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.

Oracle ITA Masters

We're just under a month away from the first big event of the year in college tennis which is the brand new Oracle ITA Masters in Malibu, CA.

Part of the field was announced a few months back but the rest was made known yesterday with the full list below.

Below are the anticipated preseason rankings of the men's singles participants:

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 8/17 - 8/23

This past week was the first time in a while that we didn't have a guy with college ties win a singles title on the Pro Tour.  Now that school is back in session at most colleges and universities they'll definitely be less guys playing pro events each week but hopefully the guys will pick it back up this weekend.

There were 2 guys that played for titles with JP Smith and Dragos Dima coming up short.

Smith (Tennessee '11) only dropped 1 set in route to his spot in the finals of the Vancouver $100K Challenger but he came up short 6-4, 7-5 against Dudi Sela.  Smith came into the match having won 5 previous titles (2 Challenger/3 Futures) since turning pro in 2011 but he couldn't get over the hump against Sela who won his 18th career Challenger title.

Dima (Cornell '12) was seeking his first career singles title but went down 6-2, 6-3 to #277 Laurynas Grigelis in the finals of the Medias, Romania F13 Future. Dima, who was playing in his 3rd Futures final of the year, was just briefly at Cornell for a semester back in the fall of 2012 before leaving to become a pro.

US Open National Playoff

The US Open National Playoff gets started on Friday and will finish on Monday. 32 sectional winners/runner-ups (16 men/16 women) from across the county will meet in New Haven, CT and the winners of each draw will get a wild card into qualifying at this year's US Open.

Updates scores in the google doc below as well on the men's & women's tournament home page.

Men's Singles Draw

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 8/10 - 8/16

Another week and another 2 singles titles as both Kevin King and Yannick Hanfmann won Futures titles on Sunday.

Kevin King (Georgia Tech '12) won his 3rd career professional singles title with an impressive 6-3, 6-1 win over #655 Richard Gabb in the finals of the Champaign, Illinois F25 Future. King went 9-1 over the last 2 weeks in central Illinois with the loss coming in the finals to former ITF Junior #1 Luke Saville. King's 2 previous titles came last year in back-to-back week in Mexico.

Yannick Hanfmann (USC '15) won his 2nd career professional singles title with a 6-2, 6-2 win over #295 Gavin Van Peperzeel in the finals of the Friedberg, Germany F11 Future. Hanfmann's other singles title came exactly 1 year ago in Germany so by winning this week he defended those 18 points.

Austin Krajicek (Texas A&M '11) came up just short in the finals of the Aptos, California Challenger when he fell to #85 John Millman 7-5, 2-6, 6-3. Krajicek was seeking his 9th career singles title (6 Future & 2 Challenger).

NCAA Tournament Going No Ad

I figured it was only a matter of time before the NCAA Championships went along with what was being pushed and as you can read below they have agreed to use no-ad scoring effective with this year's NCAAs in Tulsa.

DI Competition Oversight Committee approves No-Ad scoring format changes for tennis championships starting in 2016. pic.twitter.com/DFC1LgIzMB

— NCAA (@NCAA) August 12, 2015

The release below mentions that the recommendation to go no-ad was approved "with the health and well-being of student-athletes, the overall championship experience and fan engagement at the forefront" but I think we all know that the sole driving force behind the change is to reduce the match times for the benefit of potentially getting more matches on TV.

Having more matches on TV could potentially expand the fan base which leads to more advertising opportunities which ultimately equals more dollars. Why is more money important - because as budgets get tighter all teams are trying to figure out how to bring in more revenue to stay relevant within their own athletic departments.  If they are continually at the bottom of the totem pole then chances are greater that they'll be the first program cut if it comes to teams getting cut.

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 8/3 - 8/9

5 former college players played for singles titles this week with Mikelis Libietis the only 1 to claim the prize.

Libietis (Tennessee '15) only dropped 1 set all week in his native Latvia in route to winning his 2nd career Futures singles title with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Fred Simonsson. Libietis's other singles title came back in 2013 at the Estonia F2.

John Isner (Georgia '07) was looking for his 11th ATP singles title and 1st above the 250 level but he came up just short falling to #5 Kei Nishikori 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 at the ATP 500 in Washington DC.

Kevin King (Georgia Tech '12) was seeking his 3rd singles title but he lost to #220 Luke Saville 6-4, 6-4 at the Decatur, IL USA F24 Future.

Jordi Vives (Florida Gulf Coast '15) made it to his 1st career singles final at the Istanbul, Turkey F31 Future before falling to #449 Aleksandre Metreveli 6-2, 5-2 ret.  Vives's previous best result was a pair of quarterfinal appearances.

