FORMER US OPEN CHAMPION MARIA SHARAPOVA;
RISING STARS TAYLOR TOWNSEND, KAYLA DAY AND SOFIA KENIN;
USTA GIRLS’ 18S CHAMPION ASHLEY KRATZER;
AND NCAA CHAMPION BRIENNE MINOR
HIGHLIGHT WOMEN’S US OPEN WILD-CARD RECIPIENTS
Usue Arconada, Kelly Chen, Francesca Di Lorenzo, Victoria Duval, Ashley Lahey, Ann Li, Claire Liu, Whitney Osuigwe and Katerina Stewart Receive US Open Qualifying Wild Cards
FROM THE USTA: FLUSHING, N.Y., Aug. 15, 2017 – The USTA today announced that former US Open singles champion Maria Sharapova, young American Taylor Townsend, reigning US Open girls’ champion Kayla Day, 2017 US Open Wild Card Challenge winner Sofia Kenin, 2017 USTA Girls’ 18s national champion Ashley Kratzer and 2017 NCAA singles champion Brienne Minor have been awarded women’s singles main draw wild cards into the 2017 US Open. Also, Frenchwoman Amandine Hesse has received a wild card as part of the USTA’s reciprocal agreement with the French Tennis Federation. And as part of a reciprocal agreement with the USTA, Tennis Australia will award one additional main draw wild card to a player who will be announced at a later date.
The 2017 US Open main draw will be played Aug. 28-Sept. 10 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. Both the men’s and women’s singles champions this year will earn $3.7 million.
Townsend, 21, of Atlanta, ranked No. 134, became the No. 1-ranked junior girl in the world in 2012, after winning the Australian Open girls’ title; she was the first U.S. girl to hold the year-end No. 1 junior ranking since 1982. Townsend competed in the US Open main draw in 2014 and 2016, qualifying for the main draw last year. She advanced to the third round of the French Open in 2014 for her career-best Grand Slam result.
Day, 17, of Santa Barbara, Calif., ranked No. 123, is the reigning US Open girls’ champion and former world junior No. 1. Last year, Day earned a US Open main draw wild card as the USTA Girls’ 18s national champion and won her first-round match. This year, Day competed in the Australian Open, after winning the USTA’s wild card challenge, and advanced to the third round in Indian Wells.
Kenin, 18, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., ranked a career-high No. 141, won the 2017 US Open Wild Card Challenge. Kenin will be making her third consecutive wild-card appearance at the US Open after winning the wild card challenge last year and the USTA Girls’ 18s National Championships in 2015. She also reached the singles final at the 2015 US Open Junior Championships.
Kratzer, 18, of Newport Beach, Calif., ranked No. 341, won the 2017 USTA Girls’ singles title in San Diego this past weekend. Kratzer will look to follow predecessors Day (2016), CiCi Bellis (2014) and Sachia Vickery (2013) as USTA Girls’ 18s national champions to win their first round matches. This summer, Kratzer reached back-to-back quarterfinals at $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit events and then reached the final at the $60,000 USTA Pro Circuit event in Stockton, Calif.
Minor, 19, of Mundelein, Ill., won the 2017 NCAA women’s singles championship as a sophomore at the University of Michigan—the first-ever NCAA women’s singles title for the program. Minor also became the first African American woman to win an NCAA Division I tennis singles title.
Sharapova, 30, of Russia, ranked No. 148, won the 2006 US Open and reached the semifinals in 2005 and 2012. Sharapova also captured four additional Grand Slam titles in her career: Wimbledon in 2004, the Australian Open in 2008 and the French Open in 2012 and 2014. She holds 35 WTA singles titles and first became No. 1 in the world in August 2005.
Hesse, 24, of France, is ranked No. 206 and received her wild card through a reciprocal agreement with the French Tennis Federation that allowed 15-year-old Amanda Anisimova to make her Grand Slam main draw debut at Roland Garros this year. Hesse also received a wild card into the 2014 US Open.
In addition to the eight US Open women’s singles main draw wild cards, the USTA also announced the nine women who have been awarded wild-card entries into the US Open Qualifying Tournament, which will be held Aug. 22-25 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Players receiving US Open qualifying wild cards are: former world junior No. 5 and 2016 Wimbledon junior doubles champion Usue Arconada (18, College Park, Md.); 2017 Girls’ 18s finalist Kelly Chen (18, Cerritos, Calif.); 2017 NCAA doubles champion and Ohio State All-American Francesca Di Lorenzo (20, New Albany, Ohio); former world No. 87 Victoria Duval (21, Bradenton, Fla.); rising Pepperdine sophomore Ashley Lahey (17, Hawthorne, Calif.); 2017 Wimbledon girls’ finalist Ann Li (17, Devon, Pa.); 2017 Wimbledon girls’ champion and world junior No. 1 Claire Liu (17, Thousand Oaks, Calif.); 2017 French Open girls’ champion Whitney Osuigwe (15, Bradenton, Fla.); and nine-time USTA Pro Circuit singles champion Katerina Stewart (20, Miami), who spent the last year enrolled at West Point.
