U.S. Junior Billie Jean King Cup and Junior Davis Cup Teams Complete Perfect Week; Kypson wins Helsinki Challenger, Australian Open Wild Card; Krueger Tops Blanch for Knoxville title; Colby wins first professional title; NCAA fields set

The U.S. girls won their fourth consecutive Junior Billie Jean Cup title and the U.S. boys claimed their second consecutive Junior Davis Cup championship in dominant fashion today in Santiago, Chile. Neither team dropped a point in their six wins, with the decisive doubles point in the ITF 16 and under team competition never needed.

The girls had the benefit of returning the top two players from the team that won the title in Turkey last year, with Kristina Penickova and Julieta Pareja playing No. 2 and No. 1 singles respectively. Annika Penickova, Kristina’s twin sister, was the third team member and competed in the four doubles matches played earlier this week.

ITF girls No. 1 Penickova started the final against No. 3 seed France with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Cindy Langlais. Pareja, who lost at No. 2 singles in last year’s 2-1 win over Romania in the final, had a more formidable opponent at No. 1 singles: ITF No. 8 Ksenia Efremova. Pareja, number 5 in the ITF junior rankings and number 1 this summer, could not serve out the first set at 5-3, but she broke and took the first set 6-3. In the second set, Pareja took a 3-0 lead, lost the break but never trailed, earning a 5-3 lead with her backhand. Serving for the title, Pareja missed a forhand volley at the net at 40-15 but that didn’t bother her, with the Wimbledon finalist converting her second match point with a good first serve that Efremova could not handle.

“There was a big difference in their maturity this year,” said USTA head coach Georgi Rumenov, who captained both teams. “To have had the opportunity to play last year, win the tournament and play for the USA again, that’s huge. During each match, it showed that they controlled some situations better than the other teams. That’s part of their experience. I was lucky and it was a privilege to coach them.”

Pareja’s win came just minutes after Michael Antonius gave the boys a 2-0 victory over No. 4 seed Japan, beating Kanta Watanabe 6-3, 6-2 in No. 1 singles. While the outcome of that match never seemed in doubt, the opener between Andrew Johnson and Takahiro Kawaguchi at No. 2 singles was a different story.

Kawaguchi, who like Antonius and the third member of the US team, Jordan Lee, was born in 2010 and had beaten both Antonius and Lee on his way to the 2024 Wimbledon U14 title.

The 16-year-old Johnson had not lost a set in his nine previous matches in singles and doubles and he maintained that impeccable record with a 6-4, 6-3 victory, but Kawaguchi pushed him in both sets. After a tight first set went his way, Johnson had a 4-1 lead in the second set but was broken at 4-2 on serve. However, Kawaguchi could not score, with Johnson converting his second break point to give him the chance to serve for the title. Kawaguchi fought off one match point with a clean forehand winner, but Johnson didn’t flinch and hit a good first serve at 40-30 to close out the match.

Captain Sylvain Guichard, the captain of the 2024 ITF 14U World Junior Tennis championship team with Antonius and Lee, liked what he saw from Californian Johnson on the South American red clay.

“He was the boss this week,” USTA head coach Guichard said. “I was really impressed with Andy. He’s really the guy who put us in this position. I knew we could beat anyone, but I also thought we could lose to anyone. Last year (at the 14U event) we honestly expected to win. Not this year.”

I’ll talk more about these two titles next week on the Tennis Recruiting Network.

All results of the week for all teams can be found here.

Patrick Kypson this week clinched the USTA’s two-way Australian Open wild card for the second time in three years with a title at the ATP Challenger 125 in Helsinki, Finland. The former Texas A&M All-American more than doubled his point total from last week, from 122 to 247. While there is technically still a week left in the men’s race, there are not enough points available for anyone to catch Kypson.

In today’s final, the 26-year-old from North Carolina, seeded No. 5, defeated No. 6 seed Otto Virtanen of Finland 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 for the biggest title of his career, eclipsing the title he won two weeks ago at the Challenger 100 in Sioux Falls. He now sits at a career-high of 117 in the ATP rankings.

At the Challenger 50 in KnoxvilleNo. 5 seed Mitchell Krueger denied 2025 Kalamazoo 18s champion Darwin Blanch his first Challenger title today, bouncing back for a 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-1 victory. It is the sixth Challenger title of the 31-year-old’s professional career and takes him to 202nd in the ATP rankings, safely reaching Australian Open qualification. With his first Challenger final appearance, 18-year-old Blanch has broken the ATP Top 300 for the first time at 297.

The other US Champion crowned today at the USTA Pro Circuit is Ryan Colby. The 22-year-old from Virginia, who played at USC and Georgia, qualified this week at the M15 in Orlando and went on to reach his first Pro Circuit semi-final and final. In a rain-interrupted championship match, Colby defeated Aleksa Ciric (Georgia Gwinnett) of Serbia 6-3, 6-7 (1), 6-4.

The W35 women’s final in Orlando between Viktoria Hruncakova from Slovakia and Eva Vedder from the Netherlands was postponed until Monday due to rain, while only three matches were played today.

Freshman Edda Mamedova of Russia, the No. 1 seed, won the W15 in Lincoln Nebraskaby beating Duke sophomore Irina Balus of Slovakia, the No. 2 seed, 6-0, 6-2 in the final.

At the M25 in East LansingNo. 4 seed Aidan McHugh of Great Britain won the title, defeating LSU freshman Erik Arutiunian of Belarus, No. 3 seed, 7-5, 6-3 in today’s final.

The singles title at the W125 in Austin, Texas went to No. 3 seed Renata Zarazua of Mexico, who defeated unseeded Marina Stakusic of Canada 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. In doubles, top seeds Maria Kozyreva (St. Mary’s) of Russia and Iryna Shymanovich of Belarus defeated sisters Ivana and Carmen Corley (Oklahoma) 6-3, 7-6(4) in today’s final.

The final entries in the NCAA singles and doubles championships were decided today with the results of the two matches between players who lost in the section quarterfinals yesterday. Below you will find the list of all singles courts, with the courts decided this weekend at the top. Chris Halioris of Collegetennisranks.com expects to update his Google docs this evening, including the doubles participants. The men’s sheet is here; the women’s sheet is here.

WOMEN:

By Conference masters:
Ayesegul Mert, Georgia
Ni Xi, UNC-Charlotte
Eugenia Zozaya Menendez, Southern Cal
Mao Mushika, CalCentral:

GENTLEMEN:

Central: