All one had to do was look over the list of USTA women’s wild cards into the US Open qualifying event – which starts Monday in New York City – to realize the recent USTA Billie Jean King Junior National Girls’ 18s & 16s Nationals are indeed “Where Champions Are Made”. 

An unheard of six teenagers who took part in the Barnes Tennis Center Nationals got the call to play in this week’s qualifying tourney and immediately made plans to be in New York City for the year’s final Grand Slam as wild cards. The number of players local tennis fans got to watch in San Diego moves to seven in singles when you count winner Iva Jovic of Torrance who was awarded direct entry into the main draw. 

All of the qualifiers need to repeat the name “Emma Raducanu” each morning they wake up to prepare for their matches. Like them, the Brit was a little-known teenager who went on to become the first qualifying player ever to win the US Open in 2021. Their mantra should be: “If Emma can do it, why can’t I?”

Be sure to catch all the action as the first four days of the women’s and men’s qualifying tournament will stream live on ESPN+ and air on ESPNEWS and, for the first time ever, on ESPN2 from Monday through Thursday. ESPN+ will stream all matches on all 14 courts (12 courts on Friday) from 8 a.m. PT until end of play. ESPN2 will present matches live each day from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. 

The qualifiers feature 128 men and 128 women competing for the final 16 slots, respectively, in each of the singles draws.

The wild cards who played Nationals include Washington Clervie Ngounoue, Miami’s Tyra Grant, Boca Raton’s Akasha Urhobo, NorCal 14-year-old Kristina Penickova and Washington’s Valerie Glozman, who fell to Jovic in the finals at Nationals.

Only one of the six wild cards who played at Barnes hails from Southern California in 15-year-old Julieta Pareja of Carlsbad. Pareja was given the invite largely due to her first professional singles title at the SoCal Pro Series Rancho Santa Fe event in July. She will have her hands full in an all-SoCal matchup when she faces Santa Barbara’s Kayla Day on Tuesday. Day, 24, will rely on her Open experience as she won the US Junior Nationals in 2016, won a round in the main draw women’s event and then went on to win the Junior Girls’ title that year.

In other qualifying women’s matches involving Southern California players, Fontana’s Hanna Chang, ranked just outside the top 200, goes against Leolia Jeanjean of France and former UCLA All-American Ena Shibahara from Rancho Palos Verdes, who represents Japan, has won a Grand Slam in doubles and got to as high as No. 4 in the world. But reports are that Shibahara has dedicated herself to singles where she sits at a current career-high of No. 232 and will be playing in her first singles Grand Slam tourney this week as she opens against Katarina Zavatska from Ukraine. Mayar Sherif, who played at Pepperdine, will compete in the main draw and will have to wait until Thursday to see who she draws in the first round. 

On the men’s side, there are a bevy of players from Southern California who will play in the main draw and hope to make deep runs at the US Open.

Taylor Fritz (Rancho Palos Verdes), Marcos Giron (Thousand Oaks), Brandon Nakashima (San Diego), Alex Michelsen (Aliso Viejo) and Mackie McDonald (UCLA) will be joined by wild cards Learner Tien (Irvine) and Zach Svajda (San Diego) as they attempt to win tennis’ grandest prize and do something that hasn’t been done by an American male in 21 years – win a Grand Slam. 

In qualifying action, Woodland Hills’ Emilio Nava (No. 145) takes on Poland’s Maks Kasnikowski and Altadena’s Tristan Boyer (No. 210) faces off against Belgium’s Joris De Loore. Local players receiving wild cards into qualifying include Rolling Hills’ Brandon Holt, who takes on Jordan’s Abdullah Shelbayh, and 18-year-old Kaylan Bigun of West Hollywood who faces Valentin Vacherot from Monaco. Bigun was the French Open boys’ singles champion who was ranked as the No. 1 junior in the world as recently as June. 

Three former college players from SoCal schools will also play in qualifying: 

UC-Santa Barbara’s Nicolas Moreno De Alboran plays Switzerland’s Leandro Riedi, former UCLA star Max Cressy takes on Zsombor Piros from Hungary and former USC All-American Yannick Hanfmann from Germany, the No. 2 seed, plays Italy’s Stefano Napolitano in the first round.

To view the women’s qualifying draw, click here:
https://www.usopen.org/en_US/draws/womens-qual-singles.html

To view the men’s qualifying draw, click here:
https://www.usopen.org/en_US/draws/mens-qual-singles.html