TournamenT noTes as of september 30, 2015 KIRKLAND TENNIS CHALLENGER KIRKLAND, WA • OCTOBER 4-11 USTA PRO CIRCUIT RETURNS IN KIRKLAND FOR FIRST TIME TournamenT InFormaTIon SINCE 2000 Site: Central Park Tennis Club The Kirkland Tennis Challenger returns to Kirkland, Wash. Kirkland for the first time since 2000; the city hosted a $75,000 women’s event in 1999 and www.kirklandtennis.com Websites: 2000. It is the second $50,000 USTA Pro procircuit.usta.com Circuit women’s event following the US Open USTA/Ned Dishman USTA/Ned Facebook: Central Park Tennis Club and the only USTA Pro Circuit tournament held in Washington this year. Qualifying Draw Begins: Sunday, Oct. 4 Main Draw Begins: Tuesday, Oct. 6 To follow the tournament, download the USTA Pro Circuit’s new phone app by searching Main Draw: 32 Singles / 16 Doubles “procircuit” in the app store. Surface: Hard / Outdoor Notable players competing in the main draw Nicole Gibbs received a wild card into this Prize Money: $50,000 include: year’s US Open and won her first-round match. Gibbs captured consecutive NCAA singles titles Tournament Director: Nicole Gibbs, who received a wild card into in 2012 and 2013 for Stanford University, Vitaly Gorin, (916) 622-0972 becoming just the fifth player in history to win [email protected] this year’s US Open and won her first-round back-to-back NCAA Division I women’s singles match. Last year, Gibbs advanced to the third championships. Co-Tournament Director and round of the 2014 US Open—her career-best Tournament Press Contact: result—after winning the USTA Pro Circuit’s Mike Kalian, (206) 619-3308 US Open Wild Card Challenge to earn a spot Wimbledon main draws, peaking at No. 84 in [email protected] in the US Open main draw. She also won the the world in March. She also qualified for this third $50,000 USTA Pro Circuit event of her summer’s Emirates Airline US Open Series USTA Communications Contact: career in Carson, Calif., in 2014. This year, event in Stanford, Calif., upsetting Caroline Amanda Korba, (914) 697-2219, [email protected] Gibbs advanced to the second round of the Garcia to reach the round of 16. Gibbs won Australian Open—her first Grand Slam main consecutive NCAA singles titles in 2012 PrIze money / PoInTs draw appearance outside the US Open— and 2013 for Stanford University, becoming and competed in the French Open and the fifth player in history—and the fourth SINGLES: Prize Money Ranking Points from Stanford—to win back-to-back NCAA Winner $7,600 80 Division I women’s singles championships. Runner-Up $4,053 48 She also helped lead Stanford to its 17th Semifinalist $2,216 29 NCAA team title in 2013. As a sophomore Tim Hartis Tim Quarterfinalist $1,267 15 in 2012, she defeated teammate Mallory Round 16 $760 8 Burdette in the NCAA singles title match and Round 32 $444 1 then teamed with Burdette to win the NCAA DOUBLES: Prize Money (per team) doubles championship. As a junior player, Winner $2,786 Gibbs advanced to the final of the USTA Runner-Up $1,393 Girls’ 18s National Championships in 2010 Semifinalist $696 and 2011 and reached the semifinals of Quarterfinalist $380 the 2011 junior US Open. She trains at the Round 16 $254 USTA Training Center Headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla. Sixteen-year-old CiCi Bellis, who made international headlines at the 2014 US Open Sixteen-year-old CiCi Bellis finished 2014 as the No. 1-ranked junior player in the world. She made international headlines at the 2014 US Open, becoming the youngest female player to win a main draw match at the US Open since 1996. *Player field subject to change TournamenT noTes with her first-round upset of No. 12 seed and reigning Australian Open coach Adrian Zeman at the ZMG Tennis at Deer Creek facility in Deerfield finalist Dominika Cibulkova. With the victory, Bellis, then 15, became Beach, Fla., and was a longtime trainee of the USTA Player Development the youngest female player to win a main draw match at the US Open program at the USTA Training Center Headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla. since Anna Kournikova in 1996. Bellis earned a wild card into the US Open main draw as the USTA Girls’ 18s national champion; she was Alexa Glatch, who has competed in every Grand Slam main draw but the youngest USTA Girls’ 18s national champion since Lindsay Davenport the Australian Open, playing in the US Open main draw five times and in 1991. Following the 2014 US Open, Bellis won the first USTA Pro Wimbledon and the French Open three times, including qualifying Circuit singles titles of her career at $25,000 events in Rock Hill, for Roland