US College Signings 2017 (and general college tennis chat)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

US College Signings 2017 (and general college tennis chat)

skibbarriz · Strong Club Player

And if the USTA was free to wildcard the whole draw, it'd be a lot higher than that .

Oakland2002 · All-time great

So 7/25 were wildcards

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

It's a fair point but 7/25 is not huge.
And they can give wildcards to whoever they like, it's not like they're designated college wildcards, so it's saying that their best choices for wildcards are in the college pack.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I don't know the USTA have invested massively in building college tennis as a stepping "the cornerstone" stone to the main tour, the new USTA training base in central Florida will have a University based there UCF ( head coach John Roddick brother of a certain Andy). Definite agenda to big up college tennis!

15 have been out of college for 3 years or more so at or close to their prime (one or two stepped out early as juniors/sophomores) so mostly stalled at the challenger level and these were the very best of college tennis.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Hope OK to post here - Trying to understand the UTR ranking system - have read their blurb, but since the algorithm changed it seems impossible for any 18U boy player who only plays tournaments in GB (due to schooling or finances etc) to get a UTR of 13. Yet many of the college coaches will only look at players with a minimum UTR of 13. A few coaches are really switched on and realise there's a discrepancy between the new UTR ranking and actual level of play for these players, but these coaches are in the minority. Seems to make it harder for Brits to get the big colleges interested in them.... Any thoughts?

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Saturday 16th of September 2017 08:56:35 AM

Shhh · Challenger level

I do not have a clue Elegant, welcome to the board though and I am someone on here can help?

indiana · Tennis legend

Welcome Elegant.

It's a little while since I've looked at UTR and although I had intended to greater understand how ratings were arrived at I never did.

In principle an objective ratings system comparing all against each other has seemed to me a good idea especially in helping colleges assess players from all backgrounds and nationalities and the more results that were fed in the better.

But if there are indeed some fundamental flaws, as you point to, much of that is undermined. Though I am very unclear as to what they might be, how a UTR rating of 13 may be some upper limit. Do you more mean by lack of opportunity to play higher rated players and push up a rating, though is there not still opportunity to do that within the UK?

I don't know if anyone has a lot more understanding of the ratings and / or further thoughts. The Optimist is the college 'go to' around here. Oakland too, though I think never a fan of UTR.

All the best.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 16th of September 2017 07:34:47 PM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Daneika Borthwick has just had some success along with a number of other Brits in a 25k in Reading, not Berks Uk which is a bit closer to civilisation but deepest darkest Northern California, really Northern California! I have just added some of a recent post in that thread to this as Daneika is pushing on on a number of fronts more relevant to college tennis as well as having this playing success.

Daneika while at college peaked at top 9 nationally in doubles, 31 in singles and played all 4 years at no 1 for Florida State!, a team captain for 3 out of 4, that is some college career at a college that takes athletics very seriously and plays in a top conference, so good quality opposition week in week out which would also include out of conference SEC match ups.

From a coaching perspective she has really moved on from relatively low profile Ivy League where the majority of athletes are genuine STUDENT/athletes back to ACC with Wake Forest where it is much much more student/ATHLETE. Not to belittle Columbia as there is a fascinating link in that Jeff Wysher is a Columbia post grad, he went some where decent first and is someone fascinated by coaching sport initially across a number of sports as a teacher and then growing a programme at Akron in the MAC before spending the last 7 years rebuilding Wake Forest with year on year top 25 recruiting classes, gradually developing a winning record in the ACC and now a presence in the NCAA team tournament.

Obviously extremely exciting for Daneika in that she has moved to a programme that has such dynamic leadership and one in which she should be a perfect fit in to help grow into a national power. Me feels she may well be doing some (lots of) hitting and plenty of doubles coaching!

I don't see this as a lucky little run having fallen on her feet with a decent partner but a product of what has been a very focused path into evolving from one of the best British female college players of the last decade (definitely her generation) into the best player/coach she can be. It is great to see someone being so proactive in developing her career in this way. Plenty to learn next year and congratulations to her on putting herself in a position to learn it

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Hi, thanks for posting. For the reasons you have mentioned I am not a fan of the UTR which personally I feel is a commercial statistical project designed to make money out of parents trying to get their kids into college and there is a certain amount of collusion around that, some overt, some covert because of the money to be made coaching and placing youngsters.

paulisi · Tennis legend

It looks like Ali Gray has had a big week
JTC have posted the following

Congratulations @aligray226 on winning Hall of Fame ITA, earns MD WC into ATP Newport 2018

steven · Tennis legend

paulisi wrote:
It looks like Ali Gray has had a big week
JTC have posted the following

Congratulations @aligray226 on winning Hall of Fame ITA, earns MD WC into ATP Newport 2018

Been trying to check this out. The tournament draw page at http://res.cloudinary.com/ithf/image/upload/v1505439371/Combined_Draws.pdf is incredibly confusing (I think the draws were tiered, but the first draw on the list clearly wasn't the top tier!) and hasn't been updated yet but the report at http://bit.ly/2017itag confirms that Ali did win and will get a main draw wild card for next year's Newport ATP event, beating top seed Alex Rybakov (ATP 600) in the final

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Have started a new college thread for this year now - easier to keep updated with the new names - so best to consider this one closed now and post in the new one.