US College Signings and General College Chat 2020/21

Tennpar · Strong Club Player

RE: US College Signings and General College Chat 2020/21

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Tennpar wrote:
EP, I'm on it now with the women's rankings - time on my hands now I'm getting to the end of my Covid isolation and feeling much better now thankfully

So sorry to hear you've had the virus- thankfully sounds as if you are on the mend!! Also thank you for the women's update. It really wasn't a hint smile

Edit Typo hmm

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Sunday 17th of January 2021 11:14:53 AM

Tennpar · Strong Club Player

ITA DI WOMENS SINGLES RANKINGS PRE SEASON TOP 125 (team rankings in parenthesis)

30 Megan Davies Senior South Carolina (14)
40 Holly Hutchinson Senior Old Dominion
63 Emily Arbuthnott Senior Stanford (4)
106 Victoria Allen Sophomore Florida State (9)

The ITA rankings algorithm 'is based on an accumulation of win points and loss points, accounting for a win-loss record, the strength of schedule, and the depth/significance of wins and losses. As the season progresses, the value of each win and loss adjusts to reflect the most recent ranking of the opponent'.
Sounds complex - in addition, the individual opinions of regional and national coaches are also reflected in rankings, particularly these pre season ones I think.

Like you, EP, I am not sure how accurate these pre season rankings are, and presume that there will be more clarity as, and when, the playing season progresses.

Tennpar · Strong Club Player

UK women playing in the PRE SEASON TOP 25 TEAMS

4 Stanford Emily Arbuthnott (senior); Angelica Blake (sophomore)
6 Duke Ema Lazic (senior)
8 North Carolina State Amelia Rajecki (freshman)
9 Florida State Victoria Allen and Sasha Hill (sophomores)
14 South Carolina Megan Davies (senior)
15 Vanderbilt Holly Staff (freshman)
19 California Erin Richardson (sophomore)
20 Arizona State Lauryn John-Baptiste (senior)
24 Louisiana State Eden Richardson (senior)

Elegant Point · Satellite level

To achieve a scholarship for a D1 college, men will likely need a UTR of 12+. To play near the top of the lineup with a substantial scholarship, a player would prob need a UTR of ~13 for D1 and ~12 for a D2.

Interested in how your UTR compares with players in some of the top teams? Or just interested? Unless you have the upgraded UTR membership, I don't think you can see players UTRs listed to 2 decimal points or a consolidated view for all the players in a team: Slam tennis has a list of the UTRs to 2 d.p. for each player for 75 of the mens team's - this is information you would have to pay for on the UTR site.

https://www.slam.tennis/ita/draft/2021/ncaam/compare

edited to add I have no affiliation to UTR, just an interest in sharing information

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Thursday 21st of January 2021 08:00:10 PM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Just out of interest EP do you have any commercial relationship with Universal Tennis Ltd whose CEO is the ex CEO of the womens tennis association and now found a way of making a fortune off the parents of aspiring tennis players unlikely to reap any fiscal reward for their investment. They have tried to advertise directly on this site before and generally there is enough free information out there to give most aspiring athletes and parents the information they need.

Ann Worcester and Universal tennis obviously thriving as holed up on some of the most expensive real estate in the US, 525 University Avenue Suite 1350 Palo Alto, CA 94301 United States. Same street as Facebook etc...

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Generally college Tennis rankings are because of the opacity of the way in which they derived difficult to interpret unless you only consider apples and apples ie players playing No 1 or pears versus pears players playing No 2 etc... and consider the conference and schedule of each college. For example Emily Arb is unlikely to play No1 at Stanford and therefore very unlikely to be in the top 20 even if she is the second best player in the country until it comes to the head to head national tournaments where as long as you can qualify you get a crack at everyone if you win.

