US Open Junior Qualifying Begins Friday; Bellis Falls to Diyas in Three; Gibbs Reaches Third Round; Should Bellis Sue the NCAA?

The qualifying draws for the US Open Junior Championships have been posted with eight American boys and nine American girls aiming to join the 34 US juniors already in the main draws, which will get underway on Sunday.

The boys in qualifying are Dan Kerznerman(10), Robert Levine, Sameer Kumar(11) and wild cards Gianni Ross, Patrick Kypson, Connor Hance, Sam Riffice and Jacob Brumm.

The girls in qualifying are Raquel Pedraza, Johnnise Renaud, Olivia Hauger(5), Madison Bourguignon and wild cards Kayla Day, Caroline Dolehide, Alexandra Sanford, Ryan Peus and Ellie Halbauer.

Qualifying begins at 10 a.m. Friday on the Practice courts outside the Billie Jean King National Tennis and there will be live scoring available on the usopen.org website.  The schedule for Friday's matches is here. I will be arriving in New York tomorrow afternoon, but probably won't get there in time to watch any of the first round of qualifying, although I do hope to see some of the second round men's doubles match between Francis Tiafoe and Michael Mmoh and Rajeev Ram and Scott Lipsky.

Due to long matches on Court 17 today, CiCi Bellis ended up playing her second round against Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan in prime time, with the support of a enthusiatic crowd.  The 15-year-old National 18s champion played well after a shaky first few games and forced a third set, but eventually fell to the 20-year-old, whose WTA ranking is 48, 6-3, 0-6, 6-2.  Bellis might have tired midway through the third set, but she did not look overmatched or out of place in any of the extended games and rallies between the two.  She now has some time to rest before the junior championships begin, and she'll be the top seed, facing an entirely different scenario than the one she competed in this week.

Former Stanford star Nicole Gibbs beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova today at the US Open

Two-time NCAA champion Nicole Gibbs won the biggest match of her career today, defeating No. 23 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-3 on Court 17. Gibbs served for the match twice in the second set, and had a match point at 5-6 in the second set tiebreaker, but she couldn't convert. She kept fighting however, and didn't experience similar problems when she got up a break in the third set, closing out the victory to become one of just four US women in the third round. She plays No. 11 seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy next, with Serena Williams meeting Varvara Lepchenko in another third round match. Venus Williams is the only American woman in the bottom half of the draw.  Gibbs talks about overcoming that disappointing stretch in the second set in her press conference.

John Isner and Sam Querrey advanced to the third round with wins today, while Tim Smyczek will attempt to join them in third round play tomorrow.

Wild cards Stefan Kozlov and Christina McHale won their opening mixed doubles match, beating No. 7 seeds Julia Goerges of Germany and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia 7-5, 2-6, 12-10.

Jared Donaldson and Michael Russell beat their fellow wild card team, Kozlov and Noah Rubin, the Kalamazoo champions, 2-6, 7-6(6), 6-4. Donaldson and Russell will play the Bryan twins in the second round.

Complete draws can be found at usopen.org.

An interesting article by Patrick Hruby on the NCAA's insistence on college athletes being amateurs was posted today on Vice Sports, with background on why the $10,000 expense rule was adopted in Division I tennis only and why CiCi Bellis should be able to keep the prize money she won at the Open without jeopardizing her ability to play college tennis in the future.  I know plenty of athletic departments fear the end of the world as they know it with the professionalization of college sports, but the Olympics and tennis, once virulently insistent on amateurism, have managed to survive and thrive without the catastrophes many in college athletics are predicting now.