Showing posts with label The Tennis Recruiting Network. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Tennis Recruiting Network. Show all posts

Update on Rain Delay at Spring Nationals and Other News

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    ©Colette Lewis 2009--
    Mobile, AL

    The bulk of the rain appears to be moving out, and the plan remains to finish the eight boys first round singles matches in progress and play the second round singles matches. Even with 60 courts, this will make for a late night, and I'm not sure how much time I'll have to do a review tonight. So look for some Twitter updates, and perhaps a short summary of the highlights of the night action.

    In the meantime, there are a few items I wanted to post while they are still timely. The first is the Tennis Recruiting Network's schedule for the upcoming spring signing period, with coverage beginning this coming Thursday. During all this rain, I've been able to work on one of the live announcements coming out the first full week of April, an assignment that has helped make the hours in the hotel room a bit more productive these past few days.

    The USTA's website is featuring a short video on Ryan Lipman, one of the Talbert Sportsmanship Award winners, and a College Spotlight feature on Northwestern's Lauren Lui. After a week off, the U.S. Pro Circuit action resumes in Redding, Calif., where the women are contesting a $25,000 event. Among those playing in qualifying are Nicole Gibbs, Christina McHale, Anna Orlik and Ajla Tomljanovic. Laura Granville is returning to action after a long absence, and yesterday defeated Jacqueline Cako in the first round of qualifying. See the Pro Circuit page for complete results.

    Charleston's The Post and Courier recently featured a brief article about local junior Shelby Rogers's trip to Costa Rica, where she was a semifinalist in the ITF Grade 3 there.

    And finally, please check out the new spring merchandise at the Tennis Warehouse, via the link at the top of the sidebar. Purchases made through that link help pay my travel bills, and I appreciate your support!
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Update on Rain Delay at Spring Nationals and Other News


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https://dancing-with-the-stars-2011.blogspot.com/2009/03/update-on-rain-delay-at-spring.html


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Playing at the Right Level--A Conversation with Chris Woodruff

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    I had the opportunity to talk with former Top 30 ATP professional and current University of Tennessee associate head coach Chris Woodruff about his transition between college and professional tennis and the resulting question-and-answer session is available today on The Tennis Recruiting Network.

    Playing at the right level may seem obvious in retrospect, but playing at the wrong one is a mistake I see being made again and again. Woodruff candidly discusses the perils of too much too soon, with his own recent career as a case in point. As he told me in Chicago:
    Not playing at the right level after I won the NCAAs single-handedly set my career back two, three years, to the point where it almost drove me out of the game.
    That's not an outcome any of us who love the sport would want. Please take a few minutes to read what someone who's "been there and done that" has to offer on the subject.

    A couple of features on college players on the opposite ends of the experience spectrum were published today. University of Kentucky's senior Bruno Agostinelli, currently ranked No. 2 in the country, leads off this story about the Wildcats by the Kentucky Kernel (gotta love that name). Mississippi's Devin Britton, who is the second highest-ranked freshman in the country at 32 (Florida's Carlos Cueto is 19th), is the subject of this article from the Daily Mississippian.

    Tomorrow is a travel day as we leave temperatures stuck in the teens here in Michigan for the balmy early spring (I hope) of Alabama. This is my fifth year covering the USTA Spring Nationals, and I have always had a great time there while watching outstanding tennis. I am hoping to use my new Twitter account to post match updates from my iPhone throughout the tournament. The "tweets" will appear in the Twitter Updates section on this site, in the sidebar, or at twitter.com/zootennis. For those not familiar with Twitter, it is basically a free-text-message-over-the-internet service that confines posts to 140 characters or less. It also can be accessed via most mobile phones. You can follow individuals, organizations, businesses, friends, family, celebrities, the president, anyone who has a Twitter account, by simply finding them via a keyword and clicking follow. (For a funny story about one of Twitter's most famous users, click here.) Right now most of the updates are just feeds of my blog posts, but I expect that to change starting tomorrow.
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Playing at the Right Level--A Conversation with Chris Woodruff


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Bhambri Given Sony Ericsson Main Draw Wild Card; New Tennis Blog Debuts

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    India's Yuki Bhambri, the world's top-ranked junior and the reigning Australian Open Junior champion has received a main draw wild card into the Sony Ericsson Open, which begins on March 25. That news, first reported by The Hindu, was confirmed by IMG Vice President Olivier Van Lindonk. The 16-year-old had earned a qualifying wild card by virtue of his victory at the Orange Bowl, on the site of the Sony Ericsson, but IMG, who owns the tournament, has decided to upgrade him. He'll join Marcos Baghdatis and Lleyton Hewitt, who have already been announced as wild card recipients.

    Bhambri recently came in for some criticism for choosing to play in this week's Pro Circuit event in Texas rather than serve as a practice partner in India's Davis Cup tie with Chinese Taipei this weekend, according to this story from DNA. (University of Virginia's Sanam Singh, who is mentioned here as a part of the Davis Cup team, is not participating). Bhambri, using a junior exemption gained by finishing in the Top 10 of the ITF Juniors last year, lost in the first round of the Futures event to Lester Cook 6-4, 6-2. He also lost, in three sets, to Singh in the first round of qualifying for the ATP's Chennai Open back in January. IMG needs to use some caution in handing out a wild card to such a big tournament--it worked fine with Michelle Larcher de Brito, who last year used hers to win two Sony Ericsson matches before losing to Shahar Peer, but Bhambri is well behind her in terms of physical maturity. No one wants to see the Donald Young scenario repeated with another precocious and talented teen who is being viewed as the best hope to improve his country's tennis fortunes.

    I recently spoke with Chris Woodruff, the associate head coach at the University of Tennessee (this is a teaser for my Tennis Recruiting Network article next week) and he made it very clear to me the danger of playing at the wrong level--and this was as an NCAA champion who felt in over his head. The occasional wild card is generally not harmful, but as Woodruff said, word gets around that you haven't earned your way in and there's not much sympathy from professionals for that circumstance.

    Although there are plenty of tennis blogs out there (see my links for some of my favorites), a new one by my Tennis Recruiting Network colleague Marc Lucero is definitely worth a read. He has posted only once, but his account of the Stanford and USC men's match last week will be much appreciated by those of us who can't get enough college tennis match reports.
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Bhambri Given Sony Ericsson Main Draw Wild Card; New Tennis Blog Debuts


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February Aces; Domijan at Davis Cup; UCLA Gets Two Wins over USC; ISC Deadline Friday

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    My weekly column for the Tennis Recruiting Network is the usual one for the first Thursday of the month, with the top performers in February featured.

    Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe is writing a blog for usta.com, and in his first entry Wednesday, he passed along his observations on first-time practice partner Alex Domijan. In today's second entry, Domijan also rates another mention. And the USTA also posted a Q and A today with Domijan. I'm not saying that anyone there is tired of Roddick, Blake and the Bryan twins, but after so many ties featuring that group, a fresh face is probably going to get his share of attention.



    USC and UCLA played both men's and women's dual matches today, or rather finished them today, as they were originally scheduled for Wednesday, and suspended by rain. The UCLA women, at home and ranked 11th, had won the doubles point before the rain came (in a tiebreaker at No. 1); the visiting UCLA men were leading in their doubles matches but had not yet recorded the point before play was halted. Both matches went to UCLA, with the women winning 4-3 and the men 5-2 (correction: the score, first reported as 5-2 UCLA was actually 4-3, with Matt Kecki beating Nick Meister 10-7 in a match tiebreaker), with the women having the much more riveting contest.

    The UCLA women took a 2-0 lead when Yasmin Schnack defeated Sarah Fansler at No. 1, but 11th-ranked USC had won the first set in the other five singles matches, and they went on to win three of them, with Amanda Fink, Gabriela Niculescu and Maria Sanchez giving the visitors a 3-2 lead. Bruin freshman Carling Seguso battled back to beat Leyla Entekhabi 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 at No. 6, leaving the decision on the racquets of UCLA's Ashley Joelson and USC's Alison Ramos. Ramos had a 4-2 lead in the final set, but Joelson won the last four games to give UCLA its fifth straight win over USC, 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-4. For the complete results, see the UCLA website.

    The men's match wasn't nearly as dramatic. After No. 13 UCLA won the doubles point with victories at No. 3 and No. 1, Steve Johnson of eighth-ranked USC quickly disposed of Michael Look at No. 3 to even it. But that didn't last long, as Holden Seguso (the brother and sister combo were 3-0 against the Trojans) stormed past Abdullah Magdas at No. 4, Haythem Abid beat top-ranked Robert Farah of USC at No. 1, and UCLA's Amit Inbar clinched it with a three set win over Jason McNaughton at No. 6. For detailed scores, see the USC website.

