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