NB for Holly to be ranked 40 at Old Dominion is amazing and I am sure she is having a great time and has played No 1 almost her whole career there. It says a lot about the tennis programme there. But she would however probably had a much bigger impact nationally in terms of ranking and got to play better players more regularly (OD do have strong local rivals and good out of conference schedule) if she had been at a SEC school.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Thursday 21st of January 2021 08:01:30 AM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I don't really know what stage college tennis is at in the US at the moment but certain players' crop up when I'm surfing a bit of tennis and Giles Hussey was one name this week:

Jan 19 2021

utsports.com/news/2021/1/19/mens-tennis-13-tennessee-sweeps-etsu-7-0.aspx

"In singles, UT continued to dominate, as graduate student Giles Hussey took down Dimitri Badra, 6-1, 6-1 at No. 3 to increase the UT lead to 2-0. The win improved Hussey to 3-0 in dual action and 13-1 on the year."

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Oakland2002 wrote:
Just out of interest EP do you have any commercial relationship with Universal Tennis Ltd whose CEO is the ex CEO of the womens tennis association and now found a way of making a fortune off the parents of aspiring tennis players unlikely to reap any fiscal reward for their investment. They have tried to advertise directly on this site before and generally there is enough free information out there to give most aspiring athletes and parents the information they need.

Ann Worcester and Universal tennis obviously thriving as holed up on some of the most expensive real estate in the US, 525 University Avenue Suite 1350 Palo Alto, CA 94301 United States. Same street as Facebook etc...

I didnt mean my post to sound like an advert for UTR hmm and categorically no!! I can confirm I dont have any commercial relationship with Uni Tennis Limited.

I have posted many comments on this forum questioning how UTR take data without permission, have a secret algorithm for calculating UTR, how UTR affects college scholarships (seems many coaches use UTR as part of the decision making process when awarding scholarships), the loss of ~0.5 -0.8 UTR units for players when they rejigged the algorithm, etc

We only have the free version of UTR and when my son was looking for a scholarship, it was disappointing not to be able to search for a college team and see the UTRs to 2 d.p. for the players to gauge when he would fit. I thought anyone currently looking for a scholarship might be interested in this (free) data......

Elegant Point · Satellite level

After what seems an age, its so good to have some college tennis again!! There will be a number of our British college players in action at the 13th annual Intercollegiate Tennis Association Kickoff which starts this weekend at 10 different facilities across the country. This year, four universities will host both a men's and women's regional: NC State, North Carolina, Ohio State, and Texas.

Stanford dropped out in Dec and three more men's teams have also dropped out and been replaced as follows:Middle Tenn ( 3rd alternate) and replaced Texas Tech at OSU. Liberty replaced Oklahoma State at Texas, and UNLV which was not on the alternate list of top 75 teams, replaced UCF at USC. Cracked Racquets will be commentating on top matches and other matches will be live streamed.

Links below:

https://sites.google.com/itatennis.com/ita-kickoff-weekend/home

https://www.slam.tennis/ita/draft/2021/ncaam list prior to 1/18

https://sites.google.com/itatennis.com/ita-kickoff-weekend/live-streaming

link to Ohio State livestream :

https://ohiostatebuckeyes.com/mens-live-tennis/

Just to add, I have no affiliation to any of the above associations - just an interest in following college tennis smile wink

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Saturday 23rd of January 2021 08:20:58 AM

Elegant Point · Satellite level

ITA kick off weekend- a tough start for the Brits hmm

Ohio State def MTSU 4-0

Blue Raiders Falls to No. 3 Ohio State to open ITA Kickoff Weekend

#25 Kyle Seelig (OSU) def. Chris Edge (MTSU) 6-4, 6-1, #51 Seelig/Kingsley (OSU) def. Moonen/Edge (MTSU) 6-3

Virginia def Iowa 4-0

The match started with the Cavaliers edging the Hawkeyes for the doubles point. Iowas 17th-ranked doubles team of Oliver Okonkwo and Will Davies beat Soderlund/Woodall on court one (6-3). Kareem Allaf and Nikita Snezhko fell on court two (6-4), while Matt Clegg and Joe Tyler lost on court three (6-2).Tyler, Okonkwo, and Snezhko fell in straight sets on courts two, three, and five respectively. Allaf, ranked 39th nationally, Davies, and Kersts matches went unfinished once the Cavaliers clinched the match. The Brits will be in action again when Iowa will face Middle Tennessee State on Saturday, at 6:30 p.m.