Anis Ghorbel (Drake '13) made it to his 1st career singles final at the Tunis, Tunesia F17 Future before falling to #835 Tak Khunn Wang 6-3, 6-1 in the finals. Ghorbel's previous best result at a Future was the Round of 16 so making the finals was a big step up.

Zoo Boys 18 Semis & Breakdown of the Final Participants

The Boys 18 National Championship and main draw wild card into the US Open will come down to #1 Frances Tiafoe and #3 Stefan Kozlov after each won their semifinal matches in straight sets.

Props goes out to TennisRecruiting.Net's forecasting model for correctly predicting the finals before the tournament started.  TRN shows Tiafoe as a slight favorite in the finals with a 53% chance of winning but that's a pretty slim margin.

Boys 18 Semifinal Results:
#1 Frances Tiafoe def. #4 Tommy Paul 6-3, 6-2
#3 Stefan Kozlov def. #2 Taylor Fritz 7-6(3), 6-3

Zoo Boys 18 - Quarterfinal Results

The Boys 18 draw in Kalamazoo is down to the final 4 and wouldn't you know it but the 4 remaining guys are seeded 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Neither of Friday's matches were very close in terms of score with both Stefan Kozlov and Taylor Fritz winning in straight sets while both of Thursday's matches were much closer with Tommy Paul needing 3 sets to beat Alex Rybakov and Frances Tiafoe getting past Reilly Opelka in 2 tight sets.

Zoo Boys 18 - Round 5 Results

It was a pretty straightforward Round of 16 in Kalamazoo on Wednesday as the higher seed in the Boys 18 draw won each of the 8 matches with 6 of those going in straight sets.

#5 Michael Mmoh (2016 Pro) was the only high seed that had to come back from a set down as he dispatched #20 John McNally (2017 uncommitted) 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.

#12 Eduardo Nava (2015 uncommitted) had the shortest match of the day as his opponent #22 Brandon Holt (2016 USC commit) retired with a hamstring injury after just 3 games were completed.

Zoo Boys 18 - Round 4 Results

The picture is become clearer and clearer in Kalamazoo after another day of results are in the books. There weren't any big upsets on Tuesday though the scores that probably stuck out the most were in the Genender/Kirkov and Paul/Ross matches.

Michael Genender (2015 Stanford commit) rolled over #28 Vasil Kirkov (2018 uncommitted) 6-2, 6-1.  Both are TRN Blue Chips with UTRs within .05 of each other so you'd have thought this would have been a tight match but the scoreline tells a different story.

#4 Tommy Paul (2015 Professional) got pushed by #19 Gianni Ross (2017 uncommitted) before pulling away in the 3rd set for a 6-7(6), 7-6(2), 6-0 win. Paul is a TRN Blue Chip with a 15.23 UTR while Ross is a TRN Blue Chip with a 13.88 UTR.

Zoo Boys 18 - Round 3 Results

After a day off the USTA Boys 18 Nationals resumed play with 3rd round action and while 21 seeds advanced there were 3 that got upset.

The seeded losers were:

• #18 Spencer Furman lost to Alexander Lebedev 2-6, 6-1, 6-2.  Levedev (2015 Notre Dame commit) is a TRN 5-star with a 12.81 UTR while Furman (2016 uncommitted) is a TRN Blue Chip with a 13.92 UTR.
• #17 Nick Stachowiak lost to Ben VanDixhorn 6-4, 6-1. VanDixhorn (2015 Northwestern commit) is a TRN 4-star with a 12.89 UTR while Stachowiak (2016 Duke commit) is a TRN Blue Chip with a 13.90 UTR.
• #31 Jacob Brumm lost to Vincent Rettke 6-2, 6-1. Rettke (2016 uncommitted) is a TRN 4-star with a 12.22 UTR while Brumm (2017 uncommitted) is a TRN Blue Chip with a 13.49 UTR.

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 7/27 - 8/2

3 more titles last week and 2 runner-ups for our favorite guys with college ties.

John Isner (Georgia '07) won his 3rd straight BB&T Atlanta Open with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Marcos Baghdatis in the finals.  Isner has now won 14 singles titles as a professional with 10 of those being on the ATP Tour (2015, 2014, 2013 Atlanta, 2012 & 2011 Winston Salem, 2012 & 2011 Newport, 2014 & 2010 Auckland, 2013 Houston), 3 Challengers (2009 Tallahassee, 2008 Lubbock, 2007 Lexington), and 1 Future (2007 USA F14).

