Rublev, Norrie and Tchoutakian Qualify for Dallas Challenger; Gibbs Top Seed in Midland $100K; US Juniors Advance at Inka Bowl

Qualifying is complete and the opening round is underway at the $100,000 RBC Tennis Championships in Dallas, with World No. 1 junior Andrey Rublev among those reaching the main draw with victories today.  In addition to the 17-year-old Russian, who beat Greg Ouellette, Evan King and Sekou Bangoura in the qualifying, TCU freshman Cameron Norrie and Baylor sophomore Max Tchoutakian also qualified.  Norrie, 19, beat No. 2 seed Darian King 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 and Tchoutakian, 21, beat teammate Julian Lenz 4-6, 7-6(12), 6-3. For more on Tchoutakian's win, see the Baylor website.  Rublev and Tchoutakian had never advanced into a Challenger main draw through qualifying before today, Norrie had done it once.  The fourth qualifier is former Texas All-Amerian Dimitar Kutrovsky, who defeated Misha Zverev 7-6(5), 7-6(5).

Denis Kudla(5), who beat Liam Broady of Great Britain 6-2, 6-3, and Rajeev Ram(7), who beat wild card Thai Kwiatkowski 6-4, 6-3, were among the first round winners today in Dallas.  Live streaming is available here.

I arrived in Midland this afternoon, and will be on site Tuesday at the Midland Community Tennis Center for the final round of qualifying and the beginning of the main draw of the $100,000 Dow Corning Tennis Classic.  Two-time NCAA champion Nicole Gibbs is the top seed, with Sorana Cirstea of Romania the No. 2 seed. They also will have live streaming beginning Tuesday.

The second round of qualifying took place today, with three former Pac-12 players earning victories: Jacqueline Cako(Arizona State), Kristie Ahn(Stanford) and Danielle Lao(Southern Cal).  Former WTA Top 10 player Nicole Vaidisova has also reached the final round of qualifying; she has been unsuccessful in her three attempts to qualify for the $25,000 tournaments in Florida last month.

Tuesday's order of play can be found at the ITF Pro Circuit website.

The ITF juniors South American swing moves to Peru for the Grade 2 Inka Bowl, with another large group of Americans competing there. Patrick Kypson and Trent Bryde won their first round matches, while
Mwendwa Mbithi (14), Sam Riffice(11) and Liam Caruana(8) had first round byes.  Last week's semifinalists Gianni Ross and Vasil Kirkov lost in the final round of qualifying and the first round, respectively.  The top seed in the boys draw is Franco Capalbo of Argentina, who won last week's Grade 1 in Ecuador over Manuel Pena Lopez of Argentina, who is the No. 4 seed this week.

The girls draw is just 32 players, with six of those Americans: Stephanie Hazell, Alexandra Sanford(4), Alexa Bortles, qualifier Luciana Rabines, Meghan Kelley and wild card Sofia Sewing. Only Bortles lost her opening match, with Rabines yet to play. The top girls seed is Julieta Estable of Argentina, who was runnerup in last week's Grade 1 to Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia.