Showing posts with label Inside Junior Tennis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inside Junior Tennis. Show all posts

Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; USTA Player Development; Mullins Named Oklahoma Women's Head Coach

    We're back in Kalamazoo, and tonight just a quick post of a few items that somehow managed to catch my attention during my week in Philadelphia.

    The most current edition of Inside Junior Tennis is now available, with Kevin and I discussing the NCAA tennis championships, both team and individuals as well some of Pro Circuit wins by U.S. girls.

    The ITA Assistant Coach of the Year, Northwestern's Dave Mullins, has been named head coach at the University of Oklahoma, according to this AP story.

    And ESPN.com's Sandra Harwitt talked with a few U.S. juniors and the USTA's Patrick McEnroe, Rodney Harmon and Jean Nachand about the direction of U.S. player development. The headline is bizarre, Unproven future prospects keeping U.S. in the dark, and I think her list of juniors to watch is a bit narrow, as it appears to include only those who qualified for the French, but the rest of the article is a nuanced look at what's going on now. Click here for the story.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; USTA Player Development; Mullins Named Oklahoma Women's Head Coach


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast: Washington and Williams Win Division III Titles

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast: Washington and Williams Win Division III Titles


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Conference Championships

    Kevin McClure and I had a lot to talk about in this Inside Junior Tennis podcast. In addition to the ISC and Easter Bowl, we discussed Patrick McEnroe's recent appointment as GM of Elite Player Development, Ryan Harrison, the Tennis Recruiting Network's Top Ten seniors and more. I've appreciated hearing comments from those of you who listen to the podcast, and I know Kevin does too. If you have a moment to write a brief review, on iTunes, we'd welcome it.

    It was a busy and dramatic weekend of college tennis. John supplies his account of the Stanford women's victory over Cal, which gave the Cardinal a share of the Pac-10 crown with UCLA.

    The real drama came in the SEC and ACC women's conference championships, however, which both came down to the third set in the final match with the score tied at 3-3. Georgia won its second straight SEC conference tournament when sophomore Naoko Ueshima outlasted Florida freshman Marrit Boonstra 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-4 at No. 4 singles, avenging the Bulldogs' 5-2 loss to the Gators last month. Georgiadogs.com has the complete story here.

    Ole Miss won the men's SEC title, downing Florida 4-1. The details are here.

    The Virginia men took all the suspense out of their ACC tournament title, taking down surprise finalist Miami 4-0.

    But the women's final more than made up for that, when it was decided in a third set tiebreaker at No. 3 singles between Duke freshman Reka Zsilinszka and Clemson senior Carol Salge. Salge prevailed 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(6) to give the No. 4 seeded Tigers, who had upset No. 1 seed Georgia Tech in the semifinals Saturday, their tenth straight win heading into the NCAAs. For more, click here.

    The Big Ten and Big-12 will conduct their conference tournaments this coming weekend. The Conference USA men's and women's titles both went to Tulsa, who is hosting the NCAAs next month.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Conference Championships


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Anderson and Larcher de Brito the Talk of Key Biscayne


    Kevin McClure and I talk about Mobile, the success of Muhammad and Oudin, the U.S. juniors' problems on clay and the New York Times series on college athletic scholarships, among other things, in the most recent edition of Inside Junior Tennis.

    Yesterday at the Sony Ericsson Open, qualifier Kevin Anderson (photo courtesy of Sony Ericsson Open) set the pro tennis world buzzing with his three-set win over Australian Open champion and defending SEO champion Novak Djokovic. As with Jesse Levine and John Isner, Anderson is proud of his college background, and in this interview after his win, the former Illinois star talks about how he benefited from his years in Champaign. Marcia Frost did a wrap-up of all of the collegians excelling at Key Biscayne for Tennis.com.

    Overshadowed somewhat by Anderson's stunner was fifteen-year-old Michelle Larcher de Brito, who again came from a set down, this time taking out No. 17 seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland to advance to the third round against Shahar Peer, the 16th seed. Nick Bollettieri reports on the match on his new Nick's Picks blog.

    In ITF junior play, Spring National champion Kristie Ahn won the Grade 4 in College Station today, with Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia taking the boys title over Raymond Sarmiento of the U.S. For complete results, see the TennisLink site.

    Monica Puig has reached the final of the ITF Grade 4 in Trinidad & Tobago. Although the ITF website isn't up-to-date, the local newspaper has been covering the event. The four-hour win by Puig that they allude to was over Elizabeth Begley of the U.S.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Anderson and Larcher de Brito the Talk of Key Biscayne


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Men's Team Indoor All-tournament team

    Last Thursday, I spoke with Kevin McClure of The Tennis Podcast and this edition of Inside Junior Tennis was posted Monday. We talked about the Australian Open Junior winners, Craig Tiley staying in Australia, Les Petits As and the Women's Team Indoor. We spoke a little bit about the (then) upcoming Men's Team Indoor too. For those of you who would like to listen or subscribe via iTunes, the link is here.

    There won't be a slide show from the Men's Indoor, since I wasn't there, but the ITA did announce the All-tournament team and Most Outstanding Player, which I used as the basis for my Women's Indoor slide show, so I'm passing those along.
    Devvarman was voted the Most Outstanding Player of the championships today. He posted a 3-0 record at No. 1 singles and 4-0 mark at No. 1 doubles with Treat Huey. He won the clinching match in tight quarterfinal and semifinal matches against UCLA and Mississippi, respectively. The 2007 NCAA singles champion, Devvarman also improved his overall records to 21-1 in both singles and doubles this season.

    The ITA All-Tournament Team is as follows:
    Singles
    No. 1 - Somdev Devvarman, Virginia
    No. 2 - Steven Moneke, Ohio State
    No. 3 - Robbye Poole, Mississippi
    No. 4 - Sanam Singh, Virginia
    No. 5 - Matt Allare, Ohio State
    No. 6 - Drew Eberly, Ohio State
    Doubles
    No. 1 - Somdev Devvarman and Treat Huey, Virginia
    No. 2 - Drew Eberly and Justin Kronauge, Ohio State
    No. 3 - Jeremy Drean and Michael Look, UCLA
    This is the first time an ITA All-Tournament Team has been named. Voters for the team included the participating coaches, the ITA National Ranking & Tournament Committee and select media covering the championships.
    For a local story on Virginia's championship, click here.

    And in non-college news, 2005 Orange Bowl champion and 2006 Wimbledon Junior champion Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark defeated 2007 Wimbledon women's finalist Marion Bartoli of France who was the eighth seed in the WTA tournament in Qatar. An on-the-scene report on the 17-year-old's upset can be found here.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Men's Team Indoor All-tournament team


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Fed Cup and Davis Cup Practice Partners


    Kevin McClure and I are doing fewer podcasts, and our first one this year was probably too long, but this one is more in the normal 30 minute time slot. We discuss the college tennis rankings, the dearth of U.S. juniors in Australia, my visits to the Futures and Plaza Cup while in Florida and the 14-and-under U.S. teams competing in Europe.

    It hardly seems possible that Fed Cup and Davis Cup are upon us again, but the women are taking on Germany this weekend in La Jolla, and according to Zina Garrison's blog, Christina McHale and Julia Boserup are the two juniors invited to practice with the team, which consists of Lindsay Davenport, Ashley Harkleroad, Lisa Raymond and Laura Granville.

    Unlike the U.S. Fed Cup team, which changes regularly depending on the availability of the Williams sisters, the U.S. Davis Cup team, which was announced today, is the same tie after tie. Andy Roddick, James Blake, and the Bryans begin their defense of the cup in Austria on February 8th. Accompanying the team to Vienna will be two left-handers--Jesse Levine and Ryler De Heart, and that is probably partially due to the fact that two of Austria's top players, Stefan Koubek and Jurgen Melzer, are left-handed. Tennis Week has a quick rundown of the matchups and teams here.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Fed Cup and Davis Cup Practice Partners


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Tomic Gets Qualifying Wildcard; Morgan Invited to Roehampton


    It's been well over a month since Kevin McClure and I have been able to get together for a podcast, so it's no surprise that this edition is nearly an hour long. With the Eddie Herr, the Orange Bowl, the Junior Orange Bowl and the Winter Nationals to discuss, we couldn't get too deeply into the tournaments and their winners, but I think we hit most of the high points.

    We did discuss Bernard Tomic's decision to play the 16s rather than the 18s at the Orange Bowl, and about the pressure he will face during the Australian Open juniors, and that was before it was announced today that he had received a wild card into the men's qualifying. Linda Pearce of The Age has the story here.

    The first of the three major ITF junior tournaments in Australia has progressed to the quarterfinals. Top seed Ryan Harrison lost in the second round, but No. 6 seed Ty Trombetta is still alive. No U.S. girls are competing.

    The acceptances for the Australian Open Juniors, published last week, suggest that the trip is too far and too expensive to draw many U.S. competitors. American boys in the main draw are Harrison, Trombetta, Bradley Klahn and Mateusz Kecki, with Bob Van Overbeek and Alex Domijan listed as qualifiers. The U.S. girls are even fewer. Madison Brengle and Alexa Guarachi are in the main, with Lauren McHale, Danielle Mills and Monica Yajima in qualifying.

    Of the ITF Top Ten, only three boys--Cesar Ramirez (4), Jerzy Janowicz (5) and Daniel Evans (10) and four girls--defending champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (2), Ksenia Lykina (8), Nikola Hofmanova (9) and Brengle (10) are playing the Australian Open Junior Championships, which has difficulty drawing fields comparable to those at other junior slams.