    For more on last week's Stanford-USC match, especially Trojan freshman Daniel Nguyen's role in it, see this article from the Ventura County Star.

    And a reminder that the entries for next month's ITF Grade 1 International Spring Championships in Carson, Calif. close on Friday. For more information, see the usta.com page, or the TennisLink site.
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February Aces; Domijan at Davis Cup; UCLA Gets Two Wins over USC; ISC Deadline Friday


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Nine Questions with Julia Boserup; Fratangelo Commits to High School Tennis; College Surprise of the Week

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    When Julia Boserup won the Orange Bowl in December, I had an opportunity to talk with her for SMASH magazine, in a regular feature I prepare for them, "Five Questions With..." Unfortunately, a last-minute ad led to cancellation of the story, which was scheduled to appear in the Spring issue. I didn't want the opportunity for a wider audience for her remarks to pass by, however, so I recently asked her about her Fed Cup practice partner stint and the story has resurfaced as Nine Questions, which is my weekly post for The Tennis Recruiting Network.


    The Naples Daily News today published a feature story on 15-year-old Bjorn Fratangelo, the Pittsburgh, Pa. native who recently moved to Naples to train full time there and will play high school tennis for Barron Collier. There are several errors in it (not counting the typo in the headline): the Orange Bowl is in December of course, and Fratangelo lost in the third round of the 16s there after getting in as a lucky loser. (Attempts to get the newspaper to correct these mistakes have been unsuccessful). And his national title this "past January" was January 2008, when Fratangelo won the Winter Nationals 14s. But I did learn something that I forgot to ask Bjorn myself when I spoke to him after his win at the Tennis Plaza Cup last month. His first name is indeed after the Swedish superstar of the 70s and early 80s who won 11 Grand Slam titles.

    And perhaps I'll start a Surprise College Result of the Week designation. It isn't the No. 14 ranked Clemson women's 4-3 win over Georgia Tech in the ACC opener for both teams yesterday, even if the Tigers' No. 1, Ani Mijacika, didn't play. No, this week's surprise is the No. 69 SMU women's 5-2 win in Fayetteville over No. 17 Arkansas. The Razorbacks' superstar, Aurelija Miseviciute, did play, and lost in a third set tiebreaker to the Mustangs' No. 1, freshman Marta Lesniak of Poland, a name to watch for this spring. SMU certainly had Arkansas outnumbered--they have 12 players on their roster, compared to six for the Razorbacks. For the complete story, see the SMU website.
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Nine Questions with Julia Boserup; Fratangelo Commits to High School Tennis; College Surprise of the Week


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King in ATP Debut Tuesday; Riske Wins FC Cup Qualifying Wild Card; 1998 NCAA Champ Vanessa Webb

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    Way back in July of 2008, Evan King won the USTA National Boys 18s Clay Court singles championship, and tomorrow, he will take the courts again in Delray Beach, to use the main draw wild card he earned with that victory, although this time the surface will be hard.

    King, who trains with the USTA in Boca Raton, was back home in Chicago watching his future teammates at the University of Michigan compete at the ITA Men's Indoor, and he was obviously very excited about his first match at the tour level (he has played a few Futures and Challengers). The Delray draw, which was posted yesterday, puts him against 21-year-old Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan, who is currently ranked 115th, although he finished last year 89th. The down side of not drawing Tommy Haas, Lleyton Hewitt, Sam Querrey or Mardy Fish is that King won't be playing on the Stadium court Tuesday. According to Tuesday's order of play, he'll be the third match on court 1.


    Today at the SMASH Junior Cup in South Carolina, Alison Riske defeated Kristie Ahn 6-4, 6-1 to earn the qualifying wild card into the Family Circle Cup in April by winning the girls 18s title. The stakes were not as high for the boys 18s, but John Harrison Richmond, the 2008 Junior Orange Bowl 14s winner from Pawley's Island, S.C., has a head start on his USTA 18s ranking, winning the Southern section's Level 3 event. For complete results, see the TennisLink site.

    My colleague McCarton Ackerman recently caught up with Vanessa Webb, the 1998 NCAA women's singles champion from Duke, and filed this story for The Tennis Recruiting Network, detailing her business career and her continued involvement in the highest levels of the game.

