US College Signings 2017 (and general college tennis chat)

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

RE: US College Signings 2017 (and general college tennis chat)

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Western Athletic Conference Championships

Men:

QF

Chicago State bt Seattle 4-0

4. John Stormons (Seattle) led Rohan Wattley (Chicago St) 7-6(10), 2-0 susp

Dubs

3. Cody Wurzelbacher / Rohan Wattley (Chicago St) bt Trenton Nield / Adrian Sanabria (Seattle) 6-4

SF

New Mexico State bt Chicago State 4-0

4. Seri Epias (New Mexico St) bt Rohan Wattley (Chicago St) 6-3, 6-1

Dubs

3. Enrique Asmar / Sergi Epias (New Mexico St) led Cody Wurzelbacher / Rohan Wattley (Chicago St) 4-3 susp

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

So with all the conferences done and dusted, the teams are now set for the year end NCAA National Team Championships. It is a 64 team draw, the first 2 rounds taking place at sites around the country on 12-13 May before the 'Sweet 16' meet up in Georgia for the remainder of the event. 31 of the teams are there by virtue of being conference champions. The rest of the places are filled by the Ivy League school which finished at the top after their regular season (they don't have a knock out championship), the host school (Georgia) if they don't make it any other way, and NCAA 'at large' selections (usually from the 5 power conferences where the losing teams could be expected to wipe the floor with some of the smaller conference champions...)

So teams with Brits in

Women:

Conference Champions

William & Mary - Cecily Wuenscher

Long Island-Brooklyn - Jennifer Gogova

Furman - Katty Weymouth, Hannah Ferrett

Stanford - Emily Arbuthnott

Massachussetts - Anna Woosley

Texas Tech - Sabrina Federici

DePaul - Flo Abbot

Vanderbilt - Georgina Sellyn, Emily Smith

At Large Selections

Baylor - Jazzi Plews (went in January but hasn't made the team yet so probably won't play)

Duke - Rebecca Smaller

Auburn - Georgie Axon, Alannah Griffin

South Carolina - Brigit Folland

Men:

Conference Champions

Alabama State - Takura Mlambo

Rice - Jamie Malik, Tommy Bennet

Georgia State - Jack MacFarlane

Denver - Alex Gasson

San Diego - Josh Page

Texas Christian - Cameron Norrie (and Alistair Gray but he hasn't made the team yet)

Drake - Vinny Gillespie, Ben Stride, Calum MacGeoch, Tom Hands, Ben Clark, Barnaby Thorold, Ben Wood

North Carolina-Wilmington - Michael Morphy

At Large Selections

Michigan - Jathan Malik

South Carolina - Paul Jubb

Memphis - Shakheel Manji, Ryan Peniston, Matt Story, Andrew Watson

Wisconsin - Josef Dodridge

Washington - Piers Foley

Cornell - Rohan Sikka

Oklahoma State - Julian Cash

Southern Methodist - Samm Butler

-- Edited by The Optimist on Wednesday 3rd of May 2017 10:11:20 AM

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Added Chris E and Alexander P to the list on P1

Oakland2002 · All-time great

The NCAA must have some bizarre ritual for their at large selection process based on choosing institutions from the state of origin of their coffee vendor that morning beginning with W.

Otherwise I cannot understand how Washington (12-11) got selected when the team that beat them in the first round of the PAC 12 tournament Utah who have a better 17-10 record did not.

Anyone got any idea?

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

I always thought that they filled the at large places initially by pulling in the highest ranked teams not to have qualified from conference champs, Ivy League top team and host team and only once they'd used up all the ranked teams did they go to something random like coffee suppliers! I can't find anything on their website to back me up on this but it fits in this case as Wasnington are ranked and Utah is not. Bet Utah is feeling hard done by though. Bit like Harvard....thought they'd won the Ivy League then there was some weird count-back procedure which gave the NCAA place to Columbia instead and then Cornell got the at large place as they are ranked and Harvard is not.

indiana · Tennis legend

Harvard clearly hadn't got their sums right, nincompoops !

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Feel very sorry for Utah, beaten Washington twice, hammered Denver twice only really last in PAC 12 and then not to Arizona or Washington and to Ohio State, the other 3 losses very close 3-4 affairs. Washington also interesting beaten by the British boys at Drake 4-3

Spectator · All-time great

Harvard wasn't the sole winner of the Ivy League. It was a three-way tie with Columbia and Cornell, and the highest-ranked team made it in, which wound up being Columbia: www.gocolumbialions.com/ViewArticle.dbml

I tend to look twice at the schools which are both very strong academically and consistently strong in tennis - hence had been looking at the Ivy League race, which was clearly going to be quite close between Columbia and Cornell.

