Coup Droit wrote:

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Densher, I think Ben Shelton would be the best recent example, wouldn't he?

He only had a junior ranking of 306, he won the NCAA div 1 title, and then went and got up to ATP 35 in the blink of an eye (he's only 20)

Mind you, for certain countries, the junior ITF ranking isn't that relevant.

i.e. US has a strong domestic tennis circuit, as do France say.

So US college recruiters use those, use UTR and look at French domestic rankings etc, and don't just base it off the junior ITF rankings (and I've no idea how Ben was doing domestically at 17)

It also applies to the UK for older players as we used to have relatively few ITF junior events, and the chosen few would be taken to foreign events, but the others never had the chance to pick up points (unless their folks arranged tournament trips privately).

However, it makes perfect sense to me that various players would be doing OK (either ITF or domestically) until they go to college and then really blossom.

The programme is so intense at college - proper training every day (both tennis and physicaly), proper coaching, a real team environment. Quite a lot of 17 year-olds will have never had that. Not to that extent, at any rate.

As to Millie R, and in response to LordB's post, just my tuppence-ha'penny worth. I only saw Millie play live as a junior once but it was obvious that Millie was a power player, a strong hitter, and was always going to be a quite tall, athletic build.

But it's often difficult for that to bear much fruit at junior level. There are nimble girls who defend well, who often do disproportionately well - of course, some of those go on to do well at adult level too but when people talk about juniors having games that will translate well to adult tennis it's often meant in terms of serve, power etc that needs that extra few years to really make the difference. I remember putting a ? by Millie's name (wrong, in retrospect, and I apologise, Millie !)

I saw her play in adults on livestream last year - I remember one really excellent match - hitting a very heavy ball, doing a lot of damage with her serve, moving well - she was one of the top college players on my list to watch this summer, even before this event (am looking forward to seeing Kylie, too, who's a year younger - I don't know Angie so well).

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Friday 26th of May 2023 07:39:48 AM

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Sorry I should have been a little more specific in my phrasing, I was thinking of players who did the full 4 years and got gradually stronger and stronger rather than your barnstorming Ben Shelton and Peyton Stearns and the like.

Going back to Millie Rajecki, I was just viewing footage of her match against Frayman (there is a Youtube channel called GetMoreTennis that has some good coverage of the NCAA champs by the way) and she certainly has a big game; particularly enjoyed some flat powerful returns she was hitting straight off the Frayman serve. And what I liked about her own serve: the motion has a real snappiness to it, the toss only as high as it needs to be, the racquet hammering down at just the right moment, a very efficient process.

Millie didn't play much ITF when a junior as tennis was done around school, rather than school being arranged around tennis. But she is an 16U Junior National doubles winner and twice RU in the 18U Junior Nationals (losing to Holly Staff and Grace Piper). In week 40 of 2020, she was ranked #3 in the LTA combined rankings for 18U girls behind Emma R and Grace (which is after she would have signed but given tennis was largely suspended for much of 2020 would be approx be her domestic ranking when she was being recruited) . Those credentials are going to get you noticed.

Lambda wrote:

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Millie didn't play much ITF when a junior as tennis was done around school, rather than school being arranged around tennis. But she is an 16U Junior National doubles winner and twice RU in the 18U Junior Nationals (losing to Holly Staff and Grace Piper). In week 40 of 2020, she was ranked #3 in the LTA combined rankings for 18U girls behind Emma R and Grace (which is after she would have signed but given tennis was largely suspended for much of 2020 would be approx be her domestic ranking when she was being recruited) . Those credentials are going to get you noticed.

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Brilliant, makes sense. Thanks, Lambda!  

Amelia loses the opening set 7-5

twitter.com/JTweetsTennis/status/1662112544708804609

Play suspended at 5-7 3-1 15-15*

Lambda wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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Amelia loses the opening set 7-5

twitter.com/JTweetsTennis/status/1662112544708804609

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But she blew a 5-3* lead and 3 set points at *5-4

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 Ouch - that's a shame

But all to play for in the second....

Millie took the second set 6-4. It is now 4-5 in the third, lot of pressure on her shoulders now because if she gets broken then it's over.