Five Qualifiers Among 38 Americans in Australian Open Draws; Baker’s dozen US juniors begin ITF Australian Swing in Traralgon; Kudla joins the JTCC coaching staff

Qualification for the Australian Open concluded Thursday in Melbourne, with four American men and one American woman advancing to the main draw.

Columbia’s two-time NCAA champion Michael Zheng had to save a match point after taking a 7-1 lead in the third-set tiebreak against Slovakia’s Lukas Klein, but the 21-year-old from New Jersey will make his ATP and Slam main draw debut after a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(10) win.

Former Stanford All-American Nishesh Basavareddy, who now works with Daniil Medvedev’s former coach Gilles Cervara (see Ben Rothenberg’s Substack article (after his recent appointment at Basavareddy) won a second straight match from a set-down, beating George Loffhagen of Great Britain 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.

Zachary Svajda will join two-time Kalamazoo champion Learner Tien in the main draw, with the 2019 and 2021 champion advancing through qualifying at a major for the first time with a 7-6(5), 6-2 win over Kimmer Coppejans of Belgium. (The other two Kalamazoo 18s champions in the draw are 2018 Jenson Brooksby and 2015 Frances Tiafoe).

2018 Kalamazoo 16s champion Martin Damm will play in his first slam main draw outside the United States after the 22-year-old left-hander defeated 2022 ITF world junior champion Gilles Arnaud Bailly (Texas) of Belgium 7-5, 7-5.

The only American woman to advance is veteran Sloane Stephens, who defeated Italy’s Lucia Bronzetti 6-1, 7-5. Stephens, who had not won three straight matches since April 2024, had last qualified for a major in 2011, when she was 18.

Rafael Jodar of Spain, who recently announced he would not return to Virginia for his sophomore year, qualified with a 6-3, 0-6, 6-1 win over Luca van Assche of France. Other qualifiers with a collegiate background include Arthur Fery (Stanford) of Great Britain, Liam Draxl (Kentucky) of Canada and Yuliia Starodubtseva (Old Dominion) of Ukraine.

Final round qualifying results Americans:Michael Zheng d. Luke Klein[28](SVK) 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(10)
Liam Draxl[20](CAN) D. Mackenzie McDonald[6] 3-6, 7-6(2), 6-2
Nishesh Basavareddy D. George Loffhagen (GBR) 5-7, 6-4, 6-4
Zachary Svajda[29] D. Kimmer Coppejans (BEL) 7-6(5), 6-2
Yibing Wu (CHN) d. Tristan Boyer 6-3, 6-2
Martin Dam D. Gilles Arnaud Bailly (BEL) 7-5, 7-5

Sloane Stephens D. Lucia Bronzetti[2](ITA) 6-1, 7-5
Guiomar Maristany Zuleta De Reales (ESP) d. Elvina Kalieva 7-5, 4-6, 6-4
Storm chaser[WC](AUS) d. Taylor Townsend[11] 7-6(6), 6-2
Linda Frühvirtova[20](CZE) d. Carol Lee 5-7, 6-2, 6-4
Nikola Bartunkova[16](CZE) d. Whitney Osuigwe 6-1, 6-0

The men’s and women’s draws were also announced overnight, with the 38 American entries being the most since 1997, when there were 39.

There were no matches between Americans in the qualifying tournament, but that unlikely occurrence won’t happen in the main draw, which features five all-US first-round matches: Zheng vs. Sebsastian Korda, Tommy Paul vs. Aleks Kovacevic, Learner Tien vs. Marcos Giron, Iva Jovic vs. Katie Volynets and Sofia Kenin vs. Peyton Stearns.

The Australian Open starts on Sunday evening Saturday evening in the US with ten Americans in action (this information comes from Rothenberg):

The American boys are Keaton Hance[3]Jack Secord[10]Gavin Goode[11]Ryan Cozad[13]Roshan Santhosh, Tanishk Konduri and Carel Ngounoue. Yannick Alexandrescou from France is the top seed.

The American girls are Thea Frodin[7]Capucine Jauffret, Anita Tu, Melije Clarke, Carrie-Anne Hoo and Nancy Lee.

Alena Kovackova of the Czech Republic is the top seed.

Blackman, who was Director of Tennis at the JTCC from 2004 to 2008, took over for the retiring Ray Benton last fall and he told me he was excited about the opportunity to be more hands-on than he could be in his position at the USTA.

“My previous position was General Manager of Player Development. I enjoy that job every day too, but I was a bit removed from the action.” Blackman said. “I didn’t really get into the action unless I went to a junior tournament or a pro tournament. I’m a part of this every day. I walk the courts, morning, afternoon, at lunch. I try to be on the court a few times a week to practice so I can get that feeling again and also talk directly to the kids and the parents in the program, which really energizes me.”

JTCC has a full range of programs: for young children, for those who train after school, for adult beginners, for veterans, for Special Olympians and for wheelchair and para-standing participants, in keeping with the mission of Tennis for Everyone. Yet the nonprofit’s High Performance program has received the most attention.

That program will come full circle with the announcement that Denis Kudla, one of the first players to train at JTCC to embark on a professional career, will return as coach.

“He retired (from ATP tennis) and had a really good year with (coaching) Reilly (Opelka)” Blackman. “He has a young baby and he wanted more time. We started talking in November and he said yes, I would love to come back, so we kept talking and figured out a way to make it happen.”

Blackman said his High Performance program is an important beacon for the JTCC.

“The way I see it, I look at it as 99/1,” Blackman said. “Ninety-nine percent of our young players, juniors, we want them to use tennis as a vehicle to get into a great college where they can have a great experience and thrive, and that’s the biggest part of the mission.”

“But when you have that one percent, like Frances (Tiafoe), and Robin (Montgomery) and Hailey (Baptiste), you get both. You get that aspirational excellence at the top and you use that excellence to grow and add resources at the bottom. So having Frances and Denis and Hailey and Robin has helped us bring so much visibility to the program and raise money for the program. I think it’s a really good balance is; if we tried to focus too much on developing professional players, I think we would be hurting our mission, but there’s certainly room for both, and that’s the goal.”

“It is very important to our board that our High Performance program is, or strives to be, the best in the world,” Blackman said. “That was really important to our founder, Ken Brody. So we’re really building on that strong foundation.”

JTCC President Vesa Ponkka, who has been with JTCC since its founding in 1999, will work with Blackman on this initiative to strengthen the High Performance program.

“The High Performance program had a very strong foundation,” Blackman said. “So the bones and the structure were there. But strategically, and this is the prerogative of every CEO, the emphasis was not on high performance, as it was until four years ago. And that is something that is very important to our board, that it is our flagship.”