    And in case you missed it yesterday (I did), the Baylor men defeated UCLA 4-3 in a dual match in Waco, giving head coach Matt Knoll his 300th victory.
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King in ATP Debut Tuesday; Riske Wins FC Cup Qualifying Wild Card; 1998 NCAA Champ Vanessa Webb


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Wrapping Up ITA Men's Team Indoor; Brugues Now No. 1 in Latest Singles Rankings

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    My weekly column for The Tennis Recruiting Network is an overview of the ITA Men's Team Indoor last weekend.

    I've also put together a slide show, based on the men's All-Tournament team announced yesterday by the ITA, and would like to thank my husband, Paul Ballard, for all his hard work behind the lens in the challenging indoor conditions. The women's All-tournament team can be found in this ITA release.

    There was a lot of news from the ITA in the past two days. Not only did they release the All-tournament teams, but also this announcement that the rankings will have a new sponsor (Fila having bowed out), the Campbell Soup Company.

    In those rankings, the Northwestern women retained their No. 1 position in the team rankings, and Wildcat Maria Mosolova managed to hold on to her top spot in the singles, barely edging Clemson's Ani Mijacika, who is a fraction of a point behind. Renata Kucerkova and Anastasia Petukhova of Fresno State are ranked No. 1 in doubles.

    The men's rankings did shuffle, with Virginia assuming the top spot in the team rankings, followed by Georgia and Ohio State. Tulsa's Arnau Brugues has claimed the top spot in the singles, with Steve Forman and Cory Parr of Wake Forest ranked No. 1 in doubles.

    For complete rankings, see the ITA rankings page.

    Marcia Frost was also in Chicago and posted this wrap for collegeandjuniortennis.com.

    In addition to the slideshow and the embedded YouTube video below of Virginia's Drew Courtney earning a break over Josh Varela of Georgia at 5-5 in the third set, I also have posted two short videos of Michael Shabaz and Javier Garrapiz from their match in the finals at the tenniskalamazoo YouTube channel.




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Wrapping Up ITA Men's Team Indoor; Brugues Now No. 1 in Latest Singles Rankings


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USTA National Team Versus University of Miami

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USTA National Team Versus University of Miami


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Florida Tops Women's Recruiting Class Rankings; Texas Blanks A&M in Texas Cup; Who Really is in Women's Top Four?

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    On Friday, the Tennis Recruiting Network released their 2009 winter recruiting class rankings, with Florida barely edging out Harvard for the No. 1 spot. Both got seven first place votes (mine went to Florida), with No. 3 Stanford getting the final first place vote. In my opinion, Lauren Embree is the bluest of blue chips, tipping the scales in the Gators' favor.

    There have been several interesting dual matches this week, in both men's and women's competition.

    Last night in Houston, Texas, the ITA's No. 2 ranked men's team, shut out No. 15 Texas A & M in the Texas Cup. In Dale Robertson's Tennis Notebook entry in the Houston Chronicle prior to the match, A & M is said to be waiting for NCAA clearance on Alexei Grigorov and Alexis Klegou of France. Their participation may have made a difference in the score, but probably not the outcome, as the Longhorns won at Nos. 1, 2, and 3, where the Aggies are strongest. For more on the match, see the Texas website.

    Another men's intrastate rivalry went to the favorite on Thursday, when the ninth-ranked University of Mississippi beat No. 52 Mississippi State 4-2 in the Mississippi Cup (creative names for these competitions aren't they?) held at an indoor club in Jackson. One of Mississippi State's points came at No. 1, where Devin Britton and Ryan Farlow, both from suburbs of Jackson, went to a third set tiebreaker before Farlow prevails. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger attended and focused, understandably, on that match in this story.

    Next week's ITA Team Indoor championships will help sort out some of the favorites for the May NCAAs, and on the women's side, I'm looking forward to seeing how No. 14 Notre Dame and No. 9 Duke fare. After Notre Dame upset Arkansas to earn a spot in Madison, Razorback coach Michael Hegarty said the Fighting Irish "really looks like a final four team to me." And after losing 7-0to the Blue Devils yesterday, No. 30 ranked Indiana coach Lin Loring, is quoted as saying, "they are probably top-four right now and they showed why." Even without Tara Iyer playing, Duke won every set of the nine matches against the previously undefeated Hoosiers. The current top four in the women's rankings are Northwestern, California, UCLA and Baylor. If these two coaches are right, who stays and who goes if Notre Dame and Duke move in?
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Florida Tops Women's Recruiting Class Rankings; Texas Blanks A&M in Texas Cup; Who Really is in Women's Top Four?


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January Aces; Koniecko Interview, Fed Cup News

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    It's the first Thursday of the month, so please check out the January Aces article I've written for The Tennis Recruiting Network.

