RANCHO SANTA FE, October 4, 2024 (by Steve Pratt)
The top three seeded players – including No. 1 Maya Joint – won straight-set matches on Thursday at the Rancho Santa Fe Open to advance to Friday’s quarterfinals, which will begin at 11 a.m. at the Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club.
The 18-year-old Michigan-born Joint, who represents Australia, started classes at the University of Texas five weeks ago but is solely focused on the ITF World Tennis Tour W75 with a total of $60,000 in prize money at stake this week. She got past 17-year-old Akasha Urhobo from Boca Raton, Fla., 6-4 6-4, and will next face Canada’s unseeded Katherine Sebov on Friday.
In the Round of 16, Sebov needed a comeback win in three sets to eliminate tournament wild card and 15-year-old Julieta Pareja from Carlsbad, 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-3, in a three-hour, five-minute marathon. A high school sophomore, Pareja won her first ITF pro title earlier this summer at the $15K So Cal Pro Series event at Rancho Santa Fe TC. She will play the new Bakersfield ITF W35 Futures event next week before heading to Turkey in November to represent the United States at the Junior Billie Jean King Cup.
It was Torrance’s Iva Jovic, just 16 years old, who clinched the Junior BJK Cup for the U.S. team last November making it five titles over the last six years in an event the U.S. has dominated. On Thursday, Jovic won her seventh straight match downing fellow unseeded Madison Sieg, 6-2, 6-3. Jovic is coming off her second ITF pro title win last weekend as she won the ITF W35 Berkeley singles title.
Seeded at No. 2, former world-ranked No. 38 Rebecca Marino of Canada beat Elvina Kalieva of Florida, 7-6(3), 6-4 and No. 3 Ena Shibahara of Japan downed 15-year-old wild card Annika Penickova in dominating fashion dropping just one game, 6-1, 6-0, in 1:11.
Playing for Thailand, 20-year-old Lanlana Tararudee has quietly had a solid week and was pressed by American wild card Ashley Kratzer of Newport Beach before pulling away and winning a deciding third set, 6-0. Tararudee is ranked No. 179 in the world and will next face Marino for a spot in Saturday’s semis.
Former world No. 26-ranked and a qualifier this week Lauren Davis continued her hot streak in Rancho Santa Fe winning her fourth match in a row without dropping a set and beating No. 8 seeded Hanna Chang from Fontana, 6-2, 6-2.
Doubles semifinalists moving on with wins on Thursday included the top two seeded teams – No. 1 American Carmen Corley and Iryna Shymanovich of Belarus and No. 2 Maria Kononova and Maria Kozyreva. Last year’s doubles finalist Madison Sieg moved one match closer to repeating that result as she and Veronika Miroshnichenko from Russia toppled the No. 4 seeds Elvina Kalieva and Katarzyna Kawa 10-8 in a super tiebreaker. Sieg played her college tennis at USC and Miroshnichenko at Loyola Marymount.
