Qualifying Complete in 12s, 14s and Girls 16s at Eddie Herr; ITF Wild Cards; Emma Wins Grade 5 in Bahamas

©Colette Lewis 2014--
Bradenton, FL--

Weather conditions were close to perfect on the final day of qualifying for the 12s, 14s, and girls 16s Saturday at the IMG Academy's Eddie Herr International.  Cloudless skies gave the sun an opportunity to burn away the morning chill as eight winners in those five draws moved into Monday's main draw.

The boys 16s qualifying draw will be completed on Saturday, as will the ITF division qualifying, with two rounds played in the latter.

The US qualifiers:

Girls 12s:
Anna Babayan
Yashna Yellayi

Boys 12s:
Niroop Vallabhaneni
Hayden Postin
Martin Damm

Girls 14s:
Gia Cohen
Sophia Hatton
Varvara Gracheva
Vanessa Streng
Kennedy Bridgforth
Lahari Yelamanchili

Boys 14s:
Trey Hilderbrand
Jaycer Calleros
Subhash Pottipati
Joshua Xu

Girls 16s:
Kylie Moulin
Margaret Owensby
Patricia Lopez
Brooke Lashway
Christina Jordan

In the first round of ITF qualifying, 16 of the 29 American girls advanced to the second round, including Kylie McKenzie, the USTA 16s champion. McKenzie was originially scheduled to play top qualifying seed Olesya Pervushina of Russia, who moved into the main draw late last night. So an alternate, Ayumi Sasaki of Canada, took Pervushina's place and McKenzie rolled to a 6-1, 6-0 win.  Anastasia Mikheeva and Emily Smith of Great Britain also moved into the main draw prior to the start of qualifying today.

One first round match in the boys qualifying was not completed before darkness suspended play in the third set, but it did not involve an American player. A dozen US boys advanced to the second round, including seeds Alexander Lebedev, Emil Reinberg and Jake Gabay.

The main draw ITF girls wild cards are Ingrid Neel, Caroline Dolehide, Emma Higuchi, Francesca DiLorenzo, Claudia Wiktorin, Nicole Johnston, Daniela Pedraza Novak of Colombia and Maria Shishkina.  Shiskina told me today that she had one wrist surgery last November and needed a second this past August, with the Eddie Herr her first tournament since then.

The ITF boys wild cards are Walker Duncan, Stephen Madonia, Jacob Hansen, Alfredo Perez, David Mitchell, Victor Li of Hong Kong, Oscar Janglin of Sweden and Daniel Hobart of Australia.

Nathan Ponwith and USTA 16s champion John McNally moved into the main draw, Hady Habib received a special exempt spot, and Kalman Boyd, Tim Van Rijthoven of the Netherlands and Jake Delaney of Australia withdrew.

Complete results and the order of play for Sunday can be found at the tournament website.

Habib did not have to play qualifying due to making the doubles final at the Grade 1 in Yucatan, and he and partner Anudeep Kodali took the title today, defeating Fabian Fallert and Tim Sandkaulen of Germany 7-6, 6-4.

Taylor Fritz, the No. 2 seed, will play top seed (and doubles partner) Andrey Rublev of Russia in the boys Yucatan final later tonight.

At the ITF Grade 5 Goombay Splash Bowl in the Bahamas, 15-year-old Victoria Emma, seeded fifth, won her second ITF singles title, defeating unseeded Jacqueline Pelletier 6-1, 6-1 in the final.  Alvaro Regalado Pedrol of Spain won the boys title, defeating No. 5 seed Robert Loeb 7-6(5), 6-4.
Sebastian Memersky won the boys doubles title with Canadian Alexander Donski and Naomi Waters partnered with Laura Fabrizi of Venezuela to take the girls doubles title over Emma and Alexandra Angyalosy.