2016 Season Preview - Texas A&M Aggies

When Texas A&M made the transition from the Big 12 to the SEC in the summer of 2012 they were coming off their first losing season since 1997 and it had been 10 years since the Aggies had won a conference or division title.  Fast forward to the summer of 2015 and in the past 3 years the Aggies have won a West Division title (2013), a Conference Tournament title (2014), and another Conference Tournament title with a share of the Regular Season title (2015) to boot. (Note: SEC discontinued divisions after the 2013 season and combined everyone into one group)

I don't know if it was the SEC branding or the incoming talent (latter) but the Aggies have quickly turned into a juggernaut in the SEC with no opposing team wanting to go to College Station on a Friday night or Sunday afternoon.  Texas A&M is 32-3 at home over the last 2 years and a perfect 15-0 against the SEC with windy conditions and rowdy crowds the norm for incoming opposition.

Steve Denton's teams have made the NCAA tournament each of the past 9 years but they've yet to make back-to-back trips to the NCAA Round of 16 but I have to think Denton likes his chances this year.  Last year's run to the Elite 8 marked only the second time in school history that A&M had made it that deep with the first time coming back in 2001.

2016 Season Preview - Georgia Bulldogs

When you talk about the greatest college tennis programs in the land, Georgia is always going to be in the conversation.  Georgia boasts 6 NCAA National Titles (85, 87, 99, 01, 07, 08) with current head coach Manny Diaz, who is now in his 28th year as head coach of the Bulldogs, the architect of the last 4. The last time Tulsa hosted the NCAAs (2008) Georgia won it all so Manny Diaz is probably hoping that lighting strikes again this year.

Diaz returns 5 singles starters from last year's team which finished ranked #8 after falling to then #1 Oklahoma 4-2 in the NCAA quarterfinals. Georgia and Texas A&M shared the SEC regular season title after both went 11-1 (UGA won regular season match in Athens 4-1) however Texas A&M won the conference tournament when they beat Georgia 4-2 in the finals in a match that was held in College Station.

The one singles starter that Diaz has to replace is Nathan Pasha who went 16-5 last season in dual-match play including 14-3 at #3 singles. Pasha's frequent doubles partner Eric Diaz also graduated so there will be 2 openings in doubles. Pasha and Diaz struggled a bit last season going 4-9 at #2 doubles before Diaz had to take a month off to recover from an appendectomy. Diaz returned in time for the NCAAs and went 3-1 with Paul Oosterbaan at #3 doubles.

2016 Season Preview - Stanford Cardinal

Optimism is in the air on The Farm as year two of the Paul Goldstein era has many of the Cardinal faithful believing that a return to prominence is much closer than originally anticipated.
   
Stanford was the undisputed king of men's college tennis from 1977 to 2000 winning an astonishing 15 National Championships but since 2000 the Cardinal have only made it past the quarterfinals once (2003) and have only advanced to the Final 16 site 8 times. The last time Stanford made it to the Round of 16 was 2012 so the current 3-year drought is the program's longest since the dual-match format was instituted in 1977.

If you look at the TRN's recruiting rankings you'll notice that the Cardinal almost always has a top 5 recruiting class (#1 in 2014) but the player development was sliding towards the end of John Whitlinger's 10-year stint. The 3-man class of 2013 has only started 9 dual-matches in the past 2 years and only 2 of 4 guys from the class of 2012 were contributors last season.  

2016 Season Preview - UCLA Bruins

No team has been more consistent over the years than UCLA with the Bruins the only team to make the NCAA Round of 16 every year since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1999. UCLA head coach Billy Martin enters his 23rd year at the helm with 1 National Title (2005) and 4 National Runner-Ups (96/99/04/13) in his previous 22 years.

Martin only loses 1 player from last year's Round of 16 team though that 1 guy was a valuable one with Dennis Mkrtchian going 15-5 in dual-match play with the majority of his matches coming at #2 singles.

UCLA returns everyone else with Mackenzie McDonald and Martin Redlicki expected to anchor the singles and doubles lineup. McDonald went 15-1 in dual-match play last year with all his matches coming at #1 while Redlicki went 17-3 with most of his matches coming at #2 and #3. The pair combined to go 12-5 at #1 doubles and they also performed well over the summer winning the Costa Mesa Futures and making the semifinals at the Claremont Futures. McDonald is the only current college player with an ATP ranking inside the top 600 and he's well inside it at 372.

2016 Season Preview - USC Trojans

During USC's stretch of dominance, which saw them win 4 National Titles in 5 years, one of the biggest things that contributed to USC's success (aside from Steve Johnson) was the lack of turnover among its starters. The last time USC had to replace more than 2 starters was all the back in 2008 (Van't Hof, Sacks, Piotrowski) but this season they have to replace 4 with Yannick Hanfmann, Roberto Quiroz, Eric Johnson, and Jonny Wang all moving on after 4 spectacular seasons.

Hanfmann, Quiroz, Johnson, and Wang accounted for 59% of USC's dual-match singles wins last season though the 2 returning starters, Max de Vroome (Sr) and Nick Crystal (Jr), each won 18 dual-matches which tied them for 2nd on the team.

Peter Smith welcomes back several quality depth players with a few of them likely to start this season. If healthy, I think that both Connor Farren (Jr) and Rob Bellamy (Jr) will be in the starting 6 with Thibault Forget (Guy Forget's son) and Tanner Smith (Peter Smith's son) just on the outside looking in.

2016 Season Preview - Ohio State Buckeyes

Many wouldn't consider a 27-9 season a disappointment but it is if you are accustomed to winning conference championships and making deep runs at the NCAAs. When Ohio State lost 4-3 to Texas A&M in the Round of 16 it marked the first time since 2005 that the Buckeyes hadn't at least made the NCAA Quarterfinals.  Ohio State had won the Big Ten conference tournament 8 of the previous 9 seasons but Illinois shut them out twice in Champaign last season with the second occurrence coming in the Big Ten finals.

Ohio State's strength last season was the bottom of the lineup with the 4 through 6 spots going 69-16 (.81) while the top half of the lineup was good 49-28 (.64) but came up short too many times against tougher competition. In Ohio State's 9 losses the top half of the lineup went just 6-18 (.25) including 0-3 in the season ending loss to Texas A&M.

Ohio State has to replace 2 starters, Hunter Callahan and Kevin Metka, that both excelled in singles and doubles with the pair combining to go 41-12 in dual-match singles play and 42-17 in dual-match doubles play.

Best Teams Not To Win A Natty In The Last 10 Years: 2012 Ohio State Buckeyes

They started playing tennis in Columbus all the way back in 1912 but they didn't "really" start playing until Ty Tucker took over the program in 1999. From 1912 to 1999 (87 years) the Buckeyes had a record of 733-613-10 (.541) and won just 3 Big 10 Championships but from 2000 to the present they're 455-74 (.860) and have won 10 regular season Big 10 Championships and another 10 Big 10 Tournament Championships. Prior to Tucker's arrival Ohio State had never played in the NCAA Tournament but since his arrival they've made it all 16 times (note: field was expanded to 64 starting in spring of 1999). In those 16 appearances Ohio State has been a top 5 national seed 8 times with those 8 coming in consecutive years starting in 2007 and ending in 2014. The only team to string together a longer streak is Virginia who has been a top 5 seed each of the last 9 years (10 times total since 2005).

Tucker's recipe for success has traditionally been to have a balanced mixture of the top talent from the state of Ohio and the northeastern U.S. along with a few high-end Europeans. Some of Ohio State's better players over the last decade weren't the sure thing TRN Blue Chips but rather the 4 and 5 stars that Tucker was able to develop into excellent players (Kobelt, McCarthy, Callahan, Metka). The reason they were able to develop is due to Tucker's practice of getting many of his guys to take a redshirt season which allows them to adapt to college life as well hone their game at a slower pace. 8 of the 12 guys on the current roster have already taken a redshirt season or will be taking one before their eligibility runs out. If you go back to 2007, 21 of 37 guys that played for the Buckeyes will have taken a redshirt season.

More From The Convention

The 175 or so coaches that made the trip down to Naples for the 2015 ITA Coaches Convention got treated to a slew of terrific speakers and demonstrators who gave them tips on everything from developing a championship team to learning how to add 10 miles per hour to their player's serve.

While Sunday was loaded full of strategy sessions and round table meetings, Monday and Tuesday was a lot more loose with a number of high profile guest speakers with many of them providing on court demonstrations.

The first half of Monday had 4 different coaches forums with each 45 minute forum talking about a different topic.  Pomona-Pitzer's Ann Lebedeff, who would also be awarded the 2015 ITA Meritorious Service Award at the banquet, talked about the history of coaching and some of the perceptions that student-athletes have about men's and women's coaches.

2015 ITA Coaches Convention

Last month the ITA's new COO, Erica Perkins Jasper, invited me to attend the ITA Coaches Convention as a guest of the ITA so I took her up on the offer and sat in on a lively day of discussion today in Naples at the lovely Naples Grande Beach Resort. The convention is open to all college coaches including assistants and I thought the turnout was pretty good for mid-December.

The charismatic and lively Tim Russell, ITA's new CEO, opened up the day with a few personal stories and then talked about a number of topics but said his main goal is to not only preserve college tennis but to strengthen, grow, and transform it. There are some other notes from Tim's opening speech further down below.

The keynote address was delivered by 1993 Michigan State graduate Molly Fletcher who might I add is a tremendous speaker. She brought a lot of energy, enthusiasm, and inspiration to the room which was a good thing because there was a lengthy strategic planning session that followed. 

2016 Season Preview - TCU Horned Frogs

TCU has plenty of history when it comes to men's tennis but prior to last year most of it was distant history. TCU had made just 3 trips to the NCAA Round of 16 in the previous 16 years, with the most recent being in 2004, and hadn't made the Round of 16 as a seed since 2000.  TCU head coach David Roditi updated the record books last year when he guided his senior laden team to the NCAA semifinals and had them a whisker away from a spot in the finals.

I thought this would be a rebuilding year after losing 5 seniors (Nick Chappell, Facundo Lugones, Arnau Dachs, Will Stein, Blake Wiggins) that accounted for 55% of TCU's dual-match wins but Roditi has restocked the shelves nicely and it's possible that TCU may actually be better this coming season.

