The 2025 US Open Qualifying Tournament continued Thursday with a full slate of second-round matches, leaving the winners one step away from a singles main-draw place.
Women’s top seed Francesca Jones of Great Britain defeated Georgia’s Ekaterine Gorgodze in a tight two-setter, cashing in on her fifth match point for a 6-1, 7-6(11) victory. A qualifier at the 2021 Australian Open and a wild card at Wimbledon three times, Jones is seeking her first career main-draw appearance at the US Open. The 24-year-old entered New York two places off her career-high WTA ranking of world No. 84, which she achieved in July.
The women’s No. 3 seed, Aoi Ito from Japan, ranked No. 82, battled Guiomar Maristany Zuleta De Reales from Spain in a back-and-forth match, eventually winning 6-0, 1-6, 6-0. The 21-year-old will now face Indonesian Janice Tjen, who knocked out Poland’s Maja Chwalinska, 7-5, 7-5.
American Sachia Vickery, who once ranked as high as No. 73 in the world, lost to Germany’s Ella Seidel, 6-1, 6-2. Seidel broke new ground after a second-round qualifying exit in her first US Open appearance last year. She will next meet Australia’s Destanee Aiava, who made her US Open main-draw debut last year, playing her way through qualies before losing to Elena Rybakina in the opening round. Aiava scored her first Slam main-draw win at the Australian Open in January.
Chinese players Zhang Shuai and Wei Sijia will face each other for a main-draw place after the ninth-seeded Zhang defeated Darja Vidmanova of the Czech Republic and Wei defeated Leyre Romero Gormaz from Spain. Zhang achieved a career-high doubles ranking of world No. 2 in 2022 and also cracked the singles Top 25 in 2023. She has reached the singles quarterfinals at the 2016 Australian Open and at Wimbledon in 2019.
Seventh-seeded American Katie Volynets moved past compatriot Amelia Honer when Honer retired after the first game of the third set, trailing 6-2, 6-7(4), 1-0. Volynets now faces Croatian Jana Fett, who defeated Tessah Andrianjafitrimo from France, 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-4.
On the men’s side, top-seeded Frenchman Arthur Cazaux advanced with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Jay Clarke from the United Kingdom. Cazaux now faces Jan-Lennard Struff, who defeated Japan’s Taro Daniel, 2-6, 6-4, 6-1. Cazaux reached his first ATP Tour final in Kitzbuhel in July, which helped him return to the Top 75. Veteran Struff is bidding for his 10th US Open main-draw appearance; the German twice reached the third round here, in 2019 and 2020.
Four American men also advanced on Thursday.
Wild card Martin Damm earned a close win against Benjamin Hassan from Lebanon, 7-5, 7-6(5), to move to the brink of his Grand Slam main-draw debut. Damm, the namesake son of 2006 US Open men's doubles champion Martin Damm, competed in the 2019 US Open men's doubles tournament alongside Toby Kodat after the pair won the USTA Boys' 18s National Championship title. Damm's best professional singles tournament came last year at the Miami ATP Masters 1000, where he reached the third round.
American Zachary Svajda, a two-time junior national singles champ, also advanced with a straight-sets win over Kazakhstan’s Beibit Zhukayev, 6-3, 7-5, while Garrett Johns defeated the United Kingdom’s Oliver Crawford, 7-6(4), 6-3.
Rounding out the U.S. success, Mitchell Krueger advanced to set up a meeting with Jesper de Jong of the Netherlands. Krueger took out Argentina's Andrea Collarini, 7-6(4), 7-5. He reached the 2024 US Open second round after successfully qualifying, and is hoping to make his fourth main-draw appearance in 2025.
In the battle of Aussies, fifth seed James Duckworth won a nailbiter against fellow Aussie James McCabe, 7-5, 5-7, 7-6(5), while Kimmer Coppejans emerged from an all-Belgian matchup with Alexander Blockx after the 20-year-old retired following a close opening set, which Coppejans won 7-6(5).
Argentina's Marco Trungelliti advanced with a win over Chile’s Cristian Garin, 7-6(3), 7-5, joining compatriot Federico Agustin Gomez in the qualifying third round after his 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 victory against Federico Cina of Italy. In another close match, Coleman Wong from Hong Kong upset 16th seed Matteo Gigante from Italy, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.
View the results from Thursday's completed matches and keep up with the men's qualifying draw and women's qualifying draw as play continues this week.