    Bryan Koniecko of Ohio State, currently No. 1 in the ITA individual rankings, is featured today on usta.com. I hope he's right about the assumption contained in his answer to a question on his goals (emphasis is mine):

    My individual goals are to keep trying to improve while I’m still at college and obviously try to win the NCAA singles title at the end of the year. Winning the NCAA could give me a US Open main-draw berth, and that would be exciting, being from New York and all. More importantly, I want to win the NCAA title as a team and finish No. 1. Since I was a freshman, we have had top-5 teams, and due to some bad luck and a couple injuries, we missed our opportunity in going to the finals of the NCAA tournament. But as a senior and a captain, winning the NCAA as a team would just be an amazing finish to a great four years.

    "Could" appears to be the operative word here, as Georgia Tech's Amanda McDowell did not receive a U.S. Open wild card after her NCAA individual championship last year.

    The Fed Cup begins this weekend, and with Bethanie Mattek's recent withdrawal, captain Mary Joe Fernandez has asked Julie Ditty to join Jill Craybas, Liezel Huber and Melanie Oudin for the tie with Argentina. Fernandez is blogging for usta.com, and in this entry, I was somewhat surprised to hear that she did not know Oudin. Despite the age gap with the 30-somethings, Oudin is not the only teenager in the mix. Seventeen-year-olds Julia Boserup and CoCo Vanderweghe are serving as hitting partners in Surprise, Arizona, according to this article from the Arizona Republic.


    The U.S. and Argentina are in the World Group, which has 16 teams, but there are also Zonal round robins taking place in Estonia, Australia and Canada. In Quebec yesterday, Puerto Rico, with 15-year-old Monica Puig playing No. 1, defeated the Bahamas 2-1 in an opening round match. For results and information, see the Fed Cup website.

    And finally, if you haven't done so yet, take a look at the free live video streaming that Front Row Tennis is providing this week at the TbarM Dallas Challenger. This afternoon I watched the third set of a battle between 2002 Kalamazoo 18s champion Prakash Amritraj and 2004 Kalamazoo 18s champion Scoville Jenkins, won by Amritraj 6-4. Tonight, two members of the 2003 Illinois NCAA championship team will be on court when Amer Delic plays Brendan Evans and Rajeev Ram takes on Michael Russell.
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January Aces; Koniecko Interview, Fed Cup News


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ITA Indoor Kick-off Weekend Underway; Men's Recruiting Class Rankings

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    In previous years, the fields for the ITA Team Indoor have always been suspect, as the bids were largely based on teams' results from the previous year, and anyone familiar with the impact one or two players can have, whether going out or coming in, knows that didn't always result in the best 16 teams competing for the title. This year the ITA has implemented a qualifying tournament, with 15 teams earning their berths (the host schools--Illinois for the men and Wisconsin for the women--are automatically chosen) in what is being called the ITA Kick-off Weekend. At 30 sites around the country (15 for men, 15 for women), four teams will gather, with the team going 2-0 earning a berth in the mid-February ITA Indoor tournaments.

    While the majority of these mini-tournaments, which are very similar to the first two rounds of the NCAAs, are Saturday-Sunday, some begin today and end on Saturday. For details on each, see the ITA's kick-off weekend home page. Also available on that page are the line-ups for all sixty teams, which is a very handy to have, as it saves going to each team's website for their roster, which doesn't usually give any clue as to the position a player is competing at. (These line-ups are not, of course, guaranteed; any illness or injury could result in changes.)

    There were a few interesting items I noted: Freshman Alexandria Walters, who had been announced as a recruit at UCLA, is listed as playing No. 2 for Pepperdine. Ole Miss freshman Devin Britton, who reached the semifinals of the SEC Coaches Indoor, is playing No. 1 for the Rebels. Texas A & M has won the recruiting battle for Russian Alexei Grigorov, who is listed at No. 4 in their line-up. Duke freshman Mallory Cecil is occupying the No. 2 spot on a very deep Blue Devil team, while freshman Chelsey Gullickson, who had an outstanding fall at Georgia, will play No. 1 for the Bulldogs. With the return of Haythem Abid to the UCLA men's lineup after an injury kept him out last season, and the addition of Arizona State's Matt Brooklyn, Harel Srugo has dropped from his No. 1 position to No. 3 for the Bruins.