Team USA Wins Master'U; Pro Success From Former College Players

Team USA won the Master'U BNP Paribas for the 5th year in a row and the 6th time in the last 7 years after Florida's Brooke Austin and Cal's Maegan Manasse sealed the title with a 7-5, 6-1 win over France's Clemence Fayol and Alice Bacquie. Virginia's Danielle Collins won her singles match 6-4, 6-3, Stanford's Tom Fawcett won 4-6, 7-6, 6-3, and UCLA's Mackenzie McDonald won 7-6, 6-1. Cal's Manasse lost 6-2, 6-2 while Georgia's Austin Smith was set to play in doubles but the remaining matches were called off due to the clinch.

In the 10 years of the event the USA has won it 6 times (2009, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15), France 3 times (2006, 07, 10), and Russia won it once in 2008.

The team was coached by Boise State men's head coach Greg Patton and Cal women's coach Amanda Augustus.

USA National Collegiate team wins 6th Master U BNP Paribas team championship. 4-1 over France. Wmn dubs clinch. pic.twitter.com/4RGQWutTcF

— Greg Patton (@GregPatton2) December 6, 2015

2016 Season Preview - Virginia Cavaliers

The defending national champions will be shooting for their third title in the last four years and even though they lost one of the all-time greats in Mitchell Frank they'll still have a pretty stacked roster that's loaded with talent and experience. Virginia has a rugged top 3 with Ryan Shane, Collin Altamirano, and Thai-Son Kwiatkowski each likely to split time in the top 3 spots while there will be 5 guys (Ritschard, Aragone, Wiersholm, Styslinger, Corinteli) that are more than capable of filling the bottom 3 spots.

Brian Boland has lined up a tough non-conference schedule that has the Hoos facing Kentucky and UCLA at home and Illinois, Tulsa, Oklahoma (@ Tulsa), and Florida on the road. Virginia hosts this year's National Team Indoors in February which will have them facing another 3 or 4 top 15 teams and of course Virginia plays a full ACC schedule with Wake Forest coming to Cville and the Hoos going to Virginia Tech, North Carolina, and Duke.  The full schedule is further down the page.

Fall Phenoms

The 2015 fall season is in the books so let's take a look back at the guys that were a head above the rest. Of course you've got to start out with the guys that claimed the 3 fall majors which were the Oracle ITA Masters, the Saint Francis Health System ITA Men's All-American, and the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships. After that I look at the guys that made strong runs in majors as well as several other tournaments.

Player (School/Year/UTR as of 12/1) - records listed are just in college events.

Dominik Koepfer (Tulane Sr/14.31) - What a tremendous fall for the senior from Furtwangen, Germany with a Championship, Runner-Up, and a Semifinal appearance at the 3 fall slams. Koepfer beat 10 ranked opponents with 8 of them being ranked inside the top 50.

Upcoming Month

Probably won't have a ton of posts over the next month but I'll have a fall wrap-up coming up in the next week or so and then I'll have my pre-season rankings out no later than January 1st. 

The majority of teams have released their schedules for the upcoming season so if you want to see them all in one spreadsheet you can check out my google doc which is in my Team Schedules tab. Right now it just has men's schedules but I plan on adding women's in the next month. 

It looks like the coaching carousel is done spinning for the year with all but 2 jobs filled. Here is a list of who left and who came in.

Koepfer & Di Lorenzo Rise To The Top, Takeda Takes the Jack Kramer, Andrews Shakes Hands With Dickie V, Fennell The Top Dog in Athens, Michnev Bags #1

It was Championship Sunday at the National Indoor Intercollegiates and Tulane senior Dominik Koepfer and Ohio State freshman Francesca Di Lorenzo would claim the singles championships while Texas Tech's Hugo Dojas and Felipe Soares and North Carolina's Hayley Carter and Whitney Kay would win the doubles championships.

Below are the final scores from all championship matches along with photos of the winners of the main draw events courtesy of the ITA. Here is the ITA's recap of the day's events and here is Colette Lewis's recap on Zoo Tennis which has more insight in the singles matches.

Dominik Koepfer makes history as he becomes first @GreenWaveMTenn player to win #NIIC national title! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/ByG7MmBHOq

— ITA Tennis (@ITATennis) November 15, 2015

NIIC Day 3: Goransson Gets Past Eubanks; Koepfer Overpowers Monteiro

The singles finals are set at the National Indoor Intercollegiates and it'll be Cal's Andre Goransson taking on Tulane's Dominik Koepfer on the men's side and Clemson's Joana Eidukonyte meeting Ohio State's Francesca Di Lorenzo on the women's side.

Cal's Andre Goransson got the only break of the opening set when he broke Chris Eubanks's 5-5 service game and then he served it out to take the set 7-5.  Below is a clip of Goransson's break (FYI, I recorded all the clips off ESPN3 so some are better than others but at least it's something)

The Georgia Tech sophomore would bounce back in the second set by breaking Goransson twice and he quickly took a 6-1 set to force a third.

Eubanks broke Goransson to start the third set by unloading on a forehand on the deciding point however Goransson would return the favor and break back from 15-40 to even it at 1-1. After a couple of quick holds it looked like Eubanks was going to get the break when he went up 0-40 on Goransson's 3-3 service game. Goransson quickly got it back to the 40-40 deciding point and then he used his forehand to pull Eubanks off the court and followed that up with a volley that Eubanks couldn't steer into play. Goransson had fought off each of the 4 break points and now led 4-3 and in fact he wouldn't lose another point on his serve the rest of the way.

Both guys would hold fairly easily up until Eubanks's 5-6 service game.  Eubanks went up 30-0 but on the next point Goransson came in and hit a backhand volley that landed right on the line and with Eubanks standing almost on top of the ball he got handcuffed and sent his return deep to make it 30-15. Eubanks then pushed a forehand wide to make it 30-30 and then Goransson smacked a nice deep service return that Eubanks put into the net and with that Goransson had 2 match points. Eubanks hit a forehand winner to fight off the first match point but on the second MP Goransson got a nice return on Eubanks's second serve and a few points later he'd steer a backhand up the line that Eubanks would then put into the net and that was all she wrote - Goransson 7-5, 1-6, 7-5.

Jack Kramer, Dickie V, Bulldog Scramble, CCB Bama Scoring Updates

The seeds have held their own so far at the Dick Vitale Lakewood Ranch Intercollegiate Clay Court Classic with all 4 men's seeds and 3 of the top 4 on the women's side into the quarterfinals.

The seeds haven't faired as well at the Jake Kramer Tennis Classic in Rolling Hills, California with only 2 of the top 8 making it to the quarterfinals and only 1 of those 2 making the semifinals. USC junior Connor Farren will meet his teammate sophomore Thiabault Forget (son of Guy Forget) in the one semifinal while the #1 seed Arizona senior Naoki Takeda will face Stanford senior Maciek Romanowicz in the other.

Georgia's Nick Wood and Walker Duncan, Notre Dame's Daniel Rayl, South Carolina's Alex Fennell, and Harvard's Chris Morrow each went 2-0 on Day 1 of the Bulldog Scramble. Wood, Duncan, and Morrow each picked an additional doubles win as well.

Day 1 of the CCB Collegiate Invitational in Birmingham didn't produce any noteworthy upsets with South Alabama's Tuki Jacobs, Alabama's Danny Kerznerman, Tulane's Chi-Shan Jao, and Middle Tennessee's State's Gian Issa among the winners in the Crimson singles draw.

NIIC Day 2: Monteiro Upsets #1 Seed Kwiatkowski, Koepfer Only Seed Left

A day after the #1 seed on the women's side went down the men's #1 followed suit as Virginia Tech senior Joao Monteiro upset Virginia junior Thai-Son Kwiatkowski 6-1, 7-6(4) in the NIIC quarterfinals. Kwiatkowski had beat Monteiro 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 back on September 20th in the finals of the UVA Ranked 1+1 but Monteiro was able to turn the tide today.

Stanford sophomore Tom Fawcett upset the #2 seed TCU sophomore Cameron Norrie 6-4, 7-6(8) so that means we'll be guaranteed to have a first time major winner on Sunday. Norrie of course won the Oracle Masters back in September while Kwiatkowski won the All-Americans in October.

Cal's Andre Goransson came back from a set down to win his Round of 16 match over Ohio State's Mikael Torpegaard then in his quarterfinal match he saw a 6-2, 5-1 lead evaporate as Texas A&M's Arthur Rinderknech won 4 straight games to even it at 5-5. Goransson managed to break on the deciding point to go up 6-5 and then he quickly served it out quickly to close out the 6-2, 7-5 win.

Tulane's Dominik Koepfer rolled over Wake Forest's Skander Mansouri 6-2, 6-2 in the Round of 16 then he followed that up with a gritty 7-6(6), 7-5 win over Illinois's Jared Hiltzik. Hiltzik had a set point in the first set tiebreak on his serve but Koepfer managed to win the last 3 points to take the set. In the second set Hiltzik led 5-3 but Koepfer battled back and took the next 4 games to close out the win.

Georgia Tech sophomore Chris Eubanks won both his matches in straight sets. He took out Ohio State junior Herkko Pollanen 7-5, 6-2 in the opening match and then got past Stanford's Tom Fawcett in the quarters by almost the same score of 6-2, 7-5. Fawcett led 5-2 in the second before Eubanks reeled off 5 straight to close it out.

As a reminder ESPN3's coverage will start on Saturday morning at 9am as they'll broadcast both the men's and women's singles and doubles semifinals. Here is the Saturday order of play with all 4 singles semis (2 men/2 women) being played on court 9 starting with the women.

All main draws results are below:

NIIC Day 1 - Top Men's Singles Seeds Roll, #1 Dubs Ousted

6 of the top 8 seeds on the men's side won their opening round matches while 7 of the top 8 on the women's side did though the 1 that lost on the women's side was the #1 seed Virginia's Danielle Collins.

The men's doubles #1 seed Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Mac Styslinger were upset in the 2nd round by Texas Tech's Hugo Dojas and Felipe Soares 7-6(5), 6-4.

