US College Signings 2016 (and general college tennis chat)

Kenneth · Lower Club Player

RE: US College Signings 2016 (and general college tennis chat)

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

paulisi wrote:
I'm interested to understand why matches aren't completed. Is it to do with the status of the overall match?

I also looked at player positions on teams. Is this based on college rankings and how often do they change? I'm surprised that Andrew Watson is down at 5, when he is one of our better prospects.

Andrew played at 1 - typo on my part. Team positions decided by coach but they have to be in strength order based on recent results or opposing coaches can challenge results and have them voided (hence the universal rating's popularity as a means of justifying current playing standard). Basically you're not allowed to sacrifice weak players at the top of the order in order for your big guns to get wins lower down. Same as UK team tennis really where teams have to play in ratings order.

Last year the rules for the men were that matches had to stop once one team had 4 rubbers (all dubs counting for 1 rubber). Women played out the matches to a conclusion, although usually substituting a third set TB for a full third set for any matches still going once the tie had been decided. Not sure what the rules are this year but clinch-clinch, as they called it, was hugely unpopular with most of the male players last year, although some coaches were in favour of it. It was introduced to in some way improve the sport's popularity with spectators and open the doors to some TV coverage. Haven't seen any feedback on this.

in this type of competition where several teams will be playing each other in one day at any one venue it's always been that matches stop once the overall tie has been decided - just for logistical reasons.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

The final women's kickoff results

Miami Box

#80 Wendy Zhang, Miami (WTA UNR CH 808) bt Alannah Griffin, Auburn (WTA UNR JCH 271) 6-3, 6-1 - played at psn 4

Oklahoma State Box

#64 Victoria Lushkova, Oklahoma State (WTA UNR CH 1061) led Alicia Barnett, Northwestern (WTA UNR CH 1042) 7-6(5), 2-2 susp - played at 3

Vanderbilt Box

Jacqueline Zuhse, Penn State (WTA UNR JCH 485) bt Charlotte Derbyshire, Denver (WTA UNR) 6-4, 6-3 - played at 4

Georgina Sellyn, Vanderbilt (WTA UNR JCH 94) led Katie Ta, Denver (WTA UNR) 7-6, 2-2 susp - played at 4

Georgina Sellyn, Vanderbilt (WTA UNR JCH 94) bt Charlotte Derbyshire, Denver (WTA UNR) 6-2, 6-1 - played at 4

Texas Tech Box

Sabrina Federici, Texas Tech (WTA UNR JCH 503) led Daniela Pedraza-Novak, Illinois (WTA UNR JCH 251) 6-2, 5-4 - played at 5

Georgia Tech Box

Alexis Prokopuik, Georgia Tech (WTA UNR JCH 165) bt Ella Taylor, Louisiana State (WTA UNR JCH 467) 6-3, 6-2 - played at 6

Ella Taylor, Louisiana State (WTA UNR JCH 467) bt Jarret Fisher, DePaul (WTA UNR JCH 1832)

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Towards the end of last year's thread, someone asked what had happened to Georgina Sellyn. As you can see above, she is back playing for Vanderbilt. She missed a year of competition due initially to an ankle injury which required surgery and then upon her return, a wrist injury, also requiring surgery. Rotten luck!! She had a fairly sparkling career as Vanderbilt's #1 before this, so hope she gets back to her former standard.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

UniversalTennis wrote:
The Optimist wrote:
The reason I am putting in so much detail about junior career highs, professional rankings and where players are in the line up is so that those with kids thinking of this route can see how players they may know fit in to college tennis and thus get an idea of standard.

Alternately, you could list the Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) which includes results from ATP/WTA, ITF (including the junior circuit), U.S. college, and top LTA junior tournaments, as well as junior results from other tennis federations.

Well, for starters I would have to pay a subscription to access sufficiently meaningful information!! . Additionally, although used extensively in college tennis, the UTR is not general currency for UK players and parents, so seeing where a player they know is in the line up and the kind of opposition they are facing gives them more of a feel for things.

Spectator · All-time great

The Tennis Recruiting Network has released its list of top recruiting classes for men and women thus far. Only one GB player is involved - Ms Arbuthnott, given as one of the reasons why Stanford is ranked second in terms of its incoming class.

Interestingly, for the men, California schools (USC, California, Stanford and Santa Clara - I think) take up 4 places in the top 20; Georgia, Duke, Penn State, Vanderbilt, and South Florida represent the South/East Coast ... but Virginia, which has had such depth for so long isn't represented ... perhaps because it's so strong that people feel they wouldn't get to play? Illinois, Notre Dame and Texas A&M represent the non-coastal segment (again, are some of the traditional powers missing because there's just so much depth already?) And the Ivy League (Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Penn, Dartmouth and Brown) make up the single largest bloc in the group.

To an outside and not very expert eye, the players who, on the basis of accomplishments thus far (ie, I've actually heard of them), are most likely to be professionals in the long term are bunched in the top 2 schools (Georgia and USC). But it's an interesting distribution.

For the women, the top 20 distribution is quite different. The Southeast dominates (LSU, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Florida, Wake Forest (?), Florida State, Auburn (I think it's in the South ... as with Wake Forest, harder as no geographical indicator!), and North Carolina State). Then the West Coast (Stanford, UCLA, Washington and California). Then the Ivy League (Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard) and the Midwest (Purdue - I think - Notre Dame and Michigan).