-- Edited by Spectator on Wednesday 3rd of May 2017 05:15:07 PM

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Ah...I saw somewhere some congratulations on Harvard winning - there's a Brit, Christopher Morrow on the team - and when they didn't show up in the draw I saw that Columbia had been substituted on 'count-back'. I hadn't realised that Columbia (and indeed Cornell) could also have been celebrating winning the league. They should just have a knock-out tournament like everyone else!!

Edit: actually your link suggests nothing like count-back.....simply the highest ranked of the three getting the automatic place.

-- Edited by The Optimist on Wednesday 3rd of May 2017 06:04:55 PM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Spectator wrote:
I tend to look twice at the schools which are both very strong academically and consistently strong in tennis - hence had been looking at the Ivy League race, which was clearly going to be quite close between Columbia and Cornell.

-- Edited by Spectator on Wednesday 3rd of May 2017 05:15:07 PM

So that would be Cal, Stanford, Universoity of Texas, UCLA, Vanderbiljt, Rice, Northwestern, Florida, Duke and Cal Poly then. Where the degree of academic excellence is matched by the althletic excellence.

I think Arizona States varsity team (and they may well get the chance as due to add a men's tennis team this year!!) would pick off the Ivy league admittedly there are one or two players across the whole league who are decent. Just because schools aren't in the North East it doesn't mean they aren't academically better, equal or close and on top of that vastly superior in terms of their athletic teams. They recruit to win the NCAA not slip in to the tournament through the back door.

Not meaning to be too aggressive here but if you look at the above institutions they have to name a few minor achievements split the atom (Cal), cured a couple of cancers, continue to lead the world of Oncology in many fields (Texas) and developed the home computer, most powerful search engine in the world, pioneered cell sorting, and all sorts of nonsense related to particle physics as a result of playing with one of only two linear accelerators world wide (Stanford)....... what is very interesting is that the UK to a certain extent delivered a lot of the intellectual property that facilitate many of these break throughs

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Thursday 4th of May 2017 05:39:04 AM

Spectator · All-time great

Indeed, Oakland, there are many universities that are centres of excellence. And those like you who have followed this thread for some time will be aware that I have commented on players from Stanford, Texas, Northwestern, (and others). And, for what it's worth, in the UK, it's why I also follow the university tennis here, though with the exception of Colin Fleming and Mark Whitehouse, that rarely leads to following someone on the professional tour. But the question under discussion in this instance happened to be the Ivy League title, hence my failure to mention any others.

-- Edited by Spectator on Thursday 4th of May 2017 05:31:41 AM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Fair point you have mentioned other institutions. I do think the Ivy League gets many more mentions than it deserves, honestly in the US from a sporting perspective it might just as well not exist. You get the occasional Jeremy Linn moment and that's it.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

The selections are out for the individual singles and doubles NCAA year end championships which follow on from the team event on 24-29 May. The highest ranked player from each individual conference (assuming they actually have any ranked players) gets in as an automatic selection. The rest of the slots ('At Large' selections) are filled going down the rankings pulling in any which have not been the automatic selection.

Women

No singles selections

Dubs

Automatic:

Emily Smith - Vanderbilt

At Large:

Sabrina Federici - Texas Tech

Emily Arbuthnott - Stanford

Men

Singles

Automatic:

Jack Findel-Hawkins - North Florida

Cameron Norrie - Texas Christian

At Large:

Julian Cash- Oklahoma State

Alternate #8: Jathan Malik - Michigan

Dubs

Automatic:

Jack Findel-Hawkins - North Florida

Tommy Bennett - Rice

Julian Cash - Oklahoma State

Alternate #1: Jathan Malik - Michigan

-- Edited by The Optimist on Thursday 4th of May 2017 09:19:51 AM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

"O" Do you understand what the averages are by which the players are ranked.

There are massive drop offs in the top 10 ie.Norrie 69.21 andTorpegaard 67.4 to Borges at 57.98 and the again
Borge to Chrysochos 53.93

Redlicki at 10 being 40.94.

Once you get past 20 it really flattens out. I presume they have all been beating each other fairly regularly
Rybakov at 20, 26.20.
Andrew Harris at 30 21.0