Links to bookmark:

ITA host page
Live Scoring
Live Scoring (Mobile)
Live Blog
RadioTennis - Live Tennis Chat
ESPN3
NIIC Facts 

NIIC - Men's 1st Round:
[1] Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (UVA) def. Benjamin Lock (FSU) 6-2, 6-4
Konrad Zieba (NU) def. Max Hinnisdaels (AUB) 6-4, 6-2
[5] Hugo Di Feo (OSU) def. Kevin Konfederak (GG) 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-3
Joao Monteiro (VT) def. Diego Hidalgo (UF) 7-6(6), 6-3
[3] Dominik Koepfer (TUL) def. Chris Diaz (OSU) 6-1, 6-4
Skander Mansouri (WF) def. Guillermo Nunez (TCU) 6-3, 7-5
[8] Jared Hiltzik (ILL) def. Uros Petronijevic (SD) 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-2
David Wilczynski (ST) def. Shawn Hadavi (CU) 3-6, 6-3, 6-2
Andre Goransson (CAL) def. Diogo Rocha (DU) 6-1, 6-2
Mikael Torpegaard (OSU) def. [6] Roberto Cid (USF) 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-4
Austin Smith (UGA) def. Martin Redlicki (UCLA) 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-2
[4] Arthur Rinderknech (aTm) def. Dovydas Sakinis (DRT) 6-3, 6-4
Herkko Pollanen (OSU) def. Sam Monette (IU) 6-4, 6-4
Chris Eubanks (GT) def. [7] Nicolas Alvarez (Duke) 6-4, 6-2
Tom Fawcett (ST) def. Quentin Monaghan (ND) 6-2, 6-4
[2] Cameron Norrie (TCU) def. Alex Ghilea (OU) 6-0, 6-3

Jack Kramer Classic, Lakewood Ranch Dickie V, Bulldog Scramble, Georgia Signs Ponwith

Over the next 4 days the big headline grabber will be the National Indoor Intercollegiates in New York but there are a few other events taking place that are I'll keep an eye on too.

The Jack Kramer Tennis Club in Rolling Hills Estates, California will host the Jack Kramer Classic with 12 mainly west coast teams sending players to compete. Those 12 schools are USC, UCLA, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Cal Poly, Loyola Marymount, UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine UC Irvine, and SMU.  The tournament site is here and it has a list of competitors with draws likely to be released on Thursday. Some of the bigger names competing are UCLA's Gage Brymer, USC's Robbie Bellamy and Jack DeVine, Arizona's Naoki Takeda, Washington's Jake Douglas and Enzo Sommer, Oregon's Daan Maasland, Pepperdine's Stefan Menichella, SMU's Samm Butler and Hunter Johnson. 

National Indoor Intercollegiate Draws

The draws are out and we are less than 24 hours away from first serve of the 2015 National Indoor Intercollegiates in the NYC. The tournament starts on Thursday morning and finishes on Sunday. ESPN3 will have streaming video of the semifinals and finals on Saturday and Sunday. Ken Thomas of RadioTennis.com will broadcast all weekend, the USTA has a live blog that will run, and Columbia will provide live scoring so as a fan you should be covered from all angles.

Links to bookmark:

ITA host page
Live Scoring
Live Scoring (Mobile)
Live Blog
RadioTennis
ESPN3
NIIC Facts 

Below are the all the draws and my google doc has the men's draw sorted by preseason ITA ranking, seed, UTR, school, and country. I'll have the women's draw sorted by those same things shortly.

Davis Crocker Wins The Big 10 Indoors Singles Title, NIIC's 3 Days Away, Ybarra Wins Top Flight Of UTR Texas Open

Michigan redshirt sophomore Davis Crocker won the Big 10 Indoor Championship by knocking off Northwestern freshman Ben Vandixhorn 6-2, 6-2 in the semifinals then he beat Nebraska freshman Toby Boyer 6-3, 6-2 in the finals. All said and done Crocker went 6-0 on the week in singles play and only dropped 1 set. Boyer earned his spot in the finals by defeating Indiana's Matt McCoy 6-4, 6-3

Congrats to @DJCTennis for winning the singles title at the Big Ten Indoor Tourney! 〽️🏆🎾 #goblue pic.twitter.com/8BsASshdeU

— Michigan Tennis (@umichtennis) November 9, 2015

Friedrich Wins in Orlando + Several Guys Have Pro Success

South Carolina's Gabriel Friedrich knocked off teammate Harrison O'Keefe 6-3, 6-7(0), 6-4 in a live streamed match on ESPN3 to win the top singles flight at the USTA Clay Court Invitational in Orlando.

Comments from SC recap:
“What a way to end the tournament,” South Carolina head coach Josh Goffi said. “I couldn’t be more proud of Gabriel and Harrison. Both kept raising their level to trump the other’s momentum gains and, consequently, we ended up with a very high-level match at the end. They were respectful, yet extremely competitive, and that’s one of the hardest things to do when you’re playing your teammate. It’s disappointing that there had to be a loser today because both of them played great and got better throughout the match. In the end, the Gamecocks won, and it’s a great day for our program.”

Recap: Friedrich Tops O’Keefe in Three Sets for USTA Clay Court Title https://t.co/PB5TA3dum3 #Gamecocks pic.twitter.com/wpUEugNMxq

— Gamecock M. Tennis (@GamecockMTennis) November 8, 2015

All-Gamecock Men's & All-ACC Women's Final in Orlando

The champion of the USTA Clay Court Invitational Gold draw is guaranteed to be a South Carolina Gamecock after sophomores Gabriel Friedrick and Harrison O'Keefe each won twice on Saturday.

Friedrich (13.68) opened up with a 6-3, 6-2 quarterfinal win over Troy's Giovani Samaha (12.94) and then beat Pepperdine's Guilherme Hadlich (13.68) 6-3, 6-4 in the semis while O'Keefe (13.49) beat Baylor's Jimmy Bendeck (13.22) 6-2, 7-6(4) in the quarters and Pepperdine's Pedro Iamachkine (13.09) 6-4, 6-4 in the semis.  

In the Garnet draw final it'll be Pepperdine's Lautaro Pane (12.83) taking on Penn State's Tomas Hanzlik (13.21) after Pane knocked off Central Florida's Jose Sangroniz (12.50) 6-1, 6-3 and Hanzlik beat Georgia Tech's Andrew Li (12.97) 6-3, 6-2.

In the women's Gold draw it'll be NC State's Martina Frantova (10.42) versus Virginia Tech's Ilinca Stoica (10.50). Frantova hasn't dropped a set all weekend and dispatched the #1 seed Florida's Josie Kuhlman (11.33) 6-3, 6-4 in the semis. Stoica has only dropped 1 set in her 4 matches after getting past Florida's Brianna Morgan (11.10) 3-6, 6-3, 6-0.

Both finals will be broadcast on ESPN3 with coverage starting at 9am est on Sunday - don't forget to tune in!!

Friday Tournament Results

Pepperdine, Baylor, and South Carolina each have 2 guys still remaining in the Gold Draw of the USTA Clay Court Invitational while Georgia Tech and Troy have the others.

The Nebraska brother duo of Dusty and Toby Boyer won the Big 10 Indoors doubles championship with a 6-3 win in the final over Penn State's David Kohan and Christian Lutschaunig.  Singles play begins on Saturday and finished on Monday.

It hasn't been the best fall so far for Wake Forest's Romain Bogaerts (14.29) as he fell to 0-5 after getting upset by Navy's Austin Jones (12.36) 7-6(4), 6-3 at the Wake Forest Fall Invitational.

College on Tour - Friday Update

After a week with no titles the former/current guys are storming back this week with several in contention at Futures, Challengers, and ATP Masters events across the world.

The big story yesterday was #13 John Isner (Georgia '07) knocking off the great #2 Roger Federer 7-6(3), 3-6, 7-6(5) in the 3rd round of the Paris Masters. Isner hammered 27 aces with 0 double faults and won 73% of points on his serve. Big John also won a higher % of points on Federer's serve (29%) than Roger won on John's (27%). Next up for John in the quarterfinals is the speedy Spaniard David Ferrer. Ferrer owns a 5-1 H2H advantage though that was the same margin that Federer had against John prior to yesterday.

Men's Seeds Get Roughed Up in Orlando, LSU Fall Invite Underway

Thursday wasn't a great day to be a top 8 seed at the USTA Clay Court Invitational in Orlando with seeds in the Gold singles flight scratching out a sub-par 2-6 record. Of course the seeds were based on the preseason ITA rankings and didn't take into account whether guys had much clay court experience and as you'll see below the guys with clay court experience excelled. Women's seeds on the other hand faired very well going 6-2..

The #1 seed Florida's State Michael Rinaldi (13.62) was upset by Troy's Giovani Samaha (12.94) 7-5, 6-3 though Samaha had to be much more comfortable with the surface and having played in multiple clay court Futures events over the summer plus he played 4 rounds of qualies in Birmingham over the weekend. Rinaldi on the other hand last played a competitive match on clay at this same event in 2013 and he failed to win in either of those 2 matches.

Upcoming Tournaments - B1G Indoors, USTA Clay Courts, LSU Invite, Commodore Scramble, WF Fall Invite, UTR Texas

Florida State is the host for the 2015 USTA Clay Court Invitational which will take place in Orlando at the ESPN Wide World of Sports and the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress. ESPN3 will have streaming video on Thursday and Sunday and all results will be posted on the tournament's twitter feed. Tournament draws are posted below with the top 8 seeds from the top singles brackets shown as well.

Participating men's teams: Florida State, Baylor, Central Florida, Florida Gulf Coast, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, Michigan, Penn State, Pepperdine, South Alabama, South Carolina, Stetson, and Troy.

Men's Seeds (Gold)
1. Michael Rinaldi (Florida St)
2. Nathan Rakitt (Georgia Tech)
3. Mariano Porter (Central Florida)
4. Runhao Hua (Michigan)
5. Alex Gornet (Louisville)
6. Mraco Nunez (Florida St)
7. Gabriel Friedrich (South Carolina)
8. Matt Barry (Penn St)

NIIC Selections, UMBC Cut, Top 20 College Tennis Facilities

The National Indoor Intercollegiate selections were released today and while they were pretty straight forward there were a few last minute changes.

