The 107th National Singles returns to Philadelphia this week with three-time champion Amanda Sobhy making her return as the U.S. Women’s Championship top seed, and two-time champion Todd Harrity leading the S.L. Green U.S. Men’s Championship draw at Philadelphia Cricket Club.
Sobhy, former world No. 6, missed out on a chance for her fourth U.S. Women’s Championship title last year after a ruptured Achilles ended her season prematurely. After ten months out of the game, Sobhy made her return in January, having competed in three major tournaments and reclaiming a ranking inside the world’s top twenty since her return. In the semifinals of the fifteen-player draw, Sobhy is predicted to face either fellow Harvard graduate and four seed Haley Mendez, or her younger sister and 2014 champion, Sabrina.
Defending women’s champion Olivia Blatchford is seeded to face Sobhy in the final and will hope to thwart her long-time domestic rival’s return as the two seed. Blatchford, world No. 13, is predicted to face UPenn’s college individual champion, Reeham Sedky, in a semifinal rematch of the 2017 final. Last year, Blatchford needed eighty-four minutes and five games to defeat Sedky and claim her maiden title. For the second year, two-time U.S. junior champion and fifteen-year-old Marina Stefanoni enters the senior national championship draw with a potential quarterfinal against Blatchford should she get past Philly local Kelsey Engman in the first round.
For the second year, the S.L. Green U.S. Men’s Championship involves a full main draw of sixteen players, four of which will be qualifiers emerging from a field of sixteen players.
Harrity, currently the highest ranked U.S. professional at world No. 52, enters the S.L. Green as the one seed for the third consecutive tournament. The Princeton graduate won two consecutive S.L. Green titles in 2015 and 2016, but exited the 2017 tournament in the semifinals. The remaining top four seeds coincide with current world rankings with 2013 champion and world No. 61 Chris Gordon seeded second, defending champion and world No. 63 Chris Hanson seeded third and world No. 86 Faraz Khan seeded fourth.
Surprise 2017 finalist and UPenn freshman Andrew Douglas will face a familiar opponent in the first round—his head coach at UPenn, Gilly Lane—with the winner expected to face Khan in the quarterfinals. The S.L. Green main draw includes four other current college players: Harvard’s Timmy Brownell, Dartmouth’s Alvin Heumann and Yale’s Spencer Lovejoy and Harrison Gill.
S.L. Green qualifying is scheduled to begin Wednesday, March 6, from 10am EST. Watch live streaming from Court A on ussquash.com/live. View the qualifying draw here.
In addition to the U.S. Women’s Championship and S.L. Green U.S. Men’s Championship draws, the 2018 National Singles will crown fourteen age group national champions with 128 adult players entered. Eight 2017 champions return to defend their national titles in the same division.
View all 2018 National Singles draws here.
