credit:Paul Ballard)
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4-Oct-2024 First-Time Winners Highlight September Aces
September produced first-time titles for teenagers on both the junior and pro circuits. Division I college tennis crowned its first champions of 2024-25, while current and recently graduated collegians also earned their share of the spotlight as summer turned to fall.
30-Aug-2024 August Standouts Shine on Hard Courts
The hard courts take center stage in August leading up to the US Open, and many former collegiate stars had great performances that landed them a spot in the Aces column for the month.
31-Jul-2024 Former Collegians Shine on Grass, Clay in July
From grass at Wimbledon and Rhode Island to clay in Sweden, Hungary and Croatia, former collegians had a banner month in July, with milestones for both veterans and newcomers to professional tennis. Wimbledon Junior champions also made the cut.
Colette Lewis
has covered topflight U.S. and international junior
events as a freelance journalist for over a decade.
Her work has appeared in Tennis magazine, the Tennis
Championships magazine and the US Open program. Lewis is active on
Twitter,
and she writes a weekly column right here at TennisRecruiting.net.
She was named
Junior Tennis Champion
for 2016 by Tennis Industry Magazine.
Lewis, based out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has seen every National
Championship final played since 1977, and her work on the
tournament's ustaboys.com website
led her to establish
ZooTennis,
where she comments on junior and college tennis daily.
Colette Lewis has covered topflight junior events as a freelance journalist for over a decade.
Read her weekly column, follow her on Twitter, and
and find more of her daily commentary at ZooTennis.
