Qalbani, Moreno claim J60 titles in South Carolina; The American ITF Junior Circuit presents the J100 this week in Rome, Georgia; Electronic line calling debuts at the Sioux Falls SD Challenger 100

Last week was a quiet week on the ITF Junior Circuit, with J60s at the highest level of tournaments on the schedule. One of those J60s was inside Lexington South Carolinawhere Rowan Qalbani and Carlota Moreno won the titles.

Qalbani, the No. 2 seed, defeated doubles partner and top seed Marcel Latak 6-4, 6-2 in the singles final after teaming with Latak for the doubles title the previous day. Qalbani, a 16-year-old from New York, now has two singles titles on the ITF Junior Circuit and four doubles titles. Qalbani and Latak, the top seeds, defeated unseeded Gadin Arun and Griffin Goode 6-4, 6-1 in the doubles final.

Moreno, the No. 5 seed, defeated No. 8 seed Sarah Delgado 6-1, 6-0 in the final to claim her second ITF Junior Circuit singles title. The 16-year-old from Tennessee won her first ITF Junior Circuit doubles title with Lila Bodur of Turkey, with the top seeds beating No. 3 seeds Anastasia Malysheva and Alexie Normandin of Canada 6-1, 6-2 in the final.

Last week’s other two U.S. junior titles came at the J60 in Canadawith Daniel Malacek winning the boys’ doubles title and Tayler Conway and Lily Bazemore claiming the girls’ doubles championship. Malacek, who also reached the singles final, teamed Canada’s Rafael Bote as the top seeds defeated No. 2 seeds Enoch Lin (the singles champion) and Andreas Mjeda of Canada 2-6, 7-6 (7), 10-4 in the final.

Bazemore and Conway, the No. 3 seeds, defeated unseeded Mila Ajdukovic and Chloe Yuexin Hu of Canada 6-1, 6-3 in the final.

This week the ITF Junior Circuit moves to Georgia for a J100 in Rome.

The top seed in the boys’ draw, who I believe was Shaan Majeed, withdrew, so a lucky loser, Anibal Nunez of Venezuela, is at the top of the draw, and he lost in the first round today to Joaquin Blanco.

Kalamazoo 16s semifinalist Jerrid Gaines Jr. in the No. 2 seed, and Latak, who defeated Gaines in the Kalamazoo semifinals, is the No. 3 seed. Both are through to the second round, with a three-match defeat between them.

Fourteen-year-old Caroline Shao is number 1 in the girls’ draw, while 16-year-old Aishi Bisht from India is number 2. Bisht retired in today’s first round after 14-year-old Allison Wang won the first set of their match 6-3. Shao advanced with a 6-0, 1-0 elimination of Katherine Krupnikova.

After winning the Les Petits As USA playoffs Friday13-year-old Isha Manchala made her ITF Junior Circuit debut today, recording a 6-4, 6-1 victory over 15-year-old Ava Quincy Brewer. Manchala obviously doesn’t have an ITF ranking, but she didn’t need a wildcard as her WTN rating gave her access to qualifying. There was ultimately no girls’ qualification, which is extremely unusual for a J100, and Manchala advanced to the main draw. She will face Lexington champion Moreno in the second round on Tuesday.

I’ll review the four other USTA Pro Circuit tournaments tomorrow after qualifying is complete, but I wanted to focus today on the ATP Challenger 100 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota tonight, because it’s about Electronic Line Calling. I have written two articles for the Tennis Recruiting Network about ELC systems, one in 2021 after its implementation for the juniors at the US Openand one in February this year, after use by the ITA Men’s Indoor Team. The system in Sioux Falls is not one of the two used in New York (Hawkeye) or Dallas (PlayReplay), but rather a third, Bolt6, used at this year’s Laver Cup. Bolt6 is one of four systems that the ITF has certified as gold and is considered accurate enough to use for ‘elite competitions at international level’.

A good introduction to the ITF classifications for ELC systems can be found in this article from Sports business magazine.

How soon ELC will be available to all Challengers is unclear, but it appears to be gaining popularity as costs drop.

In today’s final qualifying round in Sioux Falls, Americans Keegan Smith (UCLA) and Andrew Fenty (Michigan) won their matches to reach the main draw, where they will face each other.

Four first round matches are scheduled for today, three of which have now been completed. No. 4 seed Liam Draxl (Kentucky) of Canada defeated Kalamazoo 18s champion Darwin Blanch 6-4, 6-4; No. 6 seed Murphy Cassone defeated Mitchell Krueger 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-2 and Alfredo Perez (Florida) defeated wildcard Cannon Kingsley (Ohio State) 6-4, 6-4.

Top seed Jordan Thompson of Australia will play Michael Mmoh in the night match. Brandon Holt (USC) is the No. 2 seed and will play wild card Andre Ilagan (Hawaii) on Tuesday night.

The third wild card went to Stanford senior Samir Banerjee.

Columbia senior Michael Zheng is back this week as the No. 7 seed, and the Tiburon champion will play Great Britain’s Johannus Monday (Tennessee) in the first round on Tuesday. Virginia sophomore Rafael Jodar, Lincoln Challenger champion, is again unplaced; he will face Georgia’s Saba Purtseladze in the first round.

Mike Cation provides commentary this week, with free live streaming on Challenger TV.