Donaldson Claims Second Straight Futures Title, Stewart Wins Bethany Beach; US Juniors Post Mixed Results in First Round at Roehampton

Seventeen-year-old Jared Donaldson and 16-year-old Katerina Stewart gave the United States two winners on Sunday in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Bethany Beach, Delaware.

Seventh seed Donaldson, who won a $10,000 Futures in Turkey earlier this month, defeated top seed and 2013 NCAA finalist Jarmere Jenkins 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the $15,000 Tulsa Futures final, after trailing 3-0 in the third set.  Donaldson, a finalist in the Kalamazoo 18s last year, has now won ten straight Futures matches on two continents, on both clay and hard courts.

Stewart, also a No. 7 seed, did not lose a set in her five wins at the $10,000 tournament in Bethany Beach, and conceded only four games total in her semifinal and final wins. Stewart, who won the $10,000 Pro Circuit event in Orlando in March, defeated unseeded Jose Kuhlman 6-0, 6-3 in today's final. 

At the Buffalo $10,000 men's Futures, No. 2 seed Ashley Hewitt of Great Britain came back to defeat No. 3 seed Henrique Cunha of Brazil 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 to take the title.

Louisa Chirico fell short in her attempt at a second consecutive $25,000 ITF Women's Circuit title, losing to Australian Open champion Elizaveta Kulichkova of Russia 7-5, 6-2 in today's final in Switzerland.

The first round of play at the ITF Grade 1 Nike International in Roehampton was not a particularly good one for the US juniors warming up for Wimbledon, with the boys going 3-4 and the girls 5-4. Two seeded US players, No. 8 Michael Mmoh and No. 14 Sofia Kenin lost, Mmoh to Marc Polmans of Australia 6-4, 6-1 and Kenin to Eddie Herr champion Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 6-3. No. 4 seed Stefan Kozlov defeated Jordi Arconada 6-1, 6-3 and No. 5 seed Francis Tiafoe squeezed by Joao Menezes of Brazil 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(3). Taylor Fritz was the third US boy to advance to the second round.  Alex Rybakov, Logan Smith and Henrik Wiersholm lost their openers.

Top seed CiCi Bellis and No. 2 seed Tornado Alicia Black advanced in straight sets, and qualifier Raquel Pedraza also reached the second round.  Kaitlyn McCarthy trailed Easter Bowl finalist Katie Swan 5-2 in the third set, with Swan serving for the match, but won the final five games to earn a 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 victory. McCarthy had beaten Swan 6-2, 6-1 at the Carson ISC Grade 1 back in April.  Usue Arconada, the No. 16 seed, won a thriller, beating Tami Grende of Indonesia 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(12). 

In addition to Kenin, Katrine Steffensen, Dasha Ivanova and Raveena Kingsley lost their first round matches today.

A total of five boys seeds lost, including No. 2 seed Orlando Luz of Brazil, who was beaten by Lucas Miedler of Austria 6-2, 7-6(5).  No. 3 girls seed Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov of Spain was one of only two girls seeds to fall, beaten by 15-year-old Canadian qualifier Katherine Sebov 6-2, 6-0. 

Because I am leaving for Europe on Monday, and spending a few days in Germany visiting friends before flying to London to cover the Wimbledon Junior Championships, I won't be following the Roehampton tournament (or the first week of Wimbledon, for that matter) as closely as I usually do. But the draws can be found at the LTA home page, and there is live scoring available at this site.

The order of play for Monday's start at Wimbledon can be found here. Twelve of the 23 Americans are scheduled to play Monday: Ryan Harrison, Venus Williams, Sloane Stephens, Alex Kuznetsov, Bradley Klahn (v) Sam Querrey, Vania King, Steve Johnson, Donald Young, Lauren Davis, CoCo Vandeweghe and Varvara Lepchenko.