    The Stanford men have a young top half of the lineup with sophomore Alex Clayton and freshmen Bradley Klahn and Ryan Thacher at the 1, 2, and 3 positions, and the Cardinal have more blue chips arriving in the fall. For the second straight year, Stanford has earned the top recruiting class ranking by the Tennis Recruiting Network, and this time it was unanimous. Click here for ranking order of the top 25 schools.

    If you live anywhere near any of these 30 sites, please consider attending a match. It's great fun, and any comments you have are welcome on ZooTennis!
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ITA Indoor Kick-off Weekend Underway; Men's Recruiting Class Rankings


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Rhyne Williams Profile; Vickery, Duval and DiGiulio Into Quarterfinals at Les Petits As

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    When we were at the Boca Raton Futures earlier this month, I had an opportunity to sit down with Rhyne Williams to discuss his plans for college, and I've written about the conversation in today's article on The Tennis Recruiting Network. Today in Plantation, Williams and partner Ryan Lipman advanced to the doubles semifinals of the Pro Circuit Futures there. For complete results, visit usta.com.

    In Tarbes, France, No. 2 seed Sachia Vickery and No. 5 seed Vicky Duval, finalists at last week's Teen Tennis tournament in England, have reached the quarterfinals at Les Petits As, as has No. 5 seed Joe DiGiulio. Vickery and Duval are also still in the doubles; with a tense 11-9 match tiebreaker win today, the No. 1 seeds have reached the semifinals. See the tournament website for complete results.

    In Melbourne, the semifinals of the junior singles and doubles are not scheduled to begin until five hours later than they have been, and the indoor Hisense arena is not being used, so I don't know if that means the heat wave is over, or that there will be changes. There was a BBC story that Heather Watson's father was not happy that she was playing in that heat. It does bother me that juniors are expected to play sometimes five sets of tennis in those conditions day after day, when the much more physically mature players get a day of rest between matches, and most don't play singles and doubles.

    You may notice some changes in format and advertising on the site in the near future. I hope it's not too disruptive, but I have signed up with a company that targets advertising to sports blogs, and I'm working out some of the kinks in formatting and placement of the advertisements.

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Rhyne Williams Profile; Vickery, Duval and DiGiulio Into Quarterfinals at Les Petits As


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Plaza Cup Wrap; Duval and Vickery Play for Teen Tennis Title; Australian Open Junior Qualifying Underway

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    In my weekly article for The Tennis Recruiting Network, I wrap up the competition at the Tennis Plaza Cup, which concluded on Monday. If you didn't get a chance to read the daily reports, this article should provide an overview of the three days of action at Salvadore Park.

    The USTA 14-and-under groups left for Europe last week, with newly hired national coaches Andres Pedroso (boys) and Kathy Rinaldi (girls) accompanying the teams. The girls, even without Madison Keys, have a very strong team, as evidenced by their results this week in the Aegon Teen Tennis tournament in Bolton, England. On Friday, Bollettieri students Sachia Vickery and Vicky Duval will give us the final we expected in the Junior Orange Bowl, but didn't get when Korean qualifier So Ra Lee beat Vickery in the semifinals. At Teen Tennis, Vickery is the top seed and Duval is seeded No. 8. Brooke Austin of the U.S., seeded 16th, lost to Vickery in the semifinals. Unseeded Luca Corinteli of the U.S. reached the semifinals, where he lost to No. 6 seed Evan Hoyt of Great Britain in two tiebreakers. For complete results, see the LTA website, scrolling down to the tournament results on the left of the page.

    The acceptances for Les Petits As, which starts tomorrow with the first round of qualifying, are available at the tournament website. Vickery and Duval are in the main draw, with Austin and Nadia Echeverria Alam in qualifying. Madison Keys did not make the trip, revamping her schedule after her win at The Coffee Bowl. The two U.S. boys in the main draw are Joseph DiGiulio and Nikko Madregallejo. Corinteli and Roy Lederman are listed as competing in the qualifying, but Lederman suffered an injury at Teen Tennis.


