What's Coming Up - All-Americans & More

The first major of the year gets started on Saturday with the Saint Francis Health System Men's All-American Championships taking place in Tulsa while the Riviera Women's All-American Championships gets going in Pacific Palisades.

The Men's All-Americans will have an open pre-qualifying draw that runs Saturday and Sunday with 16 advancing to the qualifying draw (draw out on Friday). The 128 player qualifying draw takes place on Monday and Tuesday with 16 advancing to the 64 player main draw.  The guys take Wednesday off and then the main draw runs from Thursday through Monday. For information about the selection criteria, schedule, and how wild cards are distributed click here. The list of players expected to play is listed at the ITA's tournament page.

Mike Redlicki Wins the Southern Intercollegiates; Pro Circuit Recap

Arkansas senior Mike Redlicki (14.31) started off his junior season by winning the Georgia Tech Invitational in Atlanta and today he began his senior season by winning the top singles flight at the Southern Intercollegiates in Athens. Redlicki, who was the top seed, won six matches (all in straight sets) over the last four days including today's 6-4, 6-4 win over the No. 11 seed Oklahoma junior Spencer Papa (14.15). Papa also had a strong week by winning four straight matches over ranked opponents before falling in today's final.

“Mike played a beautiful match against Spencer in the final,” head coach Andy Jackson said. “He beat a quality field in brutally hot conditions this weekend. He earned the title with hard work and smart play. The Razorbacks are very proud of him. Next up for us is the ITA All-American as we continue to get ready for the team season in January.”

Torpegaard At Home in Columbus, Bellamy Basks in the Bay, Scott Spices the Cajun, Belga Burns Through the Bedford

What a successful week it was on the pro tour for several current, future, and former collegians. The biggest news came in Columbus (OH) as Ohio State junior Mikael Torpegaard won the $50K Columbus Challenger by defeating the top seed Benjamin Becker (Baylor '05) in three sets.

Torpegaard earned the only break of the first set when he broke Becker from 30/40 to go up 5-4 and then he held at love to take the opening set 6-4. Becker flipped the script in the second set and won 30 of 44 points (68%) in route to a 6-1 set. Torpegaard fell behind 0-40 on his serve to start the third set before coming back to get an important hold. After five consecutive holds, Torpegaard broke Becker in a two-deuce game to go up 4-2 and then he broke him one more time from 15/40 to close out the 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 win in 1 hour and 31 minutes.

Battle in the Bay, Cajun Classic, Southern Intercollegiates, Bedford Cup, & More

Seeds rolled through the opening day of the Battle in the Bay Classic in San Francisco with 7 of the top 8 advancing to the Round of 16. The only seeded loser was Pepperdine's Pedro Iamachkine who fell to San Francisco's Johan Jonhagen 7-6, 6-4.

10 of the top 16 seeds moved into the Round of 16 at the Southern Intercollegiates with another seed (Tchoutakian) still having to play his R32 match on Saturday. One of the biggest surprises of the day came in the second round when Florida's Maxx Lipman took out the No. 10 seed David Biosca of East Tennessee State 6-0, 6-3.

Cajun Classic is Underway Plus a UTR Breakdown of the Southern Intercollegiates & Furman Fall Invitational

The John Breaux Cajun Classic got underway on Thursday in Lafayette with Texas sophomore Colin Markes picking up where he left off last weekend in Midland. Markes won six matches in three days in route to winning the Racquet Club Invitational and today he won another two matches with the second coming over the No. 7 seed Oklahoma State's Arjun Kadhe.

Markes will meet Texas Tech sophomore Bjorn Thomson in the quarterfinals after Thomson picked up a nice 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 win over the No. 2 seed and defending champion LSU's Jordan Daigle. Full results from today are listed below.