Garros this year. In her career, Glatch has won 10 singles S.C., and Florence, S.C. She added a third singles title this year at the titles and seven doubles titles on the USTA Pro Circuit and ITF Circuit, $25,000 event in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. Also this year, Bellis reached including a singles title at the $50,000 USTA Pro Circuit event in the third round of the WTA event in Miami as a wild card before losing to Osprey, Fla., this year for her first USTA Pro Circuit singles title since Serena Williams, raising her ranking to a career-best No. 168 in the world 2009. Glatch has suffered through a number of injuries in her career, in May. In the junior ranks, Bellis clinched the ITF’s year-end No. 1 world missing more than a year from July 2013 to September 2014 and most ranking in December 2014, becoming the second American girl in the of 2010 as well. In 2009, Glatch propelled the U.S. to the Fed Cup last three years to earn the ITF’s year-end top junior ranking for players final by winning two of the U.S.’s three points—dropping just six games ages 18 and under (joining Taylor Townsend, 2012). Also in December, in four sets against two Top 50 players—in its 3-2 semifinal victory Bellis reached the singles semifinals and won the doubles title at the against the Czech Republic; one of the victories was a straight-sets win Metropolia Orange Bowl International Championships in Plantation, Fla. over two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova. As a junior, Glatch In addition, she led the U.S. to the 2014 Junior Fed Cup title in Mexico, reached the girls’ singles and doubles finals at the 2005 US Open— helping the American squad win the 16-and-under world team title for losing to former world No. 1 Azarenka in the singles final—but she the third time in seven years (2008, 2012, 2014). suffered career-threatening injuries in a motor scooter accident shortly thereafter. She returned to the USTA Pro Circuit the following year and Taylor Townsend, who was a top storyline at the 2014 French Open, won her first career pro title at the $10,000 event in Fort Worth, Texas. where she made her Grand Slam main draw debut and advanced to the third round. She competed in the French Open as a wild card after Jessica Pegula, who played in just one tournament last year after having winning the 2014 Har-Tru USTA Pro Circuit Wild Card Challenge, knee surgery, but who is on the comeback trail after qualifying for the taking the challenge on the strength of victories at two $50,000 USTA 2015 US Open and winning her first-round match. Pegula achieved a Pro Circuit clay-court events: Charlottesville, Va., and Indian Harbour career breakthrough in 2013 by qualifying for and reaching the third Beach, Fla. Those were the first two USTA Pro Circuit titles of her career. round of the WTA event in Charleston, S.C. She also qualified for the Townsend went on to compete in the other three Grand Slam events WTA events in Shenzhen, China, and Washington, D.C., climbing to a following last year’s French Open. This year, she made her Fed Cup career-best No. 123 in the world that year. This year, Pegula qualified debut in the World Group II First Round in Argentina, where she played for Charleston and reached the quarterfinals of the $50,000 USTA doubles. Townsend is a former junior standout, clinching the year-end ITF Pro Circuit event in Dothan, Ala. She also reached the final round of No. 1 junior ranking in 2012 to become the first American girl to hold qualifying at Wimbledon and the French Open this. Pegula has enjoyed that position since Gretchen Rush in 1982. She ascended to No. 1 by even greater success in doubles, competing in the US Open doubles winning the Australian Open junior singles and doubles titles as well as main draw in 2011, 2012 and 2015, and peaking at No. 92 in the the junior doubles titles at the US Open and Wimbledon. Also in 2012, world in the doubles rankings in February 2013. Pegula’s father, Terry, she led the U.S. to the Junior Fed Cup championship. Townsend turned is the owner of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres and the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. pro at the start of 2013 and, in her first WTA-level main-draw match, beat then-No. 57 Lucie Hradecka in the first round of Indian Wells. After Samantha Crawford, who competed in the US Open main draw for the playing primarily pro events early that year, she returned to the junior second time in her career this year after winning this summer’s USTA ranks in 2013 and reached the girls’ singles final at Wimbledon.