Link to results https://sites.google.com/itatennis.com/ita-kickoff-weekend/regionals/men

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Elegant Point wrote:
Oakland2002 wrote:
Just out of interest EP do you have any commercial relationship with Universal Tennis Ltd whose CEO is the ex CEO of the womens tennis association and now found a way of making a fortune off the parents of aspiring tennis players unlikely to reap any fiscal reward for their investment. They have tried to advertise directly on this site before and generally there is enough free information out there to give most aspiring athletes and parents the information they need.

Ann Worcester and Universal tennis obviously thriving as holed up on some of the most expensive real estate in the US, 525 University Avenue Suite 1350 Palo Alto, CA 94301 United States. Same street as Facebook etc...
I didnt mean my post to sound like an advert for UTR and categorically no!! I can confirm I dont have any commercial relationship with Uni Tennis Limited.
I have posted many comments on this forum questioning how UTR take data without permission, have a secret algorithm for calculating UTR, how UTR affects college scholarships (seems many coaches use UTR as part of the decision making process when awarding scholarships), the loss of ~0.5 -0.8 UTR units for players when they rejigged the algorithm, etc
We only have the free version of UTR and when my son was looking for a scholarship, it was disappointing not to be able to search for a college team and see the UTRs to 2 d.p. for the players to gauge when he would fit. I thought anyone currently looking for a scholarship might be interested in this (free) data......

Thank you and I agree totally facilitating access to free data to other parents and families on a similar journey to that of you & your son is generous and entirely consistent with how I think (not that that matters too much if at all) the forum should run. Sorry I always enjoy reading your comments and I didnt mean to sound too negative

I just feel immense frustration at the way college tennis is touted as a stepping stone to a professional career in tennis & that used to encourage parents to invest so heavily (£1000s & £1000s per year) in training and then getting recruited. Youth tennis for the most part is a racket functioning as a recreational business as opposed to an elite sport. That is absolutely fine if you can afford it as a high level recreational activity & US College tennis offers other life experiences & opportunities but almost exclusively the tennis part is still that, subsidised well organised sport for athletic students. That contrasts with a small number of student athletes that populate the elite college football & basketball teams, unpaid but generate the TV contracts and the subsidies to pay for tennis ... for someone wanting to make money out of their athleticism in the UK definitely on the male side they should focus on football (at least 120 fully pro club) where non league players make a better living than all but the top 150 singles players in the world. Indeed much better than the depth of paid opportunity in Football & Basketball across the whole of the US. The best players earn up to 2K a month (part time) at step 4 in the non league pyramid, 8 leagues of 20 teams at thus level!

The irony is the best adverts for U.K. College tennis fostering elite singles players are Cam and Paul Jubb, Cam was a truly elite junior who chose a college experience as a more rounded experience after feeling what British Tennis had to offer at the National Tennis centre was not for him as opposed to the tennis opportunity offered by college specifically and to a certain extent fell in with some great coaches at TCU.

Paul in contrast was not an elite junior primarily because of the way the system works ie brought up by his gran and the help of local coaches who saw his talent and fostered it as did Yorkshire tennis, he did not have the parental backing to play lots of junior tournaments but through word of mouth University of South Carolina went to Hull and recruited him. Paul regardless of whether or not he makes any money from tennis has had an amazing experience he is obviously genuinely athletic but perhaps just a little undersized to be a top 100 player & I really hope he proves me wrong but he did have trials for Hull City his coaching would have been free and on the doorstep.