In the men's singles draw, Florida's Diego Hidalgo got in as a 7th at-large due to North Carolina's Ronnie Schneider pulling out. I know Ronnie has had shoulder issues in the past so that could be why he's out.

Georgia's Austin Smith (14.41) got the at-large selection that was reserved for the player with the highest UTR.

Duke's Nicolas Alvarez, who was the Oracle Masters Runner-Up, got the ITA's wild card and Illinois's Jared Hiltzik was awarded the USTA's wild card despite not participating in any collegiate events this fall.

Sunday Wrap Up - De Vroome Wins SoCal, Jared Hiltzik Wins UTR Decatur Open, Kentucky & Oregon Win 2 Flights, Sisko Wins MAC

USC senior Max De Vroome won the 59th annual Southern California Intercollegiate Championships by defeating UCLA senior Karue Sell 7-6(2), 4-6, 6-2 in the championship match which was held on the campus of UCLA at the LA Tennis Center. De Vroome was the #1 seed and Sell was the #3 seed.

Congrats on a great tournament, Karue! #UCLA #gobruins @USTASoCal @USCollegeTennis pic.twitter.com/ddEcaCknfs

— UCLA Men's Tennis (@uclatennis) November 1, 2015

Weekend Tournaments (Updated Through Saturday)

We're still 2 weeks out from the National Intercollegiate Indoors so between now and then there are a few fall tournaments taking place throughout the country.

Louisville is hosting the Louisville Invitational this weekend with teams several teams from the Ohio Valley Region participating along with Marquette and Northwestern Ohio.  The tournament format features three flights of singles and doubles and will be played both indoors and outdoors. Draws are below and here (updated with Saturday's results). Louisville's twitter will have score updates. 

A Singles Final: Gian Issa (MTSU 13.05) vs. Nils Ellefsen (KY 12.55)
B Singles Final: Kevin Lai (KY 12.71) vs. Adrian Mag (Butler 11.72)
C Singles Final: John Tougher (Lipsc 11.21) def.  Dan Lineberry (SIUE 11.31) 7-6(2), 6-4

UNLV is hosting the Larry Easley Memorial Classic this week with players coming in from Arizona, Boise State, Grand Canyon, Mesa CC, Northern Arizona, Oregon, and Oklahoma State.  The tournament will have two flights of singles and one flight of doubles. Arizona's twitter will have some updates of matches involving Wildcats. Draws are here and Friday/Saturday results are further down.

Detailed NCAA Study on Sports Sponsorship & Participation Research

The NCAA recently released its sports sponsorship and participation rates report and the numbers confirmed what we all knew - tennis, especially men's tennis, is on the decline. The report tracks student-athlete participation by sport and gender dating back to the 1981-82 season and tracks teams dropped and added since 1988-89.

Here is some of the highlights or should I say lowlights of the report:

In 2014-15, the sport with the highest number of women’s teams dropped was tennis with nine, followed by golf and lacrosse. The women’s sports that have been dropped the most since 1988-89 are cross country and golf with 241 programs dropped and indoor track and field with 239 programs eliminated in the NCAA.

How To Grow College Tennis & Regional Roundup

I wrote an article for ZooTennis talking about how to grow college tennis and what I think are the keys to making the sport sustainable for years to come.  Make sure you give it a read and don't hesitate to provide feedback over on Colette's site or right here.

Yesterday concluded the 2 weeks of USTA/ITA Regional play which determined the automatic qualifiers for the National Indoor Intercollegiates which will be held from November 12th through 15th at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. Click here for a full list of qualifiers along with my picks for the at-large and wild cards on the men's side.

Below were the results from each regional final on the Men's side:

Final Day of Regional Play - Sakinis Wins Northeast & Rinderknech Wins Texas

Dartmouth's Dovydas Sakinis was the #1 seed for a reason as he proved his worth today when he ran through Columbia freshman Victor Pham to win the Northeast Region singles title.

Sakinis got the first break of the match when he broke Pham to go up 5-3 then followed that up with a hold from 40-15 to take the opening set 6-3.  Sakinis went up an early break in the second set and then went up 3-1 after holding on the deciding point. Sakinis would break again to go up 5-2 and then the big lefty would close out the Championship after hitting a big serve out wide followed by a big forehand crosscourt winner to seal the 6-3, 6-2 win.

Comments from Dartmouth recap
“I am very happy for Dovydas,” head coach Chris Drake said. “Any time you get to this stage of the tournament, you hope to be able to bring your best level of tennis. There was no doubt that Dovydas was able to do that. From the first point, he played an extremely professional match. Once he got ahead, he never let his opponent mount any legitimate comeback.”

Pollanen Wins Midwest, Wilczynski Takes Northwest, & Sakinis/Pham To Meet in Northeast

Going into today semifinals many figured Ohio State would have 1 of its 2 guys make the finals but even the biggest of Buckeye fans wouldn't have banked on 2 but that's just what happened.

Buckeye junior Herkko Pollanen (UTR 13.39) cruised to a 6-1 opening set against the #1 seed Quentin Monaghan (UTR 14.08) but the Notre Dame senior took the second set 6-4 after breaking Pollanen's 4-5 service game. Pollanen went ahead for good in the third set after breaking Monaghan's 2-2 service game and Herkko would break again to close out the match for the 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win.

Buckeye senior Chris Diaz (14.02) advanced to the finals after knocking off Northwestern junior Strong Kirchheimer (13.60) 7-6(6), 7-5 though Kirchheimer definitely had his chances in both sets.  Kirchheimer broke Diaz to go up 5-3 in the opening set but he'd be unable to serve the set out as Diaz broke back and held for 5-5.  In the opening set tiebreak Kirchheimer came back from 5-2 down to lead 6-5 and had set point on his serve but Diaz won both points on Kirchheimer's serve and then won the next on his to take the tiebreak 8-6. In the second set Diaz would break Kirchheimer's 5-6 service game to close out the win.

In the all-Buckeye final, Pollanen would jump out to a 3-1 lead in both sets and while he finished off the opening set without any issues Diaz would make a match of it in the second.  Despite the push by Diaz, Pollanen would break Diaz's 5-6 service game to clinch the championship and automatic berth in next month's National Indoor Intercollegiates.

It's the 4th year in a row that an Ohio State Buckeye has won the Midwest singles title with Mikael Torpegaard taking it last year and Peter Kobelt winning it the 2 years prior.

Despite the loss Notre Dame's Quentin Monaghan will still be heading to New York as an at-large due to his #5 preseason ranking.

Denver Sweeps Mountain, Orkin Takes Fall Classic, Steve Johnson Just Misses

It was a great day to be a Denver Pioneer in Albuquerque as Diogo Rocha took the singles championship over Utah's Dan Little and Henry Craig and Alex Gasson took the doubles championship over New Mexico's Hayden Sabatka and Bart Van Leijsen.

Rocha didn't have an easy road to the title as 4 of his 6 matches went 3-sets and he had to come back from 3-1 down in the 3rd set today against Little before pulling it out 6-4 in the 3rd. Utah had a nice recap of today's match explaining the ebbs and flows - give it a read!

Craig and Gasson cruised until today's match but had to come back from a set down to win in a 3rd set supertiebreak over the Sabatka and Van Leijsen.

Saturday Regional Results

In South Bend at the Midwest Regional, 6 of the top 8 seeds moved into the quarterfinals where they'll be joined by Michigan's Carter Lin (12.51) who beat not 1 but 2 top 11 seeds. Lin first upset the #11 seed Toledo's Stjepan Sisko (13.30) 6-4, 6-4 then followed that up by beating the #7 seed Valpo's Jeffrey Schorsch (13.59) 6-4, 5-7, 7-5. Ohio State has 3 in the quarters with Chris Diaz, Ralf Steinbach, and Herkko Pollanen all advancing and they had a 4th in contention before freshman Martin Joyce fell to Illinois's Aron Hiltzik 6-3, 7-6 in the Round of 16.  The host Irish have 2 still remaining in #1 Quentin Monaghan and Eddy Covalschi while Illinois's Aron Hiltzik and Northwestern's Strong Kirchheimer round out the quarters.

Midwest (South Bend, IN) -  Singles & Doubles Draws

Round of 32 
[1] Quentin Monaghan (Notre Dame) def. Toshiki Matsuya (Illinois) 6-3, 6-2
[12] Leopold Gomez Islinger (UW-Green Bay) def. [21] Matt Mendez (Ohio State) 6-1, 6-2
[5] Ralf Steinbach (Ohio State) def. Matej Svjetlicic (Western Michigan) 6-3, 5-7, 6-0
[17] Fedor Baev (Northwestern) def. [16] Alex Knight (Michigan) 2-6, 6-4, 6-2
Julian Childers (Illinois) def. [3] Sam Shropshire (Northwestern) 3-6, 6-2, 6-3
[20] Eddy Covalschi (Notre Dame) def. [14] Josef Dodridge (Wisc) 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(5)

Regional & SEC Fall Classic Updates

In Albuquerque at the Mountain Regional, 4 of the top 10 seeds were knocked out in the first 2 days and then today 4 of the top 6 went down in the Round of 16 and Quarterfinals. Utah and Denver each have 2 guys in the semifinals with Dan Little sets to face Yannik James and Matt Cowley to meet Diogo Rocha.

Seeded Upsets (w UTRs listed after school name - *means reliability <100%)
Daniel Echeverry (Utah St/11.24*) def. [15] Freddie McGeehan (Utah/12.45) 6-2, 3-6, 6-4
Mark Kovacs (Idaho/12.11) def. [5] Thomas Tenrerio (Boise St/12.94) 2-6, 6-0, 6-1
[31] Keaton Cullimore (BYU/13.75*) def. [10] Toby Mitchell (Boise St/12.98) 6-3, 6-2
[26] Matt Cowley (Utah/12.19) def. [16] Cristofer Goncalves (NMSU/12.39) 7-5, 4-6, 6-3
Romai Ugarte (Utah St/12.69*) def. [7] Alex Gasson (Denver/12.84) 6-4, 4-3 ret.
Tim Handel (N Arizona/11.97) def. [9] Bart Van Leijsen (New Mexico/12.73) 7-6, 6-1

SEC Fall Classic

In addition to the 5 USTA/ITA Regionals taking place this weekend there will also be 9 SEC teams sending guys to Auburn, Alabama for the 2015 SEC Fall Classic.

Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt are the 9 teams participating with Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, and Texas A&M not attending. Texas A&M has a good excuse though - they participating in the USTA/ITA Texas Regional.

Singles Seeds:
1. Danny Valent (Vanderbilt)
2. Giammarco Micolani (Arkansas)
3. Maxx Lipman (Florida)
4. Marko Krickovic (Auburn)
5. Elliott Orkin (Florida)
6. Rhys Johnson (Vanderbilt)
7. Filip Kraljevic (Ole Miss)
8. Thomas Mayronne (South Carolina)

USTA/ITA Regional Championships (2nd Week)

7 of the 12 Men's Regionals were completed last weekend with the other 5 taking place this coming weekend.  Below are the 5 taking place this week with information that's available as of this moment.


Mountain (Albuquerque, NM) - Oct 21-25 - Draws
Top 16 Singles Seeds:
1. Henry Craig (Denver)
2. Diogo Rocha (Denver)
3. Hayden Sabatka (New Mexico)
4. Parker McGuiness (Utah)
5. Thomas Tenrerio (Boise State)
6. Shane Monroe (BYU)
7. Alex Gasson (Denver)
8. Dan Little (Utah)
9. Bart Van Leijsen (New Mexico)
10. Toby Mitchell (Boise State)
11. David Fox (Denver)
12. Yannick James (Denver)
13. Andrey Goyachkov (BYU)
14. Jamie Barajas (Utah State)
15. Freddie McGeehan (Utah)
16. Cristofer Goncalves (New Mexico State)

Atlantic & Carolina Regionals Crown Champs

Both the Atlantic and Carolina Regionals came to a close today with players from Virginia Tech, Old Dominion, Wake Forest, and North Carolina State picking up titles.

Virginia Tech's Joao Monteiro won the singles championship at the Atlantic Regional, which was hosted by Virginia Tech, with a 6-3, 7-6(4) win over Old Dominion's Adam Moundir. Monteiro won each of his 6 matches in straight sets with his wins coming over Temple's Santiago Canete, William & Mary's Aidan Talcott, Penn State's Matt Barry, Old Dominion's Michael Weindl, Penn State's Aws Laaribi, and Moundir in the final.

Southwest, Southeast, Ohio Valley, & Central Crown Champions

Monday was a great day for Indiana's Sam Monette as the Hoosier senior swept the podium by taking both the singles and doubles crown at the Ohio Valley Regional. Monette knocked off Tennessee Tech's Edu Mena 6-1, 6-3 in the singles final and then teamed up fellow senior Daniel Bednarczyk to defeat Ball State's Lucas Anderson and Andrew Stutz 6-1, 6-2 in the doubles final. Monette didn't drop a set all week in route to winning 7 singles matches and 6 doubles matches.

#GoIU #GoHoosiers pic.twitter.com/HoeG5cTLTz

— Indiana Men's Tennis (@IUMTennis) October 19, 2015

Championship Monday

There will be 4 more USTA/ITA Regional singles and doubles champions crowned today with each winner earning a main draw berth into next month's National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in New York.

Below is what is in store for today - Tennessee has a blog running for the Ohio Valley, Arkansas is running live scoring for the Central, Florida's twitter will have updates for the Southeast, USC & UCLA will have twitter updates for the Southwest, UNC will have twitter updates for the Carolina, and Virginia Tech has live streaming video for the Atlantic.

Super Bowl Champ Crowned, Hinnisdaels Wins In T-Town, Success on the Tour

There were 2 bids handed out today to next month's Men's National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships (NIIC) and those went to Georgia Gwinnett's Kevin Konfederak and Auburn's Max Hinnisdaels.

Konfederak, who won the NAIA singles championship on Saturday, won the all-division Super Bowl today by defeating Asuza Pacific's Jan Meyer 6-2, 6-2.  A short while later Konfederak and Jordan Cox defeated Concordia's Jui Mao and Ofir Ginat 6-2, 6-4 to win the Super Bowl doubles title.

Sunday Regionals

Ohio Valley (Knoxville) Regional - Singles Draw + Blog

Semifinals 

Edu Mena (Tennessee Tech) def. Ricky Medinilla (Purdue) 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(5)
[15] Sam Monette (Indiana) def. [9] Alex Gornet (Louisville) 6-2, 7-6(7)

Championship (Monday)

[15] Sam Monette (Indiana) vs. Edu Mena (Tennessee Tech) 

Central (Fayetteville) Regional  - Singles Draw
Semifinals (Sunday) - Live Scoring
[3] Alex Ghilea (Oklahoma) def. [10] Michael Redlicki (Arkansas) 6-3, 6-4
[12] Julian Cash (Oklahoma St) def. [8] Felix Corwin (Minnesota) 6-1, 6-4

Championship (Monday) - Live Scoring
[3] Alex Ghilea (Oklahoma) vs. [12] Julian Cash (Oklahoma St)

Saturday Regional Updates + Konfederak/Meyer in Super Bowl Final

In addition to the 7 men's D1 regionals taking place this weekend there's also the National Small College Championships taking place in Sumter, South Carolina. The SC Nationals have the top players from D2, D3, JUCO, and NAIA battling for a coveted wild card into next month's National Indoor Intercollegiates in New York. The champs from each division meet in a 4-person/team draw to determine the Super Bowl champ.

The NAIA National Champion Georgia Gwinnett's Kevin Konfederak (13.79) defeated the JUCO National Champ Tyler JC's Ferran Calvo (13.11) 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the one semifinal while D2 NC Azusa Pacific's Jan Meyer (13.83) defeated D3 NC Middlebury's Noah Farrell (12.43) 6-3, 6-2.

Konfederak and Meyer will meet Sunday morning at 10am - check out the ITA's event page for match recaps and quotes along with full results from each division.

Friday Regional Recap: Gators Chompin', Green Waves Rollin', Ohio Valley Wide Open

Southeast: The main draw got started on Friday and the host Florida Gators cleaned up going 8-0 which included Josh Wardell (13.18) beating Georgia's Walker Duncan (13.68) 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. 11 of the top 16 seeds won their opening round match but Georgia's Wayne Montgomery and South Florida's Sasha Gozun weren't 2 of them. Florida State's Marco Nunez (13.41) upset the #2 seed Montgomery (14.51) 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 while Miami's Max Andrews (13.56) beat the #8 seed Gozun (13.55) 6-3, 6-3.

Thursday Regional Recap: Elliott Yee upsets Pennington, Dzulynsky over Spec, Surat over Krickovic

Several regionals opened up today and it didn't take long for a few upsets to take place with the #1, #6, and #7 seeds getting beat in the 1st round of the Ohio Valley Regional in Knoxville.

Indiana senior Elliott Yee pulled off the biggest upset when he beat the #1 seed Kentucky's Beck Pennington 6-3, 6-4 in the 1st round. This was also a Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) upset as well with Yee having a 11.91 UTR while Pennington's is 13.71.

Purdue junior Ricky Medinilla (12.66) upended the #6 seed Vanderbilt's Rhys Johnson (13.35) 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 in the 1st round and Austin Peay junior Aaron Jumonville (12.29) knocked out the #7 seed Indiana's Daniel Bednarczyk (13.05) 7-5, 7-6(6).

The #1 seed in the Central Regional (Fayetteville, AR) also got upset as Nebraska's Andrew Dzulynsky (12.18) took out #1 Minnesota's Matic Spec (14.03) 6-4, 6-4 in the 2nd round. All other seeds players advanced to the 3rd round in Fayetteville.

USTA/ITA Regional Championships (Updated Draws)

Over the next 2 weeks regional championships will be held in every ITA region with the champion of each advancing to next month's National Indoor Intercollegiate Championship which will held at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York.

Below is the list of regionals that are taking place this week with the others being played the following week.  The ITA's page below also has the same list and they should have draws added in as well.  I'll add them in too as they become available.

NCAA D1 Tennis Committee Meeting Recap

A few months back the NCAA Division 1 Men's and Women's Tennis Committee had its annual meeting to discuss different topics/items for the upcoming season.  The information is available to the general public on ncaa.org but it can be tough to find so I figured I'd share the report here and talk about some of the interesting things that they discussed.

Below are the conferences whose champions are guaranteed a bid into the 64-team NCAA Tournament.  The Southland (Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Lamar, New Orleans, Nicholls St, Abilene Christian, Incarnate Word) was granted a waiver to get a bid despite only having 4 eligible teams last season. Both Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word recently made the move from Division 2 to Division 1 and thus are ineligible for postseason play until the 2017-18 season.

In its review of the 2015 NCAA Championships they talked about needing to spruce up the selection show with more commentary about specific match-ups.  They also mentioned that travel distance and conference opponent restrictions played a role in where teams were placed in the bracket (not new).

Thai-Son Kwiatkowski Rolls To All-American Singles & Doubles Championship

Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski is the 2015 Saint Francis Health System ITA Men's All-American Singles Champion after routing Tulane's Dominik Koepfer 6-0, 6-2 in the finals in a match that took around 55 minutes to complete.

Kwiatkowski was in control from start to finish by working Koepfer from side-to-side and more points than not ended with a Koepfer miss with many coming off the forehand wing. Kwiatkowski played great defense but also hit some huge forehands to finish off several games.

3 of Koepfer's 7 service games went to the deciding 40-40 point and he lost all 3. Koepfer struggled at the net and lost 3 different games on a volley that he either mishit or didn't place well enough.

Kwiatkowski/Koepfer Into Finals, Norrie & Tearney Win Futures, UGA Club Team Takes Fall Invitational

After a few close matches on Saturday, Sunday brought a pair of straight sets wins with little suspense as Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Tulane's Dominik Koepfer each rolled into the finals.

Thai-Son Kwiatkowski actually fell behind Stanford's Tom Fawcett 2-0 in the opening set but then he reeled off 5 straight games to go up 5-2. After a Fawcett hold, Kwiatkowski would serve out the set and then go up an immediate break in the second set to put Fawcett on his heels. Kwiatkowski wouldn't let up and would close out the 6-3, 6-2 win in just over an hour.