    In Australia, the ITF Grade 1 at Nottinghill has produced some big surprises, with top seed and Orange Bowl champion Yuki Bhambri of India going out in the second round to unseeded Justin Eleveld of the Netherlands, who has reached the boys final against No. 4 seed Pablo Carreno-Busta of Spain. No. 3 seed Laura Robson, playing her first tournament since injuring her stomach muscle at the Orange Bowl, lost in the quarterfinals to unseeded Richel Hogenkamp of the Netherlands. No. 8 seed Yana Buchina upset top seed and world No. 1 Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand in the quarterfinals, and will play No. 10 seed Nadiya Kichenok of Ukraine in the final. Kichenok defeated No. 2 seed Elena Bogdan of Romania in the semifinals. It was not a good tournament for the U.S., with only Ester Goldfeld winning a main draw match. Eddie Herr champion and No. 4 seed Lauren Embree lost in the first round, as did Beatrice Capra, the No. 11 seed, and qualifier Elizabeth Begley. Harry Fowler, the only boy from the U.S. playing in Australia, also lost in the first round, as the 16th seed.

    The opening round of qualifying for the Australian Open Juniors is complete, with Alexandra Cercone of Florida needing a victory on Friday to reach the main draw. Monica Yajima, Noel Scott and Begley lost in the first round.

    For complete results of the Australian junior events, see the Tennis Australia website.
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Plaza Cup Wrap; Duval and Vickery Play for Teen Tennis Title; Australian Open Junior Qualifying Underway


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Britton to Ole Miss; Cecil to Duke; Seven U.S. Women Advance in AO Qualifying

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Britton to Ole Miss; Cecil to Duke; Seven U.S. Women Advance in AO Qualifying


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Do Great Juniors Become Great College Players? Tomic, other Aussie Teens Get Australian Open Wild Cards

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    My colleague Marc Lucero has crunched some numbers in an attempt to determine if there is a correlation between the top girls from the recruiting class of 2007 and the top collegiate performers of 2008. His findings, which appear today on The Tennis Recruiting Network, are well researched and full of interesting numbers that should be useful to any college coach who utilizes rankings to make judgments about recruits (and I would guess that would mean all of them). I hope he'll make this a regular feature, but I certainly recognize that it involves a lot of heavy lifting on his part.

    Tennis Australia announced the last of its main draw wild cards today, and juniors Bernard Tomic, Monika Wejnert and Olivia Rogowska are among the recipients. For the complete list, which includes Isabella Holland, who was announced earlier, scroll to the bottom of this story from the Australian Open website.

    As of the latest acceptance list for the Australian Open Junior Championships, Harry Fowler is the only U.S. boy playing in the main or qualifying draw. The girls draw, which is notably stronger, is showing that Lauren Embree, Beatrice Capra, Ester Goldfeld and Christina McHale are still entered in the main, and Alexandra Cercone, Noel Scott and Monica Yajima are in the qualifying. For the most recent list, click here.

    And a final note, we are attempting to get out of Michigan for Miami before a blizzard, so if there's no post on Tuesday, you'll know I'm snowed in somewhere!
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Do Great Juniors Become Great College Players? Tomic, other Aussie Teens Get Australian Open Wild Cards


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Eight Intriguing Questions; Collins Wins Futures Wild Card; Devvarman Beats Moya; Harrisons Sign with Nike

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    My annual look ahead--it's hard to believe that I've been doing this piece for five years now--at The Tennis Recruiting Network is entitled Eight Intriguing Questions for 2009. I'm only 92 short of Todd Spiker, of WTA Backspin, who published his Intriguing 100 last week, and those are women's tennis only!

    I ran across this press release with the news that 15-year-old Danielle Collins won a wild card tournament for the $25,000 Pro Circuit event in Lutz, Florida, which takes place the week of January 19. I was disappointed that Collins didn't play in the Eddie Herr or Orange Bowl last month, but this result shows she's as competitive as anyone in the state her age.

    In second round action in the ATP tournament in Chennai India, two-time NCAA champion Somdev Devvarman caused quite a commotion when he beat No. 6 seed and former world No. 1 Carlos Moya of Spain 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. Already receiving plenty of attention due to his status as India's No. 1 ranked man, the accolades were quick to begin pouring out of the Indian press. This one from the Hindustan Times, which gives Devvarman the nickname AweSom, is a bit over the top; for a more conventional newspaper account, see this article from rediff.com.

    And finally, Nick Bollettieri's blog Nick's Picks, reported yesterday that the Harrison brothers had signed an endorsement deal with Nike.
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Eight Intriguing Questions; Collins Wins Futures Wild Card; Devvarman Beats Moya; Harrisons Sign with Nike


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Winter Nationals Report, Photos; ATP Chennai Open Has Virginia Connection

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    Julie Wrege of The Tennis Recruiting Network was in Scottsdale Arizona for the 16s and 18s finals and filed this report on the four matches today. There is also a featured photos album for the Winter Nationals here.