    Junior Orange Bowl 14s champion George Morgan is profiled by The Telegraph which explains his next step as an audience with Paul Annacone at the LTA's Roehampton Training Centre. There can't be a British tennis article without a reference to Andy Murray of course, but does anyone else think this sentence is a little off?

    When Murray won the same title for under-12s he said it was only then that he realised he could make it as a player.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Tomic Gets Qualifying Wildcard; Morgan Invited to Roehampton


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Inside Junior Tennis; Quigley to Kentucky; Levine Tops Young


    Kevin McClure and I are not doing our Inside Junior Tennis podcast quite as frequently as in the past, but I hope we can still hit all the high spots every three weeks or so. On Thursday, we talked about the ITA Indoor, National Signing Day, Melanie Oudin and Filip Krajinovic, Break and Hold, Coaches' Q and A and the upcoming Florida swing. Click here for The Tennis Podcast page, or download from iTunes here.

    The Bluegrass State's Blue Chip, Eric Quigley, announced his decision to attend Kentucky on the Tennis Recruiting Network late last week, and on Friday, the Wildcats' Dennis Emery commented on the signing on ukathletics.com.

    And tonight in Champaign, Jesse Levine defeated Donald Young in two tiebreakers to win his second consecutive challenger. Both the previous meetings between them (in Tulsa and Louisville) this fall went to Young easily; this win demonstrates what an impact confidence can have in reversing results. The USTA Challenger of Champaign website has the finals story here.

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Inside Junior Tennis; Quigley to Kentucky; Levine Tops Young


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Inside Junior Tennis; Johnson to USC

    Not much in the way of internet access here, but I wanted to post a quick link to the latest podcast installment of Inside Junior Tennis. Kevin McClure who is the tech muscle behind the The Tennis Podcast is not able to continue the show on a weekly basis, so we are going to do more of a once-a-month show rather than twice or three times a month, as before. Look for the next one after the ITA Indoor.

    Steve Johnson has verbally committed to USC. The Los Angeles Times has the story here.

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Inside Junior Tennis; Johnson to USC


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Harrison and Seal Reach Semifinals in ITF Grade A in Osaka; Inside Junior Tennis Podcast

    U.S. boys make up 100% of the semifinalists in the ITF Pan American Closed here in Tulsa, and over in Japan, American boys comprise 50% of the semifinalists in the Osaka Mayor's Cup, a Grade A championship. No U.S. girls made the trip, and Ryan Harrison and Bo Seal were the only U.S. boys to venture across the Pacific, but both are still playing. Seal, a wild card (those U.S. Open Juniors qualifying wild cards that have gone to Japanese players the past several years no doubt figured in that selection), has beaten the No. 12, No. 8 and No. 4 seeds; Harrison has disposed of No. 13, No. 1 and No. 11 seeds. Because they were drawn into opposite halves, they could meet in the final if both beat seeded opponents on Saturday. But with all the big points available at a Grade A, both Seal, 16, and Harrison, 15, are positioning themselves for the 2008 Junior Slams.

    For the ITF's coverage of the Osaka Mayor's Cup, click here.

    Also, the latest edition of Inside Junior Tennis is now available. Kevin McClure and I spoke before the Polo ITA All-American, so the news is about the previous week's events.

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Harrison and Seal Reach Semifinals in ITF Grade A in Osaka; Inside Junior Tennis Podcast


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; QuickStart Tennis

    In the latest edition of Inside Junior Tennis, Kevin McClure of the Tennis Podcast and I talked about the Kentucky ITF, whether Bernard Tomic would be wise to accept an Australian Open main draw wild card (if offered) and the advantages of 36/60 or "QuickStart" tennis for getting new players into the game.

    Back in December, USTA High Performance Managing Director Paul Roetert mentioned in a speech at the ITA Coaches Convention that the program was a significant factor in Belgium's training program and for a country of its size, you can't argue with the success they've had.

    The Chicago Daily Herald has an in-depth story on how the system, which has been in place at the Midtown Tennis Club since last year, works--how it gets players as young as five playing, not just drilling.

    Kevin mentioned that while he was at the Tennis Teacher Conference in New York, he was impressed by the breadth of support for the concept; there was none of the usual adults vs. juniors or high performance vs. recreational dynamic.

    The USTA has dubbed the program "QuickStart" and promises a website dedicated to it by the end of this month. For now, there is an excellent synopsis of the concept at usta.com.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; QuickStart Tennis


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Australia vs. Cyprus

    Kevin McClure and I discuss the U.S. Open Juniors in the latest Inside Junior Tennis podcast. I also did a segment on TennisLiveRadio with Todd Skovron. I'm at the very end of the September 11th broadcast.


    Except for September's Aces, these two shows will close the book on the U.S. Open Juniors for 2007, but one interesting story that I ran across while I was there concerned Andrew Thomas, one of Australia's top juniors. (I'm doing a story on the Australian boys for SMASH magazine, so I'm paying a little bit more attention to that group than usual). Not only is he Australian, he also has Cypriot ancestry, and he is being pursued by Cyprus.

    There are two versions of the story--one that was published during the Open by Australia's Herald Sun, and one that came out this weekend from the Cyprus Mail. If nothing else, it is further evidence that Craig Tiley is willing to let the chips fall where they may if a player doesn't adhere to Tennis Australia's prescribed path.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Australia vs. Cyprus


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast Latest Edition; NY Times blogs on juniors

    The first U.S. Open edition of Inside Junior Tennis is now available. Host Kevin McClure was here for several days and saw some of the Levine and Kuznetsov doubles and gives his impressions of their games.

    The New York Times' Aron Pilhofer and I sat together for a while on Court 7, and he asked some very good questions to get my thoughts about the junior tournament for the NYT's tennis blog. He tells me he's also working on a college/junior tennis story for later, so stay tuned for that. He promises some stats, not just impressions.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast Latest Edition; NY Times blogs on juniors


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New Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Michael Russell Update

    It was three weeks between podcasts with all that Kevin McClure and I had going on this summer, but we did have an opportunity to discuss the National Championships in this edition of Inside Junior Tennis. We hope to double up this week and devote an entire show to the documentary Unstrung. My review will appear tomorrow on The Tennis Recruiting Network.

    I had the pleasure of speaking with Greg Garber of ESPN.com today about a story he's working on about John Isner/college tennis. Since we were neighbors in the press room at Wimbledon, (and he could hardly avoid my chatter about college and junior tennis all week), he called me to ask for my take on some of the issues. Although we didn't discuss Michael Russell except in passing, Greg seemed to know his whole biography, and when I went to the website today, I found out why. This is an in-depth feature about Russell that is down right inspirational without being sentimental. Check it out.

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New Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Michael Russell Update


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July Aces; Wimbledon Radio

    It's raining again in Kalamazoo (after a drought in June and July) so it's a good time for me to post the link to my July Aces at The Tennis Recruiting Network.

    Also, although I haven't had the time to do an Inside Junior Tennis podcast for the past two weeks, Kevin McClure of The Tennis Podcast was kind enough to post the audio file of the seven minutes of discussion that Peter Bodo and I had for Wimbledon Radio about the blogging phenomenon and what it means for the future of tennis coverage.

    I'm indebted to Guy McCrea, who contacted me prior to my trip to London about appearing on the show when he read on zootennis that I was covering Wimbledon for the first time. As the producer, he is the moderator you hear in this clip.

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July Aces; Wimbledon Radio


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Q & A with Mark Riley; Inside Junior Tennis

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Q & A with Mark Riley; Inside Junior Tennis


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Wrapping Up Wimbledon


    Before I move to another surface on Wednesday when I head to the Clay Courts, it's time to wrap up Wimbledon. My tournament synopsis for The Tennis Recruiting Network went up today, and Kevin McClure and I discussed my wet week at Wimbledon in a bit more detail on the latest version of Inside Junior Tennis.

    And completely off-topic, USA Today's Doug Robson delves into a story I've always wanted to write myself--who decides what's an unforced error in tennis? From my observation, mostly confirmed by this piece, it's very young people, often teenagers, who are given a computer and a good vantage point and told to make that judgment.

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Wrapping Up Wimbledon


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Grass Court Wrap; New Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Schnugg Update


    My Grass Courts tournament wrapup is available today on The Tennis Recruiting Network.

    This week's Inside Junior Tennis podcast is also primarily about the Grass Courts, but there is an important segment in which Kevin and I discuss the recent clarification by the NCAA of the payment of expenses for amateurs participating in professional events. The Intercollegiate Tennis Association website's homepage contains a link to the column and response under Additional Information: NCAA Educational Column.

    The South Oregon Mail Tribune has made a point of keeping up with Nate Schnugg tennis career, and this article reviews his college season, his plans for the summer and Georgia coach Manny Diaz's plans for him this fall.

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Grass Court Wrap; New Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Schnugg Update


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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; British Tennis Development Update

    Kevin McClure and I got an opportunity to discuss the juniors that we overlooked in the last Inside Junior Tennis podcast, which was basically all-NCAA. In this week's edition, the French Open Juniors take center stage, and we discuss the short scoring in doubles and the possible change in the USTA clay season.

    I also thought this story from the British Independent was an interesting look at the development issues and plans the LTA is pursuing. For an entirely different take, see the Guardian's piece entitled: Want to produce British champions? Take away the funding.

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Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; British Tennis Development Update


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