US College Signings 2018 (and general college chat)

Oakland2002 · All-time great

US College Signings 2018 (and general college chat)

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Aswin makes short work of Schretter giving up only 2 games! 2 from 2 so far. Marcus in warm up.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

2 out of 3 possible singles wins today in the 2nd round Marcus going down 6-4 6-4. Emily and Michaela on court in the 2nd round of the doubles.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

GB still active in every possible event they could be given the initial entries.
Emily Arbuthnott faces Canadian Marie Leduc JCH 130 WTA CH 661 of Clemson in the R16 singles
Aswin Lizen also sauntered through to the last 16 and now plays the cream of French college Tennis #19 nationally Thomas Laurent of Oregan (he is also still in the doubles)
Emily Arbuthnott/Micheala Gordon into the QF of doubles beating the UCLA pair that knocked out Sabrina on a championship tie break
Josef Dodridge who is half badger marched on in the mens doubles with a straight sets win.

Sabrina + into QF of consolation doubles
Ewan got a walk over in mens consolation singles
Alex Sendegeye + through to QF of mens consolation doubles

Spectator · All-time great

Lots of good news, Oakland! Thank you.

Continue to be struck by the Dodridge/Carranza wins. As with prior tournaments, they are not just winning through weak draws but are consistently beating the strongest teams, and often doing so quite straightforwardly: Poullain, I suspect, is going to give Laurent a run for his money in the French 'cream of the crop' awards.

Good luck to all in their assorted next rounds.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Re Poullain v Laurent hopefully we wont find out as Laurent will loose in the next round: But a good big un usually beats a good small un all things being equal. Laurent is a good height for tennis.

Apologises to Henry Patten who won the first round of the consolation singles and now takes on Ewen in the second round.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Friday 3rd of November 2017 03:24:03 PM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Emily looses first set 6-1, Aswin needs to break serve to stay in the first 5-4 down against Thomas Laurent

Oakland2002 · All-time great

No more singles interest as both Emily and Aswin go out 6-1 6-2 and 6-4 6-2 respectively. Emily along with Josef still alive in his he main draw doubles later.

Henry and Ewan warming up.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Friday 3rd of November 2017 05:34:39 PM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Henry beat Ewan 6-4 6-2. Unfortunately Henry then lost to Alex Knight of Michigan in straight sets 6-2 6-3.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Good news the GB interest continues in the doubles, both Emily and Josef make the semis.

Emily and Micheala went to the wire, managing to take the second detonate tie break then winning the championship tie break.The no 3 seeded Duke team await them in the final.

In contrast Josef and partner (Mr Carranza) again cruised through 6-2 6-3, consistent with Spectators observation that although unseeded they are more than a match for most of the top pairs here.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 4th of November 2017 01:14:00 AM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Josef Dodridge and his partner Carranza now play Texas University pair and #8 pair Rodrigo Banzer and Leonardo Telles both juniors who beat the number 1 seeds Ingildsen and Perez from Florida 6-2 6-1.

I have a certain sympathy for the no 1 seeded Florida pair who were also in the singles draw. Given the compact nature of the tournament an unofficial handicap system exists that penalises the pairs who are made up of strong singles players. Perez managed to win his round of 32 main draw game against the number 7 seed before loosing to the number 3 seed, Ingildsen was similarly engaged in the consolation draw final surrending to a nationally ranked player in three sets after starting the day off with a win. In contrast Rodrigo Telles who had won his very strong regional so a good player, drew the No 1 seed in the main draw and got knocked out also loosing his consolation singles first round match is as fresh as a daisy for the doubles and by the time the Florida pair came to the doubles QF their third game of the day they must have been cream crackered!

Why have the badger boys done so well? When you look a little deeper I think it is just because they are good! a skewed ranking system doesnt make it particularly obvious.

Josef and Chema are both seniors and strong singles players and have played a lot of doubles together. Josef has played the vast majority of his tennis at the No1 slot for Wisconsin and won significantly more than he has lost, in the Big 10 it is quite easy to go under the radar as a singles player. Wisconsin play in the Big 10 which is a strong conference dominated by Ohio State but definitely doesnt have the depth of the SEC or in my opinion the ACC, PAC12 or even Big 12 which means conference play does not expose you to as many highly ranked opponents to beat and get your ranking up. This means you have to qualify for and beat seeds in the college majors and to get through the regionals as a singles player means beating some very heavy hitters locally right at the top of the national ranking, and because of a suppressed rank due to limit in conference opportunity the at large selections are not going to come your way. All said and done you can have an excellent college career outside the SEC which picks up half the berths in national tournaments and nobody notices outside of region.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 4th of November 2017 08:56:01 AM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Just a reminder that Josef is WR 1414 in doubles, having made the semis of the 25k in Dublin (with O'Hoisin), beating a well ranked French pair, and only losing out narrowly in the semis to Glasspool and Bothwell.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Emily Arbuthnott (So) JCH 30 ATPCH 552 and Micheala Gordon (Fr) JCH 21 ATPCH 478 (Ranked no 2 Fr nationally) take on Dukes Samantha Harris JCH 278 ATPCH 771 an Australian senior who is still in the singles and freshman Kelly Chen (Ranked no 4 Fr nationally) JCH 75 ATPCH 647.

On pedigree it looks a fairly even match both pairings being new this year and involving a very highly ranked freshman, lets hope Samantha gets a tough work out in the singles!! 10:30 for singles back on at 13:30! for the doubles ouch!

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 4th of November 2017 10:58:02 AM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Congratulations to Emily and Michaela who win in straight sets and will play the Old Miss pair tomorrow for a national tittle.

Josef is into a champions tie break having fought back to win the 2nd set

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Victorious in one out of two semis, unfortunately Josef Dodridge and his Spanish partner Chema Carranza lost out 10-12 in the championship tie break so the end of a great run for the Midwest regional champions.

So its PAC 12 v SEC in the womens doubles finals Emily and Michaela now take on the 3 seeds Old Miss pair Dutch senior Arianne Hartono and Alexa Bortles the later a mediocre athlete in a well known Georgia and then Ol Miss sporting family. Harsh and a bit like the quote about Steve Waugh the Australian test cricket captain who one commentator suggested was the best all rounder in the world only to be told by his colleague that he wasnt even the best in his own family.

Alexa now a sophomore had won a 10k doubles tittle before college and has a decent futures doubles record although no senior rank. Arianne has two futures doubles tittle.

Alexas 6ft 5inc cousin(s) Colby Bortles has just left ol Miss where he was a star of the baseball team the 10th best ever in terms of runs batted in and has been drafted to the Detroit Tigers (major league baseball). A minor achievement as her older cousin Blake also 6 ft 5 has been the Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback for the last 3 years. He is a victim of the draft system which sounds fair for the franchises but can be a tough gig for elite college quarterbacks. unfortunately the Jags have been one of the weaker franchises and they spent the number 3 draft pick on him. High draft picks go on elite quarter backs or elite offensive linemen to protect them. Bortles took a record 55 sacks in year 1, 51 in year two despite good offensive stats in a loosing team. Having been beaten up for 3 years he is probably hoping he gets dropped and released so he can be picked up by a better team with an offensive line! All this could have been avoided with the help of his dad who was a wrestler!

At the very least one would expect Alexa to have a fairly weighty serve with a good arm being a pre requisite for bein a Bortles.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Sunday 5th of November 2017 06:11:35 AM