    The 2009 professional tennis tours kick off Monday in Auckland New Zealand, Brisbane Australia (where Bernard Tomic has a wild card), in Doha Qatar (where Nadal, Federer, Murray and Roddick are competing), and in Chennai India (where two-time NCAA champion Somdev Devvarman has been given a wild card to compete in his hometown event).

    Indian tennis has been regularly in the news the past few weeks, but not just to congratulate Yuki Bhambri on his Orange Bowl victory and rise to the No. 2 spot in the ITF junior world rankings. The Indian government has adopted a new policy that allows only those holding passports from India to represent the country, which means that U.S. passport holders Sunitha Rao and Shikha Uberoi won't be on India's Fed Cup team, and Prakash Amritraj, who grew up in Southern California, isn't eligible for future Davis Cup ties.

    That decision and the lead up to the Chennai Open has produced quite a few stories on the state of Indian tennis. In this interview with Leander Paes, Devvarman is touted as the country's next star, and in this article, Devvarman talks about his training with Andy Roddick.

    In an interesting matchup of junior vs. college tennis in today's first round of Chennai qualifying, wild card Sanam Singh, a sophomore at the University of Virginia, defeated Bhambri 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. For complete results, visit the ATP's Chennai Open page.

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December Aces; Fowler Reaches Semifinals at Casablanca Cup

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    As promised, my December Aces photos and captions are up today at The Tennis Recruiting Network. December is always a huge month due to the Eddie Herr and the Orange Bowls, and last month was no exception, with 18 players featured.

    Today at the Grade A Casablanca Cup in Mexico, top seed Denis Kudla was upset by qualifier Agustin Velotti of Argentina 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. Velotti played No. 1 for Argentina in September's Junior Davis Cup final and was beaten by Kudla 6-3, 6-4, clinching the Cup for the U.S. No. 2 seed Harry Fowler advanced to the semifinals however, downing unseeded Italian wild card Matteo Civarolo 6-3, 6-3. Fowler will meet No. 3 seed and Eddie Herr finalist Julen Uriguen of Guatemala, while Velotti plays No. 8 seed Arthur De Greef of Belgium. Kudla and partner Nathan Pasha reached the doubles final, and will play Tamas Batyi of Hungary and Gaetan Lovinfosse of Belgium.

    The two remaining U.S. girls were eliminated in the third round yesterday, and today Florida's Alexandra Cercone and her partner Katarena Paliivets of Canada lost in the doubles semfinals.

    For complete results, see the Copa Casablanca website.
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December Aces; Fowler Reaches Semifinals at Casablanca Cup


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Junior Orange Bowl Wrap and Slide Show

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    Due to the holidays and my travel, my weekly column for The Tennis Recruiting Network hasn't been in its customary Thursday spot consistently, with today's Junior Orange Bowl wrap just one instance of some of the shifting necessary the past two months. January should put us back on the regular timetable, except for the first installment, which will be the December Aces, and will appear on Friday January 2.

    The Junior Orange Bowl slide show is below, and beneath that, the Animoto version, uploaded to YouTube. Due to bandwidth limitations in the hotels in Florida, I wasn't able to do videos of the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl, but I hope to upload some of the short videos I took of the Dunlop Orange Bowl finals in the next couple of weeks.




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Junior Orange Bowl Wrap and Slide Show


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Orange Bowl Wrap; Brodsky vs. McHale for Australian Open Wild Card; AO Junior Acceptances

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    My weekly column for The Tennis Recruiting Network is a wrap of the Orange Bowl. Again, if you were unable to follow my daily coverage last week, it is a compilation of the tournament action, with an emphasis on the finals.

    Christina McHale and Gail Brodsky will meet this morning in Boca Raton to decide the USTA's reciprocal agreement with Tennis Australia for a main draw women's wild card. Orange Bowl finalist McHale, 16, went undefeated in her three matches. Brodsky, 17, won her first two matches, so her loss to Muhammad in her group on Wednesday didn't have an impact on the final.

    The Australian Open Junior Championship acceptances are out at the ITF Junior site. McHale is in, so if she wins the wild card, I expect she'll stick around for the juniors. Brodsky doesn't appear to have entered the juniors, because her WTA ranking of 416 would have automatically gotten her into the junior qualifying, if she had.
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Orange Bowl Wrap; Brodsky vs. McHale for Australian Open Wild Card; AO Junior Acceptances


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