US College Signings 2019 (and general college chat)

Kenneth · Lower Club Player

RE: US College Signings 2019 (and general college chat)

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Oakland2002 wrote:
Helen40 wrote:
I don't know much about the US college scheme, so could someone enlighten me on how the higher/lower ranking colleges work. I've been following Ethene Dowling who got a scholarship to some lower college, but does this mean that she is not of the calibre to 'make it' like the ones at higher colleges, or is it just a choice?
Really unless you are playing in and going deep in the NCAA tournament which is the best of college tennis and probably ranges from a 25K futures to early rounds of challengers in quality you are very unlikely to be able to transition to the professional game as a singles player. Even those that specialise in doubles will have had at least the same levels of doubles success, usually singles also. The Bryans won the doubles, one was also singles champion, their parents wouldnt let them play each other.
All most exclusively the players playing at that level come from the powerhouse programmes (top 25) who are almost exclusively in the power conferences, SEC, PAC 12, ACC, Big 12, Big 10 each with 10-12 teams in. I would say 2-5 players per year have a sniff of making it, usually they have been top 20 juniors also.
Most SEC teams are strong but in the other conferences there are 3-5 colleges that have a great rep for tennis, the conferences are primarily formed for football but are also aligned for most other sports. To put in perspective for football 85 scholarships can be awarded men's tennis 4.5 womens 8! So really you are talking 30 strong programmes where you would have to dominate in the number 1 slot (6 players in a team) and there are about 250 Div 1 male programmes and over 300 female. Lots of potential scholarships for players who aren't at a level where professional tennis is an option however a free degree from an Ivy League college, Vanderbilt, Rice, Stanford, UCLA, Cal, Florida, Texas, North Western etc.... are not to be sniffed at and you would get to train and play almost as a professional in superb facilities for 4 years.
Div 2 colleges are more restricted on the number of scholarships they offer, Div 3 dont offer scholarships for sport eg. MIT, interestingly twinned with our best College Sports University, Loughborough for research in sports related subjects.

Thanks, she's at Oklahoma Baptist, which I think is in div 2? But I think she's there for religious reasons, so am not sure how that would reflect on her tennis.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I see the NCAA champion goes marching on at the Ilkley Challenger, Paul had a great summer last year putting in a long unbeaten string of consecutive futures wins in Eastern Europe. Great start to the summer so far

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Oakland2002 wrote:
I see the NCAA champion goes marching on at the Ilkley Challenger, Paul had a great summer last year putting in a long unbeaten string of consecutive futures wins in Eastern Europe. Great start to the summer so far

And a WC into Wimbledon announced today smile Best of luck to him!!

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Apologies for not really maintaining this thread this year - been a bit of a tricky time but things starting to look up. However, have finally updated the list of those going over this year (on P1). Many thanks to Elegant Point for highlighting many of the names earlier in the thread.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Title IX

Eastern Michigan has been forced to re-instate their womens tennis (and softball) teams to comply with Title IX. The judge ruled that financial hardship (E M cut 4 sports programs to save 2.4 million/year, but refused to cut its heavily subsidised football program) was not an excuse for the university to work around Title IX.

Title IX was created to increase the number of women in higher education(which I am fully supportive of), but it does seem antiquated and has had a major impact on college athletics, reducing overall sport at colleges and significantly impacting mens tennis. IMO offering 4.5 scholarships on the mens side to 8 on the womens (many of which allegedly remain unused each year) does not seem very equal. Maybe Title IX needs a rethink, or to have football (~ 70 scholarships/year) removed from the equation??

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Title IX was brought in because of the huge bias in sporting scholarships due to the large rosters of football and baseball so it would be nonsense to remove those from the equation. It was designed to force universities to invest in women's sport and to allow women an equal chance of a sporting scholarship. In poorer communities in the States this can be the difference between going to uni or not - everyone can get a student loan but the scale of the fees and other expenses to be repaid can be off the scale. It was never designed for parity within individual sports just parity across an entire athletics department.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Football does take a large share of the scholarships for men, but not entirely clear what I meant saying removing football scholarships from the equation hmm ; certainly not the loss of scholarships for women (women should have the same opportunities as men).

I was thinking along the lines of more autonomy for the universities equality of scholarships for men and women (in 2013 the NCAA had 10,173 womens teams and 8,905 mens teams) but if a uni wanted 6 scholarships for mens tennis and 1.5 less in other mens sports they could do that. I guess there is flexibility in that some schools are able to offer additional scholarship money to athletes.

EM only has 2 women on their tennis roster, neither of whom is local or even American. The head count for womens tennis is 8, so are 6 scholarships unused? If Title IX was less prescriptive EM could perhaps switch any unused scholarships to support a women's sport played at local schools and enroll players from the local community, if that was what they wanted to doInterestingly the law does not require equal expenditure for both sexes.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Thought it would be interesting to look at the results from the men's Summer Brit tours, to get a feel for how the college men are faring against the UK university men (and others) - the college men are generally at mid majors and are not seeded as few LTA points (and in some instances just scrape into the tier 2 main draws):

Brit Tours Quarter final, semis and final results summer 2019
Tier 1 (N Oxford)
Quarter Final
Lloyd v Toby Samuel
Andy Watson v Ben Jones (Bath)
Tom Hands (Drake) v Ryan P (Memphis)
Evan Hoyt v Johannus Monday
Final
Andy Watson v Tom Hands (Drake) 6-1 6-4
Tier 2
Quarter Final Results (Connaught)
David Stevenson((Memphis) def Joseph Newman-Billington (Loughborough) [1] 7-5 4-6 13-11
Lui Maxted def Louis Allen [3] 6-3 3-1 Retired

