Team USA in Review: May 2019

If it’s May, it’s clay in the professional tennis world, and a trio of Americans—Taylor Fritz, Lauren Davis and Bernarda Pera—all seized their opportunities on the surface to earn Team USA Player of the Month honors. 

Fully committed to the European ATP clay-court swing, Fritz went 8-3 on the dirt in May, qualifying and reaching the second round in both Madrid and Rome and reaching the semifinals in Lyon. 

Pera, meanwhile, reached her second career WTA semifinal at the clay-court tournament in Prague and won the singles title at a $100,000 ITF-level tournament in Srnava, Slovakia.

Davis won her first singles title in more than two years, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Her victory at the W100 clay-court event in Bonita Springs, Fla., in which she beat former Wimbledon junior finalist Ann Li in the final, was enough to overtake Whitney Osuigwe in the USTA’s Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge, giving Davis a main draw wild card entry into the French Open.

More Tour-level highlights from Americans in May:

• Sloane Stephens reached her first WTA semifinal of 2019 at the Mutua Madrid Open Premier event.
• Nicole Melichar reached her second WTA doubles final of 2019 in Prague.

USTA Pro Circuit and ITF World Tennis Tour-level highlights:

• Taylor Townsend swept the singles and doubles titles at the W100 clay-court event in Charleston, S.C., defeating American Whitney Osuigwe to win the singles title—her seventh career singles title at the 50 level and above—and winning the doubles title with American Asia Muhammad.
  
• London 2012 Olympian Christina McHale won her first singles title since 2016 at the W80 clay-court tournament in Cagnes-Sur-Mer, France. 
• Former UCLA Bruin Ena Shibahara won the doubles title at the W60 event in Kurume, Japan.
• Elli Mandlik, daughter of four-time Grand Slam champion Hana Mandlikova, won her second singles title of 2019 at the W15 event in Barletta, Italy. 
• Katerina Stewart won her first singles title of 2019 at the W15 event in Naples, Fla.
• Players to win 25-level doubles titles: Chiara Scholl (Santa Margherita di Pula, Italy); Junior Ore (Pensacola, Fla.); Henry Craig (Heraklion, Greece).
• Players to win 15-level doubles titles: Natasha Subhash and Savannah Broadus (Williamsburg, Va.); Dasha Ivanova (Antalya, Turkey); Vasil Kirkov (Sozopol, Bulgaria); Austin Rapp (2: Cancun, Mexico); Mara Schmidt (Naples, Fla.); Sabastiani Leon (2: Tacarigua, Trinidad & Tobago); George Goldhoff (Cancun, Mexico); Sofia Sewing (Cancun, Mexico).