A mainstay of the annual USTA National Campus event calendar, the USTA Florida March Level 4 Championships returns this weekend. Action is set to take to the courts beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday, March 16 and will run through the afternoon of Monday, March 18.

Each division will feature a draw of 32 with a feed-in consolation through the round of 16. All matches will be two out of three tiebreak sets with a 10-point match tiebreak to be played in lieu of a full third set.

All seeding was done using the Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) system. USTA Florida has been using UTR as a tool to seed all Level 3, 4, and 5 tournaments.

On the boys’ side, the top seeds include Quentin Gabler (Miramar) in the 12s, Martin Mesia (Weston) for the 14s, Yannik Rahman (Miami) in the 16s, and Anuj Watane (Orlando) for the 18s.

In Gabler’s last event he was able to cruise through the competition to claim the boys’ 14s singles title at the BMW Tennis Championships Level 7, besting Sammy Nieder – the fifth seed this weekend – in the final. Gabler has made several appearances at the National Campus, including reaching the quarterfinals of last year’s USTA Florida Level 3 Doubles Spring Challenge and the round of 16 in the 2018 USTA Florida “Bobby Curtis” Junior Singles Sectional Championships. Both of those results came in the 12s division.

Mesia has not competed in a sanctioned tournament since the prestigious Junior Orange Bowl in December, where he won four qualifying matches to reach the main draw. He turned in a strong showing the second half of 2018, playing his way into the championship match of the USTA Florida Level 4 Summer Smash and earning the winner’s trophy at the Sunshine State Open. Additionally, Mesia took home the crown at the USTA Florida “Bobby Curtis” Junior Doubles Sectional Championships, held at the National Campus, and was the runner-up in this event 12 months ago.

Rahman, the No. 1 seed and eventual champion in the boys’ 14s in 2018, will look to earn another title as he moves up into the 16s division. He collected five singles titles over the course of last year, most notably a thoroughly impressive showing at the USTA Florida “Bobby Curts” Junior Singles Sectional Championships, where he knocked off four seeded competitors on his way to the crown.

Orlando native Watane spent a good portion of last year’s schedule competing on the Junior ITF circuit. He produced back-to-back solid results in USTA junior action during the summer, taking third at the USTA Florida “Bobby Curtis” Juniors Singles Sectional Championships before winning the USTA July National Level 2 event. He was last competing at the National Campus in the USTA National Winter Championships, where he made a push to the round of 16.

The girls’ No. 1 seeds include Leila Javaheri (Longwood) for the 12s, Lexington Reed (Orlando) in the 14s, Grace Levelston (Vero Beach) for the 16s, and Sofia Rojas (Sarasota) in the 18s.

A relative newcomer to the scene, Javaheri has made quite the splash since her first sanctioned competition in September. She would win the event plus one other in 2018, carrying that momentum into this year where she has turned in a pair of second-place finishes. Taking part in her first National Level 2 tournament last month, Javaheri battled her way to the to the consolation final.

No stranger to the courts of the National Campus, Orlando representative Reed is still in search for her first title won in Lake Nona. Amongst her best showings have been third-place finishes at both the USTA Florida Level 3 Doubles Spring Challenge and the USTA Florida “Bobby Curtis” Junior Doubles Sectional Championships. She does already have a singles and doubles tournament victory to her credit for 2019 after sweeping the USTA National Level 3 Smith Stearns Junior Championships.

Levelston will look to continue to make her transition up to the 16s a smooth one, as she breezed through the field at the USTA National Level 3 event as the seventh seed without dropping a set. She did compete in the 16s division in this event last year, advancing to the quarterfinals as an unseeded player. In her most recent appearance at the National Campus, Levelston was able to shake off an opening round loss to win five consolation matches in the USTA National Winter Championships.

It has been a light schedule for Rojas over the past 12 months, with this weekend being just her 10th event. She did enter the 18s draw at last summer’s USTA Florida “Bobby Curtis” Junior Singles Sectional Championships, winning two rounds before bowing out to the No. 1 seed. Rojas also has a runner-up finish at the USTA Florida Level 5 Orange County event to her name along with picking up the singles title at the Next Generation Level 6 in January.

For more information on the 2019 USTA Florida March Level 4 Championships, click here.