Again, the bulk of the players I've heard of are in the top three schools, though Ingrid Neel (Florida) is also very strong. Indeed, she and Raveena Kingsley (a reason why LSU is ranked first) are so strong that one wonders whether they'll actually attend.

-- Edited by Spectator on Tuesday 2nd of February 2016 05:53:36 AM

steven · Tennis legend

Spectator wrote:
For the women, the top 20 distribution is quite different. The Southeast dominates (LSU, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Florida, Wake Forest (?), Florida State, Auburn (I think it's in the South ... as with Wake Forest, harder as no geographical indicator!), and North Carolina State). Then the West Coast (Stanford, UCLA, Washington and California). Then the Ivy League (Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard) and the Midwest (Purdue - I think - Notre Dame and Michigan).

Wake Forest and Auburn are indeed in the southeast - the former in North Carolina (in fact, the Winston-Salem ATP event is held there), the latter in Alabama.

Spectator · All-time great

Thanks, Steven. I should have guessed you would be a fount of wisdom on this, as on so many things!

One interesting point that I hadn't realised until today. People have spoken on this board about the strength of some of the regional groupings of teams. But what I hadn't realised was the extent to which the strongest teams may go outside their groupings. So, for example, I looked at Columbia, which is the highest-ranked of the Ivy League schools, and at the latest university rankings. Columbia's schedule includes not only its Ivy peers (of which four are ranked #33, #34, #42, #47), but also Stanford (#17), Minnesota (#22), the National Team Championships (which it qualified for by beating both Minnesota and Stanford), Vanderbilt (#28), North Florida (#71), Texas (#26), TCU (#3), and SMU (#49). Its players, therefore, get quite a wide exposure. Interesting.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

One reason Spectator that some traditionally strong teams don't feature in the top recruitment class lists is that maybe they are not recruiting this year. For a variety of reasons, teams don't end up with an even spread of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors so some years they may need to recruit several players and then none in other years.

Spectator · All-time great

Ah, thank you Optimist. I'd worked out that you might not want to go somewhere where you'd always be behind other players, but didn't realise that the universities themselves sometimes didn't recruit. That makes sense.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

The 4 Californian schools you quote represents the academic and socioeconomic spectrum of US College programmes but, interesting to see three Bay Area schools no more than 20 miles apart recruit so well on the men's side. Stanford and Santa Clara, both private, are almost next door to each other, one totally unyielding on academic criteria, will kick out anyone who is not fulfilling academic responsibilities, the latter more of a party school. Cal, state school, cheaper for Californians, very good academically but some of the athletes (again sample size n=1, ref comment re Santa Cruise bronchos parties) very heavily tutored, harder to get kicked out, hence have a decent basketball team.

I wonder whether the strength of recruiting reflects the local coaching support of the NorCal USTA. The relationship between college tennis and the indigenous tennis association quite rightly being very different to the LTAs. On the men's side I see no problem with very good players being one and done as in basketball. Over the three schools you could recruit from almost all sectors of society (even pick out the odd bright boy from Compton, but they don't play tennis) ie realistically trawl the whole of the US for kids who have had the resources to play tennis.

Ladies less value in being one and done as for good players it will just shorten their professional career which anecdotally appear shorter than on the men's side anyway. The recruiting is more spread around the SEC schools with massive football teams and lots of money they have to spend on ladies sports, therefore fabulous facilities and resources to hire coaches and fund scholarships.

Great to hear Universal Tennis have given the Optimist a free subscription to keep us all updated with the invaluable Universal Tennis rankings.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 3rd of February 2016 07:20:24 AM

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 3rd of February 2016 07:21:54 AM

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 3rd of February 2016 07:22:36 AM

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Oakland2002 wrote:

Great to hear Universal Tennis have given the Optimist a free subscription to keep us all updated with the invaluable Universal Tennis rankings.

Not as far as I'm aware they haven't!!!!!

Seriously though, whatever your opinion of it, the UTR has become quite widely used in college tennis over the last couple of years and so certainly has validity for this thread. I think its popularity is that for college players (whose results in the UTR system are complete and up-to-date) it really is a reasonable indicator of current form, obviously less so for those outside of the college system.

paulisi · Tennis legend

I was wondering what had happened to Aswin Lizen and it seems he has decided US college is the route for him - even though he is a little older than most. Signed up for Virginia.

I didn't realise he was another Isle of Man protégé.

BradMarx90 · County player

paulisi wrote:
I was wondering what had happened to Aswin Lizen and it seems he has decided US college is the route for him - even though he is a little older than most. Signed up for Virginia.

I didn't realise he was another Isle of Man protégé.

Article for those of you interested: http://www.virginiasports.com/sports/m-tennis/spec-rel/020316aac.html

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I don't really know the rules for US college tennis but I though the amateur status bit was really important.

As Aswin has played so many ITFs already (and presumably taken the cheques), how is he still eligible?

(Or would it come under the blanket expenses amount, even if not treated as expenses at the time)?

Anyway, best of luck to him - how will young Feler (his perpetual doubles partner) get on now?