Elegant Point wrote:

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Disappointed tennis has moved from Prime to Sky? Interested in college tennis? Then this could be the news you have been waiting for

The NCAA and ESPN have agreed to a blockbuster deal that will give the Worldwide Leader in Sports the exclusive rights to 40 championships, including Womens March Madness. ESPN will get the exclusive rights to 21 womens and 19 mens sports, with tennis, track and field, mens gymnastics, the womens Division II and III volleyball and basketball championships, and the mens DII and DIII basketball championships as new additions.

https://bustedcoverage.com/2024/01/04/espn-ncaa-agree-to-8-year-920m-deal-for-wbb-tourney-39-other-title-games/

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 Don't Sky have the NCAA rights in the UK? They show a lot less than BT/TNT Sport used to though.

Luke Swan, Katie Swan's brother and at TCU with Jack Pinnington-Jones, Lui Maxted and Jake Fearnley, has been selected for a place on the highly competitive Nike summer internship programme where he will focus on marketing. It is regarded as one of the top 15 internship's in the US. His major is marketing.

A little About Luke Swan from the Frogs website.

Originally from Bristol, United Kingdom, Swan is midway through his second season with TCU men's tennis. He joined the program as a preferred walk-on in September 2022 following a two-week tryout. Swan helped TCU repeat as Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Indoor National Champions, capture the Big 12 Championship and advance to its fourth-ever NCAA D1 Men's Championship semifinal in his first season on the court in 2022-23.

He was selected as one of 10 athletes to the inaugural ITA Student-Athlete Council in August. In this role, Swan works alongside leaders within college tennis' governing body to improve the student-athlete experience and share active insight on the sport.

Swan is active in numerous student organizations and extracurricular activities at TCU. He founded "Frog Pickle," the student-run pickleball club on campus, works as a Neeley name, image and likeness coach with the M.J. Neeley School of Business and is a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

-- Edited by Lambda on Thursday 11th of January 2024 01:12:19 PM

Oscar Weightman signs for USC - at 22 he will be one of the oldest Freshmen, but never too late to start college and wishing him all the best!

Weightman joins the program as a spring enrollee who will make the track across the Atlantic Ocean to play for USC in 2024. The Brit currently ranks 1130 in the ATP singles world rankings but peaked at 603 in August 2022. Weightman earned the 69th overall ITF singles ranking in April 2022.

https://usctrojans.com/news/2023/12/8/usc-mens-tennis-signs-british-prospect-oscar-weightman.aspx

 

In the ITA Kickoff weekend, TCU's British contingent were dominant in securing the #5 ranked Horned Frogs a place in the National Indoor Championships.

On Saturday in their 3rd match together Jake Fearnley and Jack Pinnington-Jones in the #2 doubles spot swept aside Rice's Trinity Grear and Kabeer Kapasi 6-1
In the singles Jake Fearnley in the #1 position defeated Yasha Zemel (Rice): 6-1, 6-4 while Lui Maxted in the #4 singles position for the first time in a year won 6-3 6-0

On Sunday, Fearnley and Pinnington-Jones again won 6-1 and are now 4-0 as partners. Lui Maxted with regular partner secured the doubles point winning their match 6-2.
In singles, Fearnley in the #1 position defeated Tulsa's Pierce Rollins easily 6-2 6-0