September ACES; ITF Junior/Collegelerator Program Update; Johnson and Tanduri, Sohns and Hazelitt continue to ITF J200 Corpus Christi Finals; Jones beats Pareja on Rancho Santa Fe W50; Zheng reaches the semi -final of Tiburon Challenger

My monthly column for Tennis Port Network With the best junior, college and former colleague performances, the highlights of September were placed today, including the US Open Junior Champions in the beginning, the ITA all-American Champions at the end and many other achievements in between.

The ITF article provides some examples of players who have won tournaments after receiving gear programs -with one of those mentioned Filip Planinsek from Slovenia. That is of course the Spring NCAA champion from 2024 from Alabama, who at the age of 24 can clearly not be part of the Junior Accelerator program, although the ITF refers to recent former collegians. The ATP Collegelerator program is aimed at its challenged circuit, so the ITF has added a collegial part to its accelerator, with the access requirements for men and women before 2025 below, with the men clearly much more generous.

Johnson, the no. 3 Seed, defeated double partner and no. 2 Seed Michael Antonius 6-2, 7-6 (3), while no. 8 seed konduri no. 4 Seed defeated Roshan Santhosh 6-1, 6-1. It is the first J200 final for both 16-year-olds; Johnson beat Konduri last November in the second round of a J60 in San Diego 6-4, 6-3.

No. 4 Seed Sohns defeated No. 7 Seed Lani Chang 7-5, 6-0 to reach her first J200 final, while no. 8 Seed Hazelitt No. 4 Seed Karlin Schock 6-1, 6-1 beat to continue to her second J200 final. Hazelitt reached the final of a J200 in Mexico is June and defeated Sohns in the second round there 6-3, 7-6 (3).

The double finals were played today, with top seeds that Johnson and Antonius defeat nr. 4 seeds Ryan Cozad and Shaan Maneed 7-6 (6), 6-0 for the title of the boys and no. 5 seeds Isabelle Deluccia and Kayla Moore defeated invisible Carlota Moreno and Lillian Santos.

In the other semi -final, W35 Berkeley finalist Johanne Svendsen of Denmark Texas A&M Junior Lucciana Perez van Peru plays. Svendsen, who received a special exempt access to the main table (who did not do Berkeley champion Merna Refat), defeated Carolina Kuhl of Germany 7-5, 6-3 in today’s quarterfinals. Perez defeated Madison Sieg (USC) 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 to reach the semi-final.

Suresh, the no. 2 Seed, defeated No. 5 Seed Pedro Rodrigues from Brazil, a first-year student in Central Florida, 6-3, 6-0, while Borisiouk no. 4 Seed Peter Bertran (Georgia, South Florida) of the Dominican Republic 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 Borisiouk was 2-0 against Suresh last double match season. Pow defeated Clemson Senior Romain Gales, a qualification with 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 and will be confronted with no. 8 Seed Shunsuke Mitsui (Tennessee) of Japan, who defeated North Carolina second-year student Chris Xu from China, a qualification, 6-2, 6-3.

Tyler Zink (Georgia, Oklahoma State) is a semi-final because of his second career challenge after a two-hour and 49 minutes, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 victory over Wild Card Samir Banerjee (Stanford). Zinc will be confronted with Abdullah Shelbayh (Florida) by Jordan, who expanded his Challenger Winning Streak to eight games with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over no. 6 Seed Dmitry Popko from Kazachstan.