I am always mindful of the fact that Michael Boulding is still likely one of the top earning British tennis players of the last 30 years to actually earn a living from playing sport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Boulding It emphasis how deep the pyramid Hallam for many reasons are an iconic club & play at step 6 feeds step 5 (16 leagues of 20 clubs most semi pro populated by players from professional academies ie the best athletes in their schools for 3-4 years)

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 23rd of January 2021 09:00:32 AM

Elegant Point · Satellite level

This years ITA Kickoff Weekend has seen numerous weather delays.

UCLA def California 4-0
#109 Sam Feit (UCLA) def. Ben Draper (CAL) 6-4, 6-2
Doubles Results: *Singles played first due to weather

Texas def Liberty 4-0
#120 Eliot Spizzirri (UT) def. Josh Wilson (LU) 6-4, 6-1
Evin McDonald (UT) v Deji Thomas-Smith (LU) 7-6, 2-4, unf.
Spizzirri/Woldeab (UT) def. Wilson/Ferreira (LU) 6-4, Holden/Huang (UT) v Worst/Thomas-Smith (LU) 4-4, unf.

Arizona def Liberty 4-0
Alejandro Reguant (ARIZ) vs. Josh Wilson (LU) 6-1, 6-5, unf.
Nick Lagaev (ARIZ) vs. Deji Thomas-Smith (LU) 6-3, 5-1, unf.
Middleton Ziverts (ARIZ) def. Ferreira/ Wilson (LU) 7-5 , Thomas-Smith/ Worst (LU) vs. Hassey/ Reguant (ARIZ) no result

TCU def Denver 5-0 and sees TCU advance to the final against Oklahoma
#21 Alastair Gray (TCU) def. Mattia Ros (UD) 6-4, 6-1 Alastair playing #1 singles
#47 Luc Fomba (TCU) def. Matt Summers (UD) 6-4, 7-5
#123 Sander Jong (TCU) def. James Davis (UD) 7-6, 6-2
Gray/Fomba (TCU) def. #42 Summers/Davies (UD) 7-6

Baylor upsets Michigan & Texas A&M blanks Pepperdine!
Baylor def Michigan 4-0
Nick Beaty (UM) v #103 Charlie Broom (BU) 6-7, 7-6, unf.
Broom/Soto (BU) def. Beaty/Maloney (UM) 6-4
Such is the strength and depth of Baylor this year Charlie playing at #5 singles and #3 doubles. As predicted Finn Bass was not selected for the team. The Bears are back in action vs Texas A & M Sunday 1pm (US) https://baylorbea.rs/3peEszZ

Texas A&M def Pepperdine 4-0
#110 Barnaby Smith (A&M) v Pietro Fellin (PEPP) 6-7, 1-1, unf. Texas A & M #11 shuts out #21 Pepperdine. Barney played at #6 singles

Apologies if I have missed anyone - cant open any t.co links since Christmas hmm

edit: Interesting to see how the Baylor/Texas A&M match progresses, as the final at Michigan could not be played due to Univ of MichKhan shutting down all athletics for 14 days due to 5 athletes (dont know what sports) testing positive for a more contagious COVID variant. https://mgoblue.com/news/2021/1/23/general-university-of-michigan-athletics-enters-department-wide-activity-pause

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Monday 25th of January 2021 10:14:34 AM