Evan King (Michigan '13) won his 2nd career Futures singles title after defeating Clay Thompson 6-4, 6-3 in the finals of the Edwardsville F23 Future. King's previous title came in June in Zimbabwe. For full details on King's win read my recap.

Joran Vliegen (East Carolina '14) won his 1st career Futures singles title in his 1st career final by beating Julien Cagnina 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(2) at the Westende, Belgium F8 Future. Vliegen was down a set and a break and rallied for the 3-set win.

Evan King Wins Edwardsville F23 Future Title

The Southern Illinois swing of the USTA Pro Futures Circuit came to an end today in Edwardsville at the F23 Future hosted by the EGHM Foundation with Evan King and Clay Thompson giving the 150+ fans in attendance an entertaining match to watch.

Chicago's Evan King, who is a 2013 Michigan graduate, had the slight edge in crowd support because of him being an Illinois native as well as being a frequent participant in the Edwardsville Future. This was King's 4th visit to Edwardsville in the last 5 years with Evan making the semis in 2013, quarters in 2012, and finals in 2011 so he was hoping to add a Championship to that list of accomplishments.

Venice Beach's Clay Thompson, who is a 2014 UCLA graduate, was making his first appearance in Edwardsville though he had become familiar with the area after playing in Godfrey (22 miles away) last week. The charismatic Thompson had his group of fans as well because if you've seen him play it's hard not to pull for him.

Zoo - Round 2 Results

Day 2 of the USTA Boys 18 National Championship in Kalamazoo is in the books with 24 of the top 32 seeds moving on to Day 3.

4 of the top 16 seeds were upset with 2 of those being top 10 seeds.  Below are the 8 seeds to lose though a few wouldn't be considered upsets based off TRN and UTR info.

Zoo - Round 1 Results

All the seeds had 1st round byes but there were some upsets on the opening day.  Below were the 4 Universal Tennis upsets, which occur when the difference in rating is more than 1.0, and the 4 biggest upsets per TennisRecruiting.Net based off their ranking system.

UTR Upsets:
Sean Burnette (11.95) def. Oliver Sec (13.47) 6-3, 3-6, 6-1
Jacob Wareti (11.36) def. Nikolai Parodi (12.55) 7-6(2), 6-3
Ryland McDermott (11.65) def. Payam Ahmadi (12.82) 2-6, 6-1, 6-3
Alex Ross (12.29) def. Blaine Boyden (13.77) 6-1, 7-5

TR.Net Biggest Upsets - chance of winning in ( ):
Lorenzo Rollhauser (11%) def. Adrian Chamdani 2-6, 6-1, 6-0
Sean Burnette (9%) def. Oliver Sec 6-3, 3-6, 6-1
Ryland McDermott (8%) def. Payam Ahmadi 2-6, 6-1, 6-3
Jason Kerst (7%) def. Joshua Sheehy 6-2, 6-4

Time For The Zoo

It's late July/early August so that means it's time for the Zoo as the USTA National Championships get started in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Play gets underway Friday morning at 8am at both Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University.

Here is the Day 1 schedule of play and the tournament's host site which includes all schedules, results, and profiles. If you want to follow the tournament throughout the next week you also need to follow Colette Lewis on Twitter and check out her site, Zoo Tennis.

A few years ago when I was writing for a different site I did a breakdown of the Boys 18 singles draw where I listed each player's hometown, high school graduation class, college commitment/interests, Tennis Recruiting.Net star level, and Universal Tennis Rating. It takes some time but I decided to do it again this year to give everyone, including me, a better understanding of who these guys are and where they are heading.

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results: 7/20 - 7/26

3 college guys picked up singles titles over the weekend with another 5 making to the finals.

Andre Dome (Cal Poly '13) won his 3rd career Futures title with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 win over Matt Reid in the finals of the Canada F5 in Vancouver.  All 3 of Dome's titles have come this year with the other 2 being the Mexico F5 and Thailand F2.

Peter Nagy (Texas A&M Corpus Christi '15) won his 1st career Futures title with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Petr Michnev in the finals of the Slovakia F2 in Slovenska Lupca.

Maxime Tabatruong (UCLA '13) won his 2nd career Futures title with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 win over former teammate Adrien Puget (UCLA '14) in the finals of the France F15 in Troyes. Tabatruong's other title came in 2014 at the Morocco F6.

Michael Mmoh defeats Jared Hiltzik in Godfrey F22 Final

The Godfrey USA F22 Future Final was all you could have wanted and more as both Illinois rising senior Jared Hiltzik and 17-year old Michael Mmoh slugged it out point after point for the better part of 3 hours.  The match was originally scheduled to start at 10am central but rain in the area pushed the starting time back an hour to 11am.  Most of the match was played under cloudy skies with temperatures in the mid-70s until rain halted play for about 30 minutes early in the 3rd set. The 30-minute break would be big for Mmoh but we'll get to that in a little bit.

