Two lightning delays totaling nearly three hours disrupted the opening day of play at the 2018 USTA National Doubles Championships, part of the adidas Junior Championship Series. Even still, only seven matches went unfinished Thursday, which included two in the girls’ 14s main draw and one in the girls’ 16s main draw.

Despite the girls’ 14s division not completing its full slate of matches, three seeded duos have already been knocked out of the contention for the title. No. 8 seeds Nina Wiese (Eastern) and Linda Ziets-Segura (Eastern) were toppled in the opening round by Lilly Pleasant (Florida) and Lexington Reed (Florida) 7-6(4), 6-1. Pleasant and Reed backed that up with a 6-4, 6-2 victory later in the day to move into the quarterfinals, where they will look to take out top seeds and defending champions Liv Hovde (Texas) and Ava Krug (Florida), who dropped just four games in their two matches. Meanwhile, third-seeded duo Abigail Platt (Texas) and Morgan Pyrz (Texas) along with No. 7 seeds Stela Sifuentes (Texas) and Catherine Walker (Texas) were upset in the second round. Platt and Pyrz let a lead slip away in their 6-7(2), 6-2, 6-2 loss to Nevena Carton (Eastern) and Daria Smetannikov (Eastern); Sifuentes and Walker were stopped by Olivia Fermo (Eastern) and Sofia Iantosca (Eastern) 6-1, 7-6(4).

While two girls’ 16s seeds fell on Thursday, a huge surprise nearly took place in the first round. However, No. 1 seeds Sophia Fornaris (Florida) and Mia Kintiroglou (Eastern) held off Brooke Bittner (Southern) and Carri Hayes (Southern) 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to survive. The pair posted a much more straightforward 6-4, 6-3 win in the next round. The two tandems not as fortunate were sixth seeds Zoe Hammond and Brooke Thompson representing Missouri Valley plus No. 7 McHaley Ho and Brianna Wilbur of Texas. Both were defeated by Florida teams, with DJ Bennett and Didi Bredberg Canizares fighting past Hammond and Thompson 6-1, 2-6, 6-2; Ho and Wilbur came up short against the 2017 girls’ 14s finalists Anna Babayan and Ari Siegel, 7-5, 6-2.

No. 6 seeds Nico Jamison (Intermountain) and Lawrence Li (Texas) were the lone seeded duo to suffer defeat in the boys’ 14s draw after they were on the wrong end of a marathon 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 battle against Santiago Cardenas (Florida) and Ethan Schiffman (Southern California) in the second round. It was not smooth sailing for a number of other seeds on Friday, as a total of four were pushed to three sets at least once. Among those results was seventh-seeded Jack Wong (Eastern) and Julian Wu (Eastern) rallying from a set down to outlast Southern pair Spencer Matz and Sebastian Rodriguez 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 in round one. Fifth seeds Andrew Salu (Florida) and Chase Thompson (Southern California) were also pushed to the limit but prevailed versus Charlie Piegza (Southern) and Nicholas Suhanitski (Eastern) 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in round two.

The bottom half of the boys’ 16s draw held true to form, with only the fifth-seeded Texas duo Zachery Foster and Max Platt giving away a set, thus having to dig deep to come away the victors in a final set tiebreak versus Evan Lee (Eastern) and Thomas Navarro (Florida). Still alive in the bottom half as well are last year’s 14s champions No. 4 Alex Finkelstein and Nathan Mao from New England. The top half lost two seeds on day one, including No. 3 Ekansh Kumar (Mid-Atlantic) and Quinn Snyder (Middle States) to go along with No. 8 Alaister Burke (Mid-Atlantic) and Gray Voelzke (Mid-Atlantic). The eighth seeds were taken down by the unseeded Eastern pair of Ryan Glanville and Justin Speaker 6-4, 6-4 in the first round. Kumar and Snyder were dismissed by unseeded Florida tandem Joshua Miller and recent USTA Boys’ 16 National Clay Court champion Logan Zapp 6-4, 6-3. Top seeds Connor and Jake Krug (Florida) nearly failed to advance past the opening day, just barely edging past Connor Evenson (Southern) and Matthew Sloan (Southern) 5-7, 6-3, 7-5.

As a Level 1 USTA National Championship, players will earn Level 1 National Rankings Points; additionally, top finishers in each division will also receive the USTA’s coveted Gold, Silver and Bronze Balls.

Friday’s first matches will get underway at 8:00 a.m. with the conclusion of the suspended matches from day one. All main draw quarterfinals are scheduled for 10:30 a.m. For more information on the 2018 USTA National Doubles Championships, click here.