Dominik Koepfer would book his spot to the finals with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Cal's Andre Goransson. Koepfer broke the Goransson serve in the 10th and final game of each set to close it out.

Down to the Final 4

Saturday was a busy day for the guys in Tulsa with both the Round of 16 and Quarterfinals held within hours of each other but by the time the dust cleared we had our final 4 and they all happen to be top 16 seeds.

The 8 morning matches saw 6 finish in straight sets with Tom Fawcett, Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, Hugo Di Feo, Dominik Koepfer, Uros Petronijevic, and Andre Goransson each winning somewhat comfortably.

Both Ronnie Schneider and Konrad Zieba needed 3 sets in their Round of 16 matches though both cruised in the 3rd set taking the final set by 6-2 scores.  The one thing that was a little strange was the fact that Ronnie Schneider and Shane Vinsant started their Round of 16 match a good two and a half hours after several of the other matches. In fact as the 3rd set started the 3 other quarterfinal matches had already began.

Tennis On Campus - Fall Invitational

The courts at the Palmetto Dunes Tennis Center on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina will be packed this weekend as coed teams from 48 schools across the country compete in the 6th annual USTA Tennis on Campus Fall Invitational.

The University of Florida is going for 3 in a row at the Fall Invitational and they opened up their defense of the title with 3 wins yesterday including a 24-16 win over Ohio State in the Round of 16. The event utilizes the same scoring format as World Team Tennis.

Below is the list of the schools participating and you can follow the event at TOC's event page.  Here is Friday's recap and here are some more FAQ about Tennis On Campus for those not familiar.

All-American 2nd Round: #1 Monaghan, #2 Alvarez, #6 Cid, #8 Montgomery Upset

Rain pushed play indoors on Day 2 of the main draw in Tulsa but that didn't hurt Auburn's Marko Krickovic as the qualifer knocked off the #1 seed Quentin Monaghan (Notre Dame) 1-6, 7-5, 7-5. Monaghan cruised to a 6-1 opening set but Krickovic turned it around in the 2nd set and went up 5-2. Krickovic got broke serving for the set up 5-2 and 5-4 but then he broke Monaghan to go up 6-5 and finally got a service hold to take the set 7-5.  The 3rd set stayed on serve until Krickovic broke for a 4-3 lead and then he consolidated the break with a hold for 5-3. Monaghan would come back from 0-40 down on his serve to hold for 5-4 and then he'd go up 0-40 on the Krickovic serve before breaking from 30-40 to even the match at 5-5. Krickovic would break back on the 40-40 deciding point by clubbing a Monaghan second serve and then finishing at the net with an overhead. Krickovic didn't fool around on his next service game and held quickly at love to finish off the upset win.

Main Draw Round 1 Results

Today was the beginning of the main draw at the All-Americans in Tulsa but things didn't exactly go as planned.  Play was supposed to begin at 9am central but due to an issue with the draw the ITA had to redo it which meant that play was pushed back by 3 hours until 12pm central.  The issue was that all 16 qualifiers were set to face a top 16 seed which isn't the way it's supposed to be done so after the draw was restructured we had 31 new match-ups with only the Nicolas Alvarez/Joao Monteiro pairing staying the same.

Once play begin there was 1 top 8 seed to get upset with #5 Romain Bogaerts of Wake Forest going down to Denver's Diogo Rocha 6-3, 6-3. This was also a Universal Tennis Rating upset with Rocha having a 13.23 UTR and Bogaerts a 14.37 UTR.

There were 2 other Top 16 seeds to get defeated with Georgia's Austin Smith and Texas Tech's Felipe Soares getting knocked out by Texas A&M's Shane Vinsant and USC's Nick Crystal.

The ITA's recap has a few quotes from some of the winners.


All-American 1st Round Results:

[1] Monaghan (ND) def. [WC] Lovett (AL) 5-7, 6-4, 6-3

[Q] Krickovic (AU) def. [WC] Pritchard (TU) 3-6, 6-2, 6-1

[9-16] Fawcett (ST) def. Lomacki (UM) 6-4, 6-4

[Q] Duncan (UGA) def. [Q] Bushamuka (UK) 6-2, 1-6, 7-6(5)

[7] Schneider (UNC) def. Torpegaard (OSU) 6-4, 7-6(5)

Qualifying Is Complete - Main Draw Starts Tomorrow

After 5 days of qualifying the field is now set for the main draw at this year's ITA Men's All-American Championships.

Florida freshman Alfredo Perez pulled off the somewhat rare feat of going 7-0 over the last 5 days by coming from the pre-qualifying draw to the qualifying draw and now to the main draw.  Ohio State's Matt Mendez, who got into the qualifying draw as a lucky loser, almost joined Perez in the main draw but after rallying from 5-2 down in the 3rd to tie it at 5-5 he would drop the final 2 games and lose 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 to North Carolina's Robert Kelly.

Perez is joined by 2 other freshman in the main draw with Georgia's Walker Duncan and Ohio State's Hugo Di Feo also qualifying.

Qualifying Draw Continues - Seeds Continue To Fall

There were 32 seeded players in the 128 man qualifying draw but only 11 are still alive as we head to the final day of qualifying at the All-American's in Tulsa.

There were 3 Top 10 seeds knocked out on Tuesday as San Diego's Jordan Angus defeated the #1 seed, UCLA's Martin Redlicki, 6-3, 6-4, Northwestern's Konrad Zieba defeated the #8 seed, Cal's Filip Bergevi, 7-6(7), 6-2, and Tulane's Constantin Schmitz cruised past the #9 seed, Oklahoma State's Arjun Kadhe, 6-4, 6-1.

The 3 Top 10 seeds that made it to the final round of qualies are Memphis's Andrew Watson (#2) who defeated UCLA's Karue Sell 7-6(3), 6-4, USC's Max De Vroome (#5) who got past Arkansas's Jose Salazar 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-2, and Florida State's Michael Rinaldi (#10) who defeated Charlotte's Jordi Ferrer 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Pre-Q's Wrap Up and Qualies Get Started

The final round of the pre-qualifying draw was completed on Monday and the 16 pre-qualifers had a quick turnaround as they had to play again in the opening round of the qualifying draw. Below are the guys that came through pre-q's:

16 Pre-Qualifers
David Fox (Denver 12.66)

Yannick Zuern (North Florida 13.04)
Alfredo Perez (Florida 13.63)
Jose Salazar (Arkansas 13.77)
Maksim Kan (Wake Forest 13.18)
[9-16] John Mee (Texas 13.48)
[17-32] Sam Matheson (Liberty 12.54)
Leopold Gomez Inslinger (UW-Green Bay 12.77)
[17-32] Jordi Arconada (Texas A&M 13.59)
Cristobal Rivera (Loyola Marymount 12.92)
Howard Scott (UW-Green Bay 12.57)
Jerry Lopez (TCU 13.78)
[9-16] Ricky Medinilla (Purdue 12.67)
[5] Michael Riechmann (Texas 12.77)
Keivon Tabrizi (Wake Forest 12.85)
Jakob Amilon (UNLV 13.13)

Day 2 Pre-Q Results + Qualie Draw Is Out (UTRs Added)

The 266 man pre-qualifying draw is down to the final 32 with 16 matches tomorrow to decide who goes on to the 128 man qualifying draw. It's interesting to note that only 8 of the 32 seeded players have made it to the final round and only 1 of the top 8 seeds is still alive.

If you look the qualifying draw further down you'll notice there are 19 spots reserved for guys coming from the pre-qualifying draw - 16 of those will be earned with the other 3 going to lucky losers. If the ITA does what the ATP/ITF does and awards the lucky loser spots to the highest ranked losers then that guarantees Michael Riechmann a spot since he is the highest remaining seed (#5) and John Mee, Ricky Medinilla, and Dave Bacalla would also have to be feeling good as well since they were seeded in the 9-16 bucket.

Here are you final pre-qualifying match-ups along with each player's Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) as of 10/5.

Sebastian Rey (Tulane 13.50) vs. David Fox (Denver 12.66)
Yannick Zuern (North Florida 13.04) vs. Julian Childers (Illinois 12.98)
Robert Herrera (East Tennesse State 13.32) vs. Alfredo Perez (Florida 13.63)
Julius Tverijonas (George Washington 12.96) vs. Jose Salazar (Arkansas 13.77)
Matt Mendez (Ohio State 12.74) vs. Maksim Kan (Wake Forest 13.18)
[9-16] John Mee (Texas 13.48) vs. [17-32] Gustav Hansson (Ole Miss 13.86)
[17-32] Sam Matheson (Liberty 12.54) vs. Jefta Kecic (Western Michigan 12.75)
Leopold Gomez Inslinger (UW-Green Bay 12.77) vs. Felix Rauch (Memphis 12.87)

Day 1 Pre-Q Results

Day 1 of the All Americans is in the books with 6 of the top 8 seeds picking up wins on the the opening day of the pre-qualies.

Top 8 Seeds

1. Rogerio Ribeiro (East Tennessee State) - WON
2. Christian Cargill (William & Mary) - WON
3. Tito Moreiras (UTSA) - WON
4. Gabor Csonka (LSU) - WON
5. Michael Riechmann (Texas) - WON
6. Jonny Rigby (Southern Illinois) - WON
7. Maik Steiner (Western Michigan) - LOST
8. Luis Valero (Tennessee) - LOST

All American Pre-Qualie Draw Is Out

The massive 266 person pre-qualifying draw for the All Americans is out as play officially gets underway on Saturday morning in Tulsa.

There are 20 guys that will meet in the Round of 512 so the road for those guys will be that much harder with each needing to win 5 times to reach the qualifying draw while the other 246 guys will only need to win 4 times to qualify.

