USTA Junior Teams Beat New Mexico; Napa Valley Tennis Classic Underway; Jenkins Meets Novikov in Costa Mesa Futures Final; Gosea Aims for First Title in Canada

The Junior Fed Cup and Junior Davis Cup teams defeated the University of New Mexico team 5-2 yesterday, with CiCi Bellis, Tornado Alicia Black and Sonya Kenin sweeping their singles matches, and somewhat surprisingly, the juniors winning all three doubles matches.  The Lobos won two of the three men's singles matches, but it wasn't enough.   The results:

Doubles
1) CiCi Bellis/Alicia Black(USTA) def. Gabrielle Otero/Natasha Smith (UNM), 8-1
2) Michael Mmoh/William Blumberg (USTA) def. Samir Iftikhar/James Hignett (UNM), 8-4
3) Sonya Kenin/Gianni Ross (USTA) def. Sharon Coone/Rodolfo Jauregui
(UNM), 8-7

Singles
1) Bellis (USTA) def. Otero (UNM), 6-3, 6-2
2) Black (USTA) def. Smith (UNM), 6-2, 6-1
3) Kenin (USTA def. Olivier (UNM), 6-2, 7-5
4) Iftikhar (UNM) def. Mmoh (USTA), 6-4, 6-2
5) Blumberg (USTA) def. Jauregui (UNM), 6-2, 6-4
6) Hignett (UNM) def. Ross (USTA), 6-3, 6-1

The USTA has again sent a boys team to the Porsche(formerly Land Rover) Napa Valley Tennis Classic at Meadowood Resort, but before they competed against players from Tulsa, Stanford, Cal, North Carolina, Texas and Harvard, they played the Cal men's team, falling to the Bears 8-4 on Wednesday.  The juniors competing in Berkeley and in Napa are Kalman Boyd, Walker Duncan, Jacob Brumm, Sam Riffice, Connor Hance, Timothy Sah, Sameer Kumar and Alfredo Perez. Neither Steve Pratt nor I am in Napa covering the event this year, but results are available on the Cal website.

In addition to the college/junior event in Napa, the qualifying has begun for next week's Challenger. In one of the intriguing first round qualifying matches today, preseason No. 1 Julian Lenz of Baylor defeated Kalamazoo and Wimbledon boys champion Noah Rubin 6-4, 6-2. Spencer Papa won his first round qualifying match today, as did former USC star Daniel Nguyen (over Tommy Paul) and Oklahoma Sooners Dane Webb and Andrew Harris.  Sam Querrey, who received a wild card, is the top seed in the $50,000 event, with other wild cards going to NCAA champion Marcos Giron,(UCLA) Giron's former teammate Dennis Novikov, and former three-time NCAA D-III singles champion Matt Seeberger (UC-Santa Cruz). Denis Kudla is back after being out for two months with mono.

Novikov today reached the finals of the $10,000 Costa Mesa Futures, defeating Jeff Dadamo (Texas A&M) 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.  Former Bruin Novikov, the No. 5 seed, will play No. 2 seed Jarmere Jenkins, the 2014 NCAA finalist while at Virginia. Jenkins saved a match point at 5-6 in the third set tiebreaker to defeat Tennys Sandgren(Tennessee) 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(6). Sunday's Costa Mesa final will be a rematch of the contest at No. 1 singles in the 2013 NCAA Team Championships, which Jenkins won 7-6(3), 6-3.

The final at the $75,000 women's Pro Circuit event in Albuquerque will also feature two Americans, with Irina Falconi(Georgia Tech) facing top seed Anna Tatishvili. In today's semifinals, Falconi beat 18-year-old Louisa Chirico 6-3, 7-6(5) and Tatishvili defeated No. 3 seed Johanna Konta of Great Britain 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(3).

University of Illinois senior Farris Gosea of Great Britain has reached his first Futures final at the $15,000 tournament this week in Canada. The unseeded Gosea beat top seed Jason Jung (Michigan) 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 in today's semifinal, and will face No. 6 seed Philip Bester of Canada in Sunday's final. The doubles title went to Seeberger and his partner Rudy Siwy, the former Fresno State star and current Santa Clara men's assistant coach. The top seeds defeated No. 3 seeds Filip Peliwo of Canada and Daniel Skripnik of Israel 6-2, 6-3 in the final.