US College Signings

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

US College Signings

indiana · Tennis legend

Would be good if a significant number of that ( to me ) surprisingly big number of students join the tour when they graduate.

Would be good to spice up the GB top 25, particularly the wouldn't side.

indiana · Tennis legend

Or even the women's side !

My mistyping and predictive text is a lethal combination.

Spectator · All-time great

While it's conceivable that some may try a pro career, the vast majority of the players seem to have gone to fairly minor programmes, which doesn't suggest that they were, at time of departure, at a level which would make a tennis career a reality. As noted earlier in this thread, only two or three of the men/women seem to have done well enough at university to suggest that they might go further. The other potential person might be Jonathan Cornish. If he's good enough to be on the team at Virginia, he must be quite good. The fact that he isn't nationally ranked may (or may not - I'm just thinking hypothetically, without any real underlying information) be related to the fact that the Virginia team (currently ranked number one nationally) is so strong that he can't get much playing time. But time spent practicing with the best - de facto all of their main roster could happily play in futures - presumably can't hurt.

PaulM · Tennis legend

If you can't get a good college ranking zero point trying to make it on tour unless you have the money and just want to do it for a bit of experience/fun

College is a safe place to find out you're not good to make a living out of professional tennis

Spectator · All-time great

Agreed in general - but still think there might be a special case on one or two teams. If you look at Virginia's team and add in its recruits for next year, fundamentally its top ten players could have a go at playing futures right now. They can't all play singles regularly for the team, hence aren't all going to have rankings. It's therefore perfectly possible that you could have a Virginia player with no national ranking, but who was in fact capable of playing professionally, at least at a futures level ... and who would have had a ranking if playing (say) first singles on a lesser team.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

This time of year the ITA (they run college tennis) announce 12 regional awards for the senior (final year) players who have improved most during their time in college tennis. Joe Salisbury of Memphis has the award for his region, Ohio Valley and Daniel Cochrane of Auburn has the Southern region award.

-- Edited by The Optimist on Wednesday 14th of May 2014 09:30:47 AM

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

It's true that not all college tennis is of anything like equal standing, some conferences (leagues) being rammed with ranked teams and others having 2 or 3 if any. Most players regularly making the line-up in the top ranked teams are a good 10k / futures level if not better, the top 2 maybe 3 players in a lower ranked team often the same. Once you get down to unranked teams, there will just be the odd futures standard player here or there.

At the start of each academic year I believe the team and player rankings are decided by a committee. Thereafter, players and teams get ranking points each time they win - a win over an unranked player / team earning nominal points, a win over a ranked opponent earning points according to how high that opponent is ranked. If the beaten opponent then goes up during the season, the points for that win go up too, but if they go down so do the points.

Spectator · All-time great

This doesn't directly involve any GB players, but I came across it and thought it was a rather interesting article: online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303851804579558293617879938

The opportunity to combine first-rate tennis and first-rate academics (and a wee bit of mentoring from Mario Ancic on the side) must be rather an attractive model, if you have the potential to take it up.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thanks, Spectator. Interesting.

I'm sure there's a local newspaper article for practically all the kids who've been accepted but here's one out yesterday for Peter O'Donovan

www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/11208678.Horwich_tennis_sensation_wins_place_at_Las_Vegas_university/

philwrig · Hall of fame

I'll add one, Ryan Penniston is going to Memphis in September, spoke to him last week and was very positive about the prospect.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Ryan P is already on my list of those going this year - see 1st page. He's picked a strong program going to Memphis, although they are losing several members of their team this year.

Spectator · All-time great

Yes, generally the strongest players seem (surprise, surprise) to be going to the strongest programmes - the exception being Jamie Malik. Rice isn't nationally ranked. On the other hand, it is Division 1; it's one of the best universities in the US; and he'll evidently (as per an article on their website) be joining someone else from his school who has done very well this year: www.riceowls.com/sports/m-tennis/spec-rel/042314aaa.html. So there's a real chance to form a combination that raises the team up the rankings ... and to get a first-class education. Wise choice.

On the subject of combining a fine education and tennis, it would appear that Tom Colautti made the the second All-Ivy League men's tennis team. www.goprincetontigers.com/ViewArticle.dbml.

I was intrigued, Optimist, to hear how the ITA rankings work. Presumably that's going to favour strong teams in strong conferences, as they'll have more of a chance to play other ranked teams ... whereas if you were a strong team in a weak conference, it would be harder to pick up points. Or have I misunderstood?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I also saw lots of lovely photos of Daniela Borthwick being hugged and thrown about by her teammates as she won a key match in Florida's 4-3 victory in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen( have I got that right?).

(From The Opti's post, I understood the ITA ranking the same way, Spectator. It's also basically the way the French system works, for all rankings, but they get adjusted twice during the year, to take account of any 'mistakes' i.e. any vastly under- or over-ranked players - the team can't be put in a new division, of course, but the individual points for wins and losses will be against the new ranking).

Spectator · All-time great

And Ms Borthwick is apparently going to the individual, as well as the team, championships: www.seminoles.com/sports/w-tennis/spec-rel/050514aaa.html ... the first from her team since Ms Slater.