Here are the top 8 seeds for the pre-q draw:

1. Rogerio Ribeiro (East Tennessee State)
2. Christian Cargill (William & Mary)
3. Tito Moreiras (UTSA)
4. Gabor Csonka (LSU)
5. Michael Riechmann (Texas)
6. Jonny Rigby (Southern Illinois)
7. Maik Steiner (Western Michigan)
8. Luis Valero (Tennessee)

Top Players Skipping All-Americans

If you've looked at the current list of players that are confirmed for next week's Saint Francis Health Care ITA All-American Championships you'll notice that they are a lot of heavy hitters taking a pass on the 1 true Grand Slam of the college tennis season. There isn't another event all season that has this big of a draw with all the matches held at one site over a 10 day period - just like a Grand Slam yet apparently the appeal isn't there this year.

The preseason #1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #9, #12, and #15 are all skipping the AAs so that means just 7 of the preseason top 15 will be participating. The #1 seed will be Notre Dame's Quentin Monaghan who is off to a slow 1-4 start including a 6-1, 6-0 loss to Memphis's Andrew Watson.

In retrospect, last season 32 of the preseason top 34 played in the event with just Brayden Schnur and Farris Gosea playing pro events instead (full list below)

One has to wonder if the 8 top 15 guys skipping the AAs has anything to do with 4 of them already playing the year's first major event, Oracle Masters, or possibly the no-ad angle is making some of these top guys choose pro events.  Regardless of the reason it's rather disappointing when this many guys skip one of the biggest events of the year. It's like having a US Open with no Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Murray, and Nishikori - sure they'll still be plenty of great matches and it'll be competitive but it just won't have that same sizzle.

What's Coming Up

We're just a few days away from the beginning of the second major of the year with the pre-qualifying portion of the Saint Francis Health System ITA Men's All American Championships getting started on Saturday in Tulsa at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center and Union High School.

Since so many schools participate in this event there are only a handful of other small tournaments taking place this weekend.

Below is the schedule of play for the next week and below that are all the listed participants for the pre-qualifying, qualifying, and main draw. 

Daigle Seasons The Cajun, Michael Redlicki Rolls In The ATL, & Billy Griffith Runs Wild In Napa

Lafayette, Louisiana native and LSU junior Jordan Daigle won his hometown Cajun Classic on Sunday by defeating USC junior Nick Crystal 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 in the finals. Daigle defeated Ole Miss's Grey Hamilton, Oklahoma's Austin Siegel, USC's Max De Vroome, and Georgia's Paul Oosterbaan in route to today's final with each of those 4 wins coming in straight sets.  Crystal was trying to make it 3-0 against LSU players after beating Boris Arias and Justin Butsch but it was not to be Crystal.

Quotes from LSU's recap
"It started off really well,” Daigle said. “I lost a little bit of focus in the second set but once the third set started I kind of regrouped mentally and played really well to close out the match.”

“Jordan got off to a good start, serving really well and really taking the opportunities on the other guy’s serves,” said Head Coach Jeff Brown. “He did a really good job after the second set, gathering himself and handled a little more adversity about midway through.”

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 9/21 - 9/27

It was a perfect day on Sunday with our favorite former/current college guys going 4-0 in finals with Dennis Novikov, Sanam Singh, Adrien Puget, and Ryan Shane each winning pro singles titles.

Dennis Novikov (UCLA '13) won his 2nd career Challenger by defeating #116 Ryan Harrison 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the finals of the $50K Columbus, Ohio Challenger.  It was the second week in a row that Novikov won a Challenger and the second week in a row that he beat Ryan Harrison in the finals. After each of his first 4 sets went to tiebreaks, Novikov didn't play another the rest of the week. Novikov has now won 8 career singles titles (2 Challenger/6 Futures) and with the win and accompanying 80 points he has now achieved a new career high singles ranking of 144 (up from 163 last week). Novikov raked in $7200 in prize money for the win.

Saturday Results: Crystal & Daigle Win in Cajun; Gators Rollin; Hogs Running Wild in ATL

Florida continued it's dominance at the Bedford Cup as the Gators filled all 4 semifinal spots in the A draw along a spot in the B draw semis.

Arkansas's 2 newest members, Michael Redlicki (Duke transfer) and Jose Salazar (Oklahoma transfer), each won today in the quarters of the Georgia Tech Invitational with Redlicki taking out South Carolina's probable #1 Gabriel Freidrich and Salazar beating Auburn's Joseph Van Dooren. The two Razorbacks will be joined by Tennessee's Luis Valero and Georgia State's Jannis Koeke with Valero beating South Carolina's Alex Fennell (Penn St transfer) and Koeke knocking off UNCW's Santtu Leskinen.

USC's Nick Crystal and LSU's Jordan Daigle both won in straight sets at the Cajun Tennis Classic and will meet in tomorrow's final.

Cal's Florian Lakat, William Griffith and Mads Engsted, Princeton's Alexander Day, Stanford's David Wilczynski, Texas's Harrison Scott and Michael Riechmann, Baylor's William Little and Jimmy Bendeck, and the USTA's John McNally and Brandon Holt all improved to 2-0 at the Porsche Napa Valley Classic. Tomorrow will be the final day with each group winner advancing to the Solinco USTA Shootout with the winner earning a wild card into a future USTA Pro Circuit tournament. If you'd like to listen in on the action tune into Ken Thomas's call on RadioTennis.com at 1:30pm eastern/10:30am pacific.

Friday Results: Seeds Fall in the ATL but Rise in the Bayou

The 3 seeds in the top singles draw at the Georgia Tech Invitational all went down on Friday while 3 of the 4 semifinal spots at the Cajun Classic in Lafayette are occupied by seeds.

Atlanta (GA), UNC-Wilmington's Santtu Leskinen (13.26) knocked off the #1 seed Kennesaw State's Simon Pritchard (13.26) 6-3, 6-7(4), 7-6(4); if you'll notice both players had identical UTRs. Tennessee's Luis Valero (13.19) defeated the #2 seed Ole Miss's Ricardo Jorge (12.86) 6-3, 7-6 and South Carolina's Gabriel Friedrich (13.77) upended the #3 seed Ole Miss's Gustav Hansson (13.90) in 2 tight sets 7-6, 7-5.  Michael Redlicki (14.01) made his Arkansas debut after a 1 1/2 year absence and it was a successful return as he only dropped 2 games in route to a 6-0, 6-2 win over Georgia State's Sebastian Acuna (12.49).


Lafayette (LA), the top seed USC's Nick Crystal (13.95) moved into the semifinals after pulling out a 3rd set tiebreak over Oklahoma State's Arjun Kadhe (13.55) and he'll next meet LSU's Julian Butsch (13.51) who got past Oklahoma's Alex Ghilea (14.38) 7-5, 6-3. Georgia's Paul Oosterbaan (13.78) knocked off the #2 seed Ole Miss's Stefan Lindmark (14.15) 6-4, 6-7, 6-3 in a match which Oosterbaan led 6-4, 5-3. Oosterbaan will next face the #3 seed LSU's Jordan Daigle (13.28) with Daigle getting past USC's Max De Vroome (14.17) 7-5, 6-4.


St. Helena (Napa), it was a good day for the guys that were making their collegiate debuts. Texas's Liam Caruana (13.94), who is ranked #8 in ITA's preseason freshman/newcomer rankings, cruised to a 6-1, 6-2 win over Stanford sophomore David Hsu (13.65). Stanford's Michael Genender (14.15), preseason #7 ITA fresh/newcomer, got past the USTA's William Howells (13.01) 7-5, 6-2. Baylor's William Little (13.49) and Jimmy Bendeck (13.27) both were victorius with Little defeating Cal sophomore JT Nishimura (13.62) 7-5, 6-3 and Bendeck defeating Stanford junior Roy Lederman (11.75) 6-3, 6-3.

The biggest upset of the day at least in terms of UTR came when Princeton's Alexander Day (12.70) upset Florida's Elliott Orkin (14.14) 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.

What's Coming Up This Weekend (Updated Draws)

The fall season continues this week with several schools hosting tournaments - below are a few that I'll keep some tabs on. For a full list of all the tournaments check out the ITA's page.  I'll add draws and tournament info as they become available - I'd expect most school's will have a post on Thursday with more details.

Porsche Napa Valley Tennis Classic - St. Helena, CA - 
Teams Participating: Baylor, Cal (host), Florida, Princeton, Stanford, Texas, USTA Juniors.

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 9/14 - 9/20

2 more singles titles last week for former college guys with Dennis Novikov and Tom Jomby winning in Cary and Antalya respectively.  Mackenzie McDonald, Jaime Pulgar-Garcia, and Sanam Singh each made Futures finals but came up just short.

Dennis Novikov (UCLA '13) won his 1st career Challenger by knocking off Ryan Harrison 6-4, 7-5 in the finals of the $50K Cary Challenger. Novikov only dropped 1 set all week in route to his 7th career pro singles title and with the 80 points that he earned he now has a new career high singles ranking of 163 (184 was previous). Below is Novikov's post-match speech courtesy of Lang.

Tom Jomby (Kentucky '14) won his 2nd career Futures singles title with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Alexander Boborykin in the finals of the Antalya, Turkey Future. Jomby will break into the top 400 when these 18 points are added in next week which will give him a new career high ranking (401 was previous).

Mackenzie McDonald (UCLA Jr) made it to his 1st career pro singles final but came up short in the finals of the Claremont, CA Future falling to fellow American Deiton Baughman 2-6, 6-3, 6-3. For a full recap of the final check out Jared Pine's recap which includes video clips.

Cameron Norrie Wins The Oracle Masters + Other Tourney Results

TCU's Cameron Norrie claimed the inaugural Oracle ITA Masters with a 6-3, 7-6(2) win over Duke's Nicolas Alvarez in the finals. Norrie came out ready to play and jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the opening set before Alvarez got a break back but Norrie still took the set 6-3. Norrie would lead 5-3 in the 2nd set and have a match point on the Alvarez serve but Alvarez won the 40-all deciding point to make it 5-4. Alvarez would then break from 30-40 to even it at 5-5 and then he'd hold at love to go up 6-5.  Norrie would then hold from 40-15 to send the second set to a tiebreak and the tiebreak would be all Norrie as he'd go up 4-0 and cruise to take the tiebreak 7-2.

Below is match point courtesy of the ITA's twitter:

Saturday Tourney Results - Nicolas Alvarez & Cameron Norrie Into Finals

Duke's Nicolas Alvarez and TCU's Cameron Norrie, both sophomores, will play for Oracle ITA Masters Championship on Sunday after each managed to win not once but twice on a toasty Saturday afternoon in Malibu.