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Oakland2002 wrote:
Thank you and I agree totally facilitating access to free data to other parents and families on a similar journey to that of you & your son is generous and entirely consistent with how I think (not that that matters too much if at all) the forum should run. Sorry I always enjoy reading your comments and I didnt mean to sound too negative
I just feel immense frustration at the way college tennis is touted as a stepping stone to a professional career in tennis & that used to encourage parents to invest so heavily (£1000s & £1000s per year) in training and then getting recruited. Youth tennis for the most part is a racket functioning as a recreational business as opposed to an elite sport. That is absolutely fine if you can afford it as a high level recreational activity & US College tennis offers other life experiences & opportunities but almost exclusively the tennis part is still that, subsidised well organised sport for athletic students. That contrasts with a small number of student athletes that populate the elite college football & basketball teams, unpaid but generate the TV contracts and the subsidies to pay for tennis ... for someone wanting to make money out of their athleticism in the UK definitely on the male side they should focus on football (at least 120 fully pro club) where non league players make a better living than all but the top 150 singles players in the world. Indeed much better than the depth of paid opportunity in Football & Basketball across the whole of the US. The best players earn up to 2K a month (part time) at step 4 in the non league pyramid, 8 leagues of 20 teams at thus level!
The irony is the best adverts for U.K. College tennis fostering elite singles players are Cam and Paul Jubb, Cam was a truly elite junior who chose a college experience as a more rounded experience after feeling what British Tennis had to offer at the National Tennis centre was not for him as opposed to the tennis opportunity offered by college specifically and to a certain extent fell in with some great coaches at TCU.

Paul in contrast was not an elite junior primarily because of the way the system works ie brought up by his gran and the help of local coaches who saw his talent and fostered it as did Yorkshire tennis, he did not have the parental backing to play lots of junior tournaments but through word of mouth University of South Carolina went to Hull and recruited him. Paul regardless of whether or not he makes any money from tennis has had an amazing experience he is obviously genuinely athletic but perhaps just a little undersized to be a top 100 player & I really hope he proves me wrong but he did have trials for Hull City his coaching would have been free and on the doorstep.
I am always mindful of the fact that Michael Boulding is still likely one of the top earning British tennis players of the last 30 years to actually earn a living from playing sport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Boulding It emphasis how deep the pyramid Hallam for many reasons are an iconic club & play at step 6 feeds step 5 (16 leagues of 20 clubs most semi pro populated by players from professional academies ie the best athletes in their schools for 3-4 years)

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 23rd of January 2021 09:00:32 AM

Thank you for reply - I have always enjoyed your posts too. I enjoy the AM forum as there are some really interesting posts and not too many trolls (some of the US College forums I follow are a bit troll heavy). When embarking on the college scholarship pathway we knew very little hmm and the college signings forum was a great place to start, even just to see what colleges other Brits had gone to.

I completely agree, many parents invest heavily both off and on court to get their children recruited and don't recoup a fraction of that spend in scholarship $$. This year seems to be even more challenging to find a scholarship as college teams have/are disappearing ( don't think anyone could have predicted Iowa and Minnesota would drop men's tennis?) and less $$ available especially on the men's side due to C-19. Also many players are making use of their extra year of eligibility and taking a post grad course, possibly reducing the number of places available for freshmen for the next 3 years??

IMO a positive move by the NCAA has been to allow student athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness , so they can be paid for endorsement deals and hire sports agents.

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Sunday 24th of January 2021 04:06:12 PM

Tennpar · Strong Club Player

ITA Kickoff Weekend
7 Regional two day competitions, rain disrupted. A few British women involved in the 4 regionals that played yesterday:

Day 1:
North Carolina Regional - 1. HOLLY HUTCHINSON #40 Old Dominion lost 3-6 3-6 to Sabina Machalova #39 Ole Miss in singles, playing at No 1, but won her dubs match.
Ole Miss won 4-2

Texas Regional - 3. LAURYN JOHN-BAPTISTE Arizona State 4-6 7-5 5-0 Jessica Hinojosa Baylor match unfinished and lost in doubles.
Baylor won 4-2

Ohio Regional - ESTHER ADESHINA Tennessee won her dubs.
Virginia 4-1 v Tennessee

Georgia Tech Regional - 2. MEGAN DAVIES #30 South Carolina 6-3 5-7 6-3 Ava Hrastar Georgia Tech and lost in dubs.
Georgia Tech 4-3