Coaching Updates & Upcoming Fall Tournaments with Draws

The fall season is underway and most coaching openings have been filled some with new hires and some with interims. Mike Edles announced his retirement at UC Irvine on September 1st and it was announced yesterday that assistant coach Elizabeth Ferris had been elevated to interim women's coach for the upcoming season. Ferris, who played at Utah from 2004 to 2008, had been the Edles assistant for the last three seasons.

Bendeck Crushes It in Napa; Markes Masters Midland, Oklahoma State Women Strong in Newport

Jimmy Bendeck was the big winner at the Porsche Napa Valley Tennis Classic after the Baylor sophomore went 3-0 in singles action and then won USTA Wildcard Shootout by winning three 10-point supertiebreaks. Bendeck's shootout win guarantees him a main draw wildcard into a future USTA Challenger event. Bendeck had a solid freshman year in Waco going 17-8 in dual-match play while splitting time between No. 4 and No. 5 singles and it looks like he's progressing towards another strong season.

Saturday Fall Results

Michigan was the top performer on Day 2 at the Hall of Fame/ITA Grass Court Invitational  after going 6-2 in singles - here are results broken down by flight. You can watch the final day beginning at 10 a.m. ET via FloTennis at this link (subscription required).

ITA Grass Courts - Men's Singles Results

(82) Alex Knight (Michigan) def. Tom Colautti (Princeton), 4-6, 7-6(4), (10-5)

Luca Corinteli (Virginia) def. Alex Day (Princeton), 6-4, 6-2

Luke Gamble (Princeton) def. Reese Stalder (TCU), 6-3, 7-5

Payton Holden (Princeton) def. Kevin Wong (Michigan), 6-4, 7-6(7)

Gabe Tishman (Michigan) def. Jonathan Carcione (Princeton), 6-2, 6-3

Friday Fall Results + FloTennis Debuts in Newport

Fall tennis is in the air as players took the courts all across the country today. I was able to watch an hour or so of the inaugural Hall of Fame/ITA Grass Court Invitational on FloTennis and I liked what I saw.  It was cool to see college players out on the grass courts and I liked the streaming options that FloTennis provided. They had crystal-clear live streaming on all eight courts and gave you the ability to select up to two courts at once for side-by-side viewing plus they had the score at the bottom left of the screen (see below). FloTennis didn't have any announcers on Friday but they will on Saturday and Sunday so if you get a chance check out the broadcast for yourself at this link (subscription required).

Busy Weekend of Tennis - HOF/ITA Grass Courts, Napa, Bonk, Midland, & More

There were a handful of college tournaments last weekend but things really get fired up this weekend with one of the feature events taking place on the grass courts at the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. The grass court event is making its debut this year and FloTennis will also have it's first college tennis broadcast available at this link (subscription required) beginning at 10 a.m. ET.

Virginia, TCU, Michigan, and Princeton are sending men's representatives while Cal, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, and Harvard will have some of its women's players in action. It will be a round-robin event with play running from 10 a.m to 6 p.m. ET on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Fall Tournaments - Weekend of 9/9 - 9/11

The first full weekend of Fall Tournament action is in the books - below are the flight winners or if the tournament wasn't in a flight format the Day 3 results are listed.

Palmas Del Mar - Puerto Rico - Georgia, Florida State, Mercer, and Illinois.

Singles Championship Match

Aron Hiltzik (Illinois) def. Wayne Montgomery (UGA), 6-7, 6-3, 1-0

Kwiatkowski & Collins Give UVA An ACI Sweep; Hart and Shibahara Wins US Open Junior Dubs, Fall Results

Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Danielle Collins gave the Cavaliers a clean sweep on Saturday afternoon at the American Collegiate Invitational in New York City. Kwiatkowski needed just 65 minutes to dispatch Georgia's Austin Smith 6-2, 6-2 while Collins defeated Michigan's Ronit Yurovsky 6-2, 6-4 in 1 hour and 21 minutes.

Kwiatkowski won a stout 73% of the points on his serve and topped that off by winning 50% of the points on Smith's serve.

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.

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

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.

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. 

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.