Rain Disrupts Wimbledon Men's Qualifying; 11 US Women in Tuesday's First Round of Women's Qualifying; Wisconsin Hires Westerman; ITF Junior Update

Showers that lingered into the afternoon kept 14 men's first round qualifying matches from completion on the opening day of qualifying at Wimbledon. Three US men--Ryan Harrison, Austin Krajicek and Bjorn Fratangelo--did not complete their matches, with Krajicek and Fratangelo's matches cancelled before starting and Harrison's match suspended after he took the second set from Argentina's Guido Andreozzi.

The four Americans who did finished their matches all lost, with Jarmere Jenkins falling to Evgeny Donskoy of Russia 7-6(2), 6-2, Dennis Novikov losing to Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 and Jared Donaldson going out to Ivan Dodig of Croatia 6-3, 6-2.  Chase Buchanan seemed on his way to a victory over Tristan Lamasine of France, leading 6-1, 2-1, when an apparent ankle injury forced him to retire.

The women's qualifying draw was released today, with 11 US women competing in the 96-player draw. The seeded Americans are Louisa Chirico(3), Sachia Vickery(4), Anna Tatishvili(18) and Grace Min(24). The other seven are Allie Kiick, Jessica Pegula, Maria Sanchez, Alexa Glatch (who plays Tatishvili), Melanie Oudin, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Katerina Stewart.  Oudin returned to competition last week after an eye operation and heart problems kept her out all this year. Stewart, who is much more comfortable on clay, pulled out of the Wimbledon Junior championships last month, but decided to make the trip for qualifying despite her unfamiliarity with the surface.

Tuesday's complete order of play is here.

Rain also delayed Taylor Fritz's ATP main draw debut at Nottingham against Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain. He is now scheduled to play at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday.

The University of Wisconsin announced the hiring of Danny Westerman as the men's head tennis coach, succeeding Greg Van Emburgh, who resigned three weeks ago.  Westerman, who coached at the University of Denver for nine years, returns to Madison after having played there from 1998-2002 and served as an assistant coach there prior to taking the Denver head coaching job.

At the ITF Grade 1 in Berlin last week, top boys seed Marcelo Barrios Vera of Chile and No. 2 seed Katharina Hobgarski of Germany took the singles titles. Barrios Vera defeated unseeded Patrik Rikl of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-4 in the final; Hobgarski downed No. 4 seed Ioana Pietroiu of Romania 6-2, 6-2 in the girls championship match.

The best result from an American came from No. 14 seed Hady Habib, who lost to Barrios Vera in the third round 6-4, 7-6(4).

Habib is also seeded in this week's Grade 2 in Germany, getting the No. 4 seed. Barrios Vera is No. 1 seed again.  Habib is the only US boy in the draw, but there are four US girls there. Meghan Kelley, Gabby Pollner and Olivia Hauger have all won their first round matches; Raquel Pedraza has not yet played hers. Ekaterina Kazionova of Russia is the girls top seed.

The Grade 5 in Bermuda this week has attracted a large contingent of US juniors. Naomi Waters and Julia Goldberg are the top two girls seeds and Sebastian Mermersky is the No. 2 boys seed.