Mmoh, who had won 1 previous Futures title (2014 USA F29/Brownsville), came into the match without having dropped a set all week while Hiltzik, who was making his first appearance in a Futures final, had a pair of matches go the distance. Mmoh came into the final with an ATP ranking of #618 (also an ITF Jr Ranking of #3) while Hiltzik was ranked #704.

Mmoh came out really focused in the first set and was hammering both his forehand and backhand with laser like precision while Hiltzik struggled a bit to keep the ball in play. Hiltzik had more errors in the 1st set than I remember seeing in his whole semifinal match against Clay Thompson. 

Best Teams Not To Win A Natty In The Last 10 Years: 2008 Virginia Cavaliers

If you asked the legion of Virginia fans on The Sabre to name the best Virginia team ever, I think many wouldn't name either of the recent National Championship teams but instead would go with the feature of this post - the 2008 Virginia Cavaliers.

The 2008 team, in my opinion, had the most talent 1 through 6 of any team they've ever fielded; I mean when your #6 guy goes on to win 14 titles (and counting) on the Future circuit (7 singles/7 doubles) you know you had some quality depth. The starting 6 from the 2008 team has won 28 singles and 70 doubles titles at the pro level which is a pretty staggering number.  The only college teams that could rival that number would be some of the Stanford teams with the Bryan Brothers in the late 90s.

College on Tour Weekly Recap/Results 7/13 - 7/19

4 guys made finals this week and 2 brought home the gold as Rajeev Ram (Illinois '03) and Georgi Rumenov Payakov (Armstrong State '13) were the 2 to get it done.

Rajeev Ram (Illinois '03) won his 2nd career ATP title in Newport by defeating Ivo Karlovic 7-6 in the 3rd. Ram's other career ATP title also came in Newport back in 2009. Ram has also won 7 Challenger and 2 Futures in his accomplished career.

Georgi Rumenov Payakov (Armstrong State '13) won his 3rd career Futures title by knocking off recent Texas grad Soren Hess-Olesen 6-3 in the 3rd in the finals of the Portugal F9. All 3 of Rumenov Payakov's titles have come this year in Portugal with the other 2 being the F5 and F6.

Davis Cup

Lots of current and former college guys representing their country in Davis Cup action this weekend. Note: The year listed after the school name is the last year they played at that school - doesn't necessarily mean they graduated.

Davis Cup World Group Scoreboard and Groups 1 and 2 Scoreboard

World Group Quartefinals:

Great Britain def. France 3-1 - Dominic Inglot (Virginia '09) is on GBR but didn't play.

Australia def. Kazakhstan 3-2 - Aleksandr Nedovyesov (Oklahoma State '10) represented KAZ

• #115 Aleksandr Nedovyesov def. #41 Nick Kyrgios 7-6(5), 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 6-4 - KAZ 2-0
• Lleyton Hewitt/Sam Groth def. Aleksandr Nedovyesov/Andrey Golubev 6-4, 7-6, 6-2 - KAZ 2-1
• #279 Lleyton Hewitt def. #115 Aleksandr Nedovyesov 7-6, 6-2, 6-3 - AUS 3-2

World University Games - Gwangju, Korea

A few guys that played in college in the US played over in Korea in the World University Games. Below are the singles results with full draws for both singles and doubles further down.

The big highlight was the doubles team of Joe Salisbury (Memphis '14) and Darren Walsh (SMU '11) winning the doubles title by defeating the #1 seed Hsin-Han Lee and Hsien-Yin Peng (TPE) 2-6, 6-3, 1-0 (8)

1st Round
Raphael Hemmeler (SUI-Duke '15) def. Roman Trkulja (CAN-Penn State Sr) 6-3, 6-3
Julio Cesar Vasquez (MEX) def. Austin Rapp (USC-UCLA Soph) 6-2, 5-7, 7-6(3)

3 REASONS YOU CAN’T MISS THE US OPEN

The 2015 US Open is around the corner, and one thing is certain – it’s a can’t-miss experience for both diehard and casual fans alike. Grab your tickets now – they are going fast.

These are the top 3 reasons that you can’t miss out on the 2015 US Open.

1. The tennis is electrifying.

• Have you ever seen Serena, Roger or Rafa play, their talent and shot-making on full display? Now, imagine seeing them live and in person. There’s nothing like it. It’s exciting, it’s intense – and it’s impossible to fully appreciate through a television set.