Alexander Jochim ( IUPUI) def William Cooke Wharton(Monmouth) 6-3 1-6 11-9
Charlie Miller def Yujiro Onuma 6-3 6-4
Semi-Final
David Stevenson(Memphis) def Lui Maxted 6-3 7-6(8)
Alexander Jochim (IUPUI) def Charlie Miller 6-0 7-5

Final
Alexander Jochim (IUPUI) def David Stevenson(Memphis) 5-7 6-2 11-9
Quarter Final (W Worthing)
Robert Leck [7] def Michael Shaw (Loughborough) [1] 6-4 7-5
Luke Quaynor def Mohamed Morsi 6-4 7-6(4)
Tom Hands (Drake) [3] def Alexander Zuckerman [8] 6-2 2-6 6-4
Joe Tyler (Iowa) def Ben Stride Walkover
Semi Final
Luke Quaynor def Robert Leck [7] 7-6(3) 6-2
Tom Hands (Drake) [3] def Joe Tyler (Iowa) (7)6-7 6-0 6-4
Quarter Final Results (Frinton)
Jamie Praditngam (Nottingham) [5] v Michael Shaw (Loughborough) [1] 7-6(3) 6-4
Tom Hands (Drake) [4] v Scott Macaulay 6-4 7-6(6)
Joseph Newman-Billington (Loughborough) [3] v Matthew Doe 6-1 6-2
Robert Carter [2] v Joe Leather 6-1 6-3
Semi Final
Tom Hands (Drake)[4] v Jamie Praditngam (Nottingham) [5] 3-1 Retired
Robert Carter [2] v Joseph Newman-Billington (Loughborough) [3] 6-4 7-5
Final
Tom Hands (Drake) [3] def Luke Quaynor 4-6 6-2 7-6(3)
Quarter Final Results (Felixstowe)
Michael Shaw (Loughborough) [1/1259] def James Wilkinson (Delaware) 7-6(4) 7-6(6)
Joe Tyler (Iowa) v James Mackinlay (Stirling)[4] 6-4 6-7(3) 6-4
Joseph Newman-Billington (Loughborough) [3] def George Foster (Loughborough) [5] 6-3 6-4
Adam Jones [6] def Tom Hands (Memphis) [2] 6-4 6-4

Semi-Final Results
Joe Tyler (Iowa) def Michael Shaw (Loughborough) [1/1259] 2-6 6-2 7-6(3)
Joseph Newman-Billington (Loughborough) [3] def Adam Jones [6] 6-4 6-3
Final
Joe Tyler (Iowa) v Joseph Newman-Billington (Loughborough) [3] 6-4 6-4

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

THis is interesting, Elegant Point. I always like to see how the college guys do over summer. Tx.

A lot of them seem to be playing the Progress Tour, too, maybe more even than the British Tour.

So, if you're following it all quite closely, you might want to factor those results in too.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Coup Droit wrote:
THis is interesting, Elegant Point. I always like to see how the college guys do over summer. Tx.

A lot of them seem to be playing the Progress Tour, too, maybe more even than the British Tour.

So, if you're following it all quite closely, you might want to factor those results in too.

Thanks CD, good sugg - I've tried to find a link to the Progress Tour results via court hive and Barry F's Twitter, but couldn't see them anywhere....

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I found them on this courthive page:

www.courthive.com/live/PROGRESS

You've got all the completed events which, if you click on them, gives you a 'matches' option which has all the matches with results.

e.g. for the recent Dukes Meadows:

www.courthive.com/t/2c17870e-6000-4803-be5c-d2c19ea79d85?

Might help....

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Monday 15th of July 2019 04:48:30 PM

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Thank you for the links CD :0) as you say many of the college men (and women) playing the Progress Tour

Sutton QF
Alastair Gray (TCU) v Matthew Carroll (ASA Miami) 6-2 6-0
Emile Hudd (Oaklahoma) v David Stevenson (Memphis) 7-6(4) 6-3
Marcus Walters (New Mexico, Lobos) v Luke Hammond (Oaklahoma) 6-3 6-7(4) 12/10
Sam Bossem v Joshua Wilson (Liberty) 7-6(4) RET.
SF
Alastair Gray (TCU) v Marcus Walters (Tyler/Florida State)7-6(4) 0-6 10/5
Emile Hudd (Oaklahoma) v Sam B WO
F
Alastair Gray (TCU) v Emile Hudd (Oaklahoma) 3-6 6-3 11/9

Dukes Meadows QF
Dominic West (New Mexico, Lobos) v Jordan Reed-thomas (Leeds Becket) 6-3 6-2
Marcus Walters (Tyler/Florida State) v Emile Hudd (Oaklahoma) 7-6(3) 6-4
Clay Crawford v Mattias Southcombe 7-5 6-7(4) 10/3
Giles Hussey (Georgia state) v Suzy Larkin 6-2 6-2
SF
Clay Crawford v Dominic West (New Mexico, Lobos) 6-3 6-1
Giles Hussey (Georgia state) v Marcus Walters (Tyler/Florida State) 6-4 0-6 10/8
F
Clay Crawford v Giles Hussey (Georgia state) 4-6 7-6(7) 10/8

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Monday 15th of July 2019 08:08:32 PM

Michael D · All-time great

Interesting the mix of men vs women at that Dukes Meadows event. From the more detailed results see there were a few mixed matches.

-- Edited by Michael D on Wednesday 17th of July 2019 09:31:18 AM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Michael D wrote:
Interesting the mix of men vs women at that Dukes Meadows event. From the more detailed results see there were a few mixed matches.

-- Edited by Michael D on Wednesday 17th of July 2019 09:31:18 AM

One of the main points of the UTR system is that women and men can play against each other, that the ranking takes care of everything.