Alvarez started the day off by cruising past TCU's Guillermo Nunez 6-3, 6-2 before getting all he wanted and more from Texas Tech's Felipe Soares in the semifinals.  Soares took the opening set 6-3 but Alvarez squeezed out the 2nd set in a tiebreak 7-6(7). The 3rd set was all Alvarez as he handed Soares a 3rd set bagel to close out the 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-0 win.

Norrie's path to the finals was fairly similar to Alvarez's as Norrie won his quarterfinal match in straight sets 6-4, 6-1 over Tulsa's Or Ram-Harel before getting pushed by Tulane's Dominik Koepfer in the semifinals. Koepfer took the opening set 6-1 before Norrie turned it around and took the 2nd set 6-4.  The 3rd set stayed on serve until Koepfer lost the 40-all deciding point at 4-5 and that break sent Norrie to the finals with the 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 win.

Friday Tourney Results - Upsets Galore In Malibu

It wasn't a good day to be seeded player in the men's draw of the Oracle ITA Masters with each of the 4 seeds getting taken out in the 1st round.

Georgia's Wayne Montgomery and Oklahoma's Axel Alvarez, the #1 seed, squared off for the 3rd time in the last 12 months with each having won once. Montgomery won 1-6, 6-0, 6-3 a year ago at the Southern Intercollegiates in Athens while Alvarez won 6-1, 6-1 at the NCAA Team Quarterfinals last May in Waco.  Alvarez jumped out to the early break lead but Montgomery turned it around quickly and got off the court with the 6-4, 6-2 win.

Texas Tech's Felipe Soares upset Virginia's Ryan Shane 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Shane who was the #2 seed and defending NCAA Singles Champion had beaten Soares in last year's NCAA Quarterfinals 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 but Soares got the win today.

Duke's Nicolas Alvarez ran his record against Baylor's Julian Lenz to 2-0 as the Blue Devil sophomore "upset" the #3 seed 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. Alvarez won the first meeting last February in Chicago at the NTI's 6-4, 6-2.

The other upset saw Tulsa's Or Ram-Harel get past the #4 seed Notre Dame's Quentin Monaghan 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(1).

Big Weekend Of Tennis Coming Up

There are a lot of fall tournament action taking place this weekend with Malibu, San Francisco, Charlottesville, Durham, Princeton, and Midland the hottest spots.

The inaugural Oracle ITA Masters will be taking place Friday through Sunday in Malibu. The best news is that the finals of both the men's and women's events will be shown LIVE on the Tennis Channel from 12:30pm pst to 5pm pst.  Check out the full draws below - who do you like?

Live scoring for the Masters

Preseason Singles & Doubles Rankings Released; Also UTR Top 50

The ITA released its preseason rankings today with Oklahoma's Axel Alvarez #1 in the men's singles rankings and Stanford's Carol Zhao #1 in the women's singles rankings. Georgia's Austin Smith and Ben Wagland are the men's #1 doubles duo with Florida's Brooke Austin and Kourtney Keegan the women's #1 duo.

As you comb through these preseason rankings and wonder how so-and-so ended up where they did I'll let you in on a little secret that some know and some don't - the preseason rankings are just the year-end rankings from the previous season with all the graduating seniors pulled out.  They also pull out returning players that aren't enrolled in the fall.

The most interesting part of the preseason rankings (for me) are looking at the Top 10 Newcomer/Freshmen rankings. There are a couple of guys that would have made the list (IMO) but they aren't enrolling until January or aren't currently showing on rosters - Alex Rybakov (TCU 14.59), Dennis Uspensky (Wake Forest - 14.19), and Ryotaro Matsumura (Kentucky - 14.10)

Below is a chart looking at the ITA preseason top 50 versus the UTR top 50 - here is the link to the google doc if you'd prefer to view it that way.

Southern Intercollegiates

The Southern Intercollegiates in Athens will crown its Division 1 and Division II singles champions on Monday as well as a Division I doubles champion.

The Division I singles draw comes down to Georgia's Wayne Montgomery (14.36 UTR) and Georgia Gwinnett's Kevin Konfederak (13.65 UTR). Montgomery, who is the defending champion, picked up a tough 7-6(2), 7-6(5) win in the one semifinal over Georgia Tech's Christopher Eubanks while Konfederak won the other semifinal over Georgia's Paul Oosterbaan 7-6(3), 4-6, 7-6(2).

John Frierson had a detail-filled recap of the Montgomery/Eubanks match which mentioned that Eubanks lost a few points due to his grunting which made a sound like an out call.

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 9/7 - 9/13

3 more singles titles this week as Adrien Puget, Remi Boutillier, and Matija Pecotic each won on the ITF Futures circuit.

Adrien Puget (UCLA '14) won his 2nd career Futures singles title with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 win over Albert Alcaraz Ivorra in the finals of the Spain F28. Puget's other title came earlier this year at the Spain F10 which was also on clay. When these 35 points are added in next week Puget will have a new career high singles ranking of somewhere in the 450-460 range (583 was previous high).

Remi Boutillier (Fresno State '12) won his 7th career Futures singles title with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Francesco Vilardo in the finals of the Tunesia F22. Boutillier has now won titles in 4 different countries (Tunesia, Turkey, Portugal, France) with all coming on hard courts.

Matija Pecotic (Princeton '13) won his 4th career Futures singles title with a 6-7(6), 7-6(4), 6-2 win over Matteo Berrettini in the finals of the Turkey F36. All 4 of Pecotic's titles have come this year, on hard courts, with Matija winning 2 in Nigeria, 1 in the US, and this 1 in Turkey.  Pecotic will have a new career high singles ranking when these 18 points are added in - should be around 275 (284 was previous high).

Let The Fall Season Begin

The wait is over - college tennis is back and I couldn't be more excited.  Lots of heavy hitters will be in Athens this weekend for the Southern Intercollegiates with Georgia, Georgia Tech, Arkansas, Armstrong State, Clemson, Mississippi State, and more sending several guys to compete - click the here for Georgia's preview and you can see the complete draws below.

American Collegiate Invitational

Play gets started on Thursday in New York City with 8 of the top American current and recent collegiate men and women playing for a potential main draw wild card into next year's US Open. 

Per the release below "The men’s and women’s champions will receive main-draw wild cards into the 2016 US Open if either is ranked No. 120 or better by the US Open entry deadline next summer. If they do not meet that ranking requirement, the winners will receive qualifying wild cards. The champions will also get wild cards into two USTA Pro Circuit events, while each finalist will earn one wild card."

Here is the preview on the US Open's site and the draws are below.

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 8/31 - 9/6

It was another strong week for the former college guys on Tour as Nik Scholtz and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan each claimed Futures singles titles.

Scholtz (Ole Miss '15) won his 5th career Futures title after defeating Javier Pulgar-Garcia 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in the finals of the Gabon F2.  It was Scholtz's 1st title this year after winning 3 a year ago.

Nedunchezhiyan (Washington '11) won his 7th career Futures title after defeating Prajnesh Gunneswaran 7-6(8), 6-4 in finals of the India F12. All 7 of Nedunchezhiyan's singles titles have come in his native India.

Fall Season Is Almost Here

Several schools will kick off their fall seasons a week from Friday with tournaments lined up all over the country.  This PDF shows a calendar of all ITA sanctioned tournaments and some of the men's tournaments that may have some bigger names entered are listed down below. As the host schools post information about these tournaments I'll do my best to update my fall tournament page that I'll create in a little bit.

The selections for the Men's All Americans in Tulsa should be made no later than September 11th - there is a large pre-qualifying field that plays for spots in qualifying.

Don't forget that the year's first major tournament, the Oracle ITA Masters, will take place in 2 weeks in Malibu with a star studded field.

Sept 11-13
Southern Intercollegiates - Athens, GA
Silverado Invitational - Napa, CA - San Francisco, Oklahoma St, Tulsa, SMU, Hawaii, Pacific
Penn Invitational - Philadelphia, PA
East Carolina Fall Shootout - Greenville, NC

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 8/24 - 8/30

Great week for our favorite former college guys as Kevin Anderson, Eric Johnson, Tucker Vorster, and Gonzalo Escobar each won a singles title on the Tour.

Kevin Anderson (Illinois '07) won his 3rd ATP singles title with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Pierre-Hugues Herbert at the Winston-Salem Open. Anderson wins $83000 and picks up 250 ATP points.

Gonzalo Escobar (Texas Tech '12) won his 5th career Futures singles title with a 7-6(4), 6-0 win over Fritz Wolmarans at the Winnipeg, Canada F7. It was Escobar's 1st title this year and 1st career title outside of his native Ecuador.

Tucker Vorster (Ole Miss '11) won his 5th career Futures singles title with a 7-6(2), 4-6, 6-2 win over Jaime Pulgar-Garcia at the Libreville, Gabon F1. It was Vorster's 4th title this year in 5 finals appearances.

Eric Johnson (USC '15) won his 1st career Futures singles title with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 win over Peter Kobelt at the Ashkelon, Israel F10.  Johnson came through qualies and won 7 matches on the week while only dropping 3 sets.

Weekly News

13 guys with college ties entered the US Open qualies but only 1 came through and that was 2011 Tennessee grad John-Patrick (JP) Smith who won all 3 of his matches in straight sets. Smith will join 7 former collegians in the 1st round of the Open which gets underway on Monday; 2015 NCAA Singles Champion Ryan Shane is the lone current college player to make the main draw. See below for qualie results and round 1 match-ups.

2015 NCAA Women's Doubles Champions Maya Jansen and Erin Routliffe of Alabama qualified for the doubles main draw after winning the US Open National Playoffs in New Haven. Typically the NCAA champions get a main draw wild card but since Routliffe is from Canada they had to get in the hard way. Personally I think the NCAA Champions should get a main draw wild card regardless of nationality but that's just me.

Kevin Anderson (Illinois '07) won his 3rd ATP singles title with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Pierre-Hugues Herbert at the Winston-Salem Open. Anderson wins $83000 and picks up 250 ATP points.