Taylor Fritz (c)USTA/Pete Staples
UP-AND-COMING YOUNG AMERICANS TAYLOR FRITZ, BJORN FRATANGELO, CHRISTOPHER EUBANKS, THAI-SON KWIATKOWSKI AND TOMMY PAUL
HEADLINE US OPEN MEN’S WILD-CARD RECIPIENTS
Eight Current or Former Collegians Receive US Open Qualifying Wild Cards
FLUSHING, N.Y., Aug. 15, 2017 – The USTA today announced that rising young Americans Taylor Fritz, Bjorn Fratangelo, Christopher Eubanks, 2017 NCAA singles champion Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, 2017 USTA Boys’ 18s National Champion Patrick Kypson and US Open Wild Card Challenge winner Tommy Paul have been awarded men’s singles main draw wild cards into the 2017 US Open. Nineteen-year old Frenchman Geoffrey Blancaneaux was awarded a main draw wild card by the French Tennis Federation as part of its reciprocal agreement with the USTA, and Tennis Australia awarded its reciprocal agreement main draw wild card to 18-year-old Alex de Minaur.
The 2017 US Open main draw will be played Aug. 28-Sept. 10 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. Both the men’s and women’s singles champions this year will earn $3.7 million.
Fritz, 19, of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., is a former world No. 53 who is currently ranked No. 120. He took a three-month break from competition during the clay-court season to train; since then he has qualified for Wimbledon and reached the quarterfinals at the ATP 250 event in Los Cabos, Mexico. Fritz won the 2015 US Open junior title and reached the final in Memphis in 2016, becoming the youngest American to reach an ATP final since Michael Chang in 1989.
Fratangelo, 24, of Pittsburgh, is ranked No. 130. He advanced to the semifinals of the Hall of Fame Open ATP 250 in Newport, R.I., this summer. Fratangelo is a former French Open junior champion and will be competing in his third consecutive US Open main draw.
Eubanks, 21, of Atlanta, is a rising senior at Georgia Tech. He is having a breakout summer playing US Open Series events, having reached the quarterfinals of the BB&T Atlanta Open ATP 250 and qualified for the Western & Southern Open ATP Masters 1000 in Cincinnati. The 6-foot-7 Eubanks grew up training with Top 100 American Donald Young and his family in Atlanta.
Kwiatkowski, 22, of Charlotte, N.C., won the 2017 NCAA men’s singles championship as a senior at the University of Virginia. Kwiatkowski, currently ranked No. 690, was a member of three NCAA championship title-winning teams at Virginia (2015-17) and earned his third All-American singles honor this past season. He also won last year’s American Collegiate Invitational at the US Open.
Paul, 20, of Greenville, N.C., is ranked No. 175 and earned his wild card by winning the 2017 US Open Wild Card Challenge. Paul will be making his second US Open appearance after qualifying for the main draw in 2015 as a qualifying wild card—just the 16th player ever to compete in the US Open main draw as a qualifying wild card. This summer, Paul reached back-to-back ATP quarterfinals in Atlanta and Washington D.C.—his first career ATP quarterfinal appearances—and defeated Young to reach the second round in Cincinnati.
Kypson, 17, of Raleigh, N.C., earned the wild card allotted to the USTA Boys’ 18s national champion. Kypson, ranked No. 917, is a Top 20 world-ranked junior who reached the boys’ semifinals at Wimbledon this summer. He’s part of a group of American juniors to have trained with Ivan Lendl over the last several years as part of a USTA Player Development initiative.
Blancaneaux, 19, of Paris, received his wild card as part of the USTA’s reciprocal agreement with the French Tennis Federation that allowed Tennys Sandgren to make his Grand Slam main draw debut at Roland Garros this year. Blancaneaux is ranked No. 328.
De Minaur, 18, of Sydney, received his wild card as part of the USTA’s reciprocal agreement with Tennis Australia, which allowed Michael Mmoh to play in January’s Australian Open. De Minaur is ranked No. 186.
In addition to the eight US Open men’s singles main draw wild cards, the USTA also announced the nine men who have been awarded wild-card entries into the US Open Qualifying Tournament, which will be held Aug. 22-25 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Eight of the nine players receiving US Open qualifying wild cards are current or former collegians: William Blumberg (19, Greenwich, Conn.), the 2017 NCAA singles runner-up as a freshman at North Carolina; 2014 NCAA singles champion at UCLA Marcos Giron (24, Thousand Oaks, Calif.); 23-year old Christian Harrison (Shreveport, La.), who reached the 2012 US Open doubles quarterfinals with brother Ryan and qualified for the main draw last year after a 2 ½-year absence from play during which he underwent seven surgeries on various injuries; 25-year old Evan King (Chicago), a former All-American at Michigan; 26-year old Bradley Klahn (Poway, Calif.), the 2010 NCAA singles champion at Stanford; former USTA Boys’ 18s champion and Texas A&M All-American Austin Krajicek (27, Brandon, Fla.); 26-year old Daniel Nguyen (Long Beach, Calif.), a four-time NCAA team champion at USC; former USC All-American Raymond Sarmiento (25, Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.); and JJ Wolf (19, Cincinnati), the 2017 USTA Boys’ 18s National Championships runner-up who was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year at Ohio State.
Twenty years ago, the US Open was transformed by the introduction of Arthur Ashe Stadium. The centerpiece of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Arthur Ashe Stadium provided the game’s greats – and its greatest fans – with a stage unmatched in the sport. Boasting a capacity of more than 23,000, Arthur Ashe Stadium is the largest tennis-only stadium in the world, allowing the Open to welcome more than half a million more fans annually than when its namesake won the men’s singles championship in 1968. Best of all, the stadium has grown with the times. In 2016, it added a retractable roof, banishing rain delays to the historical record and ensuring that US Open attendees could continue to experience the excitement of US Open tennis – regardless of the weather. Today, Arthur Ashe Stadium provides the ultimate showcase for the world’s finest players to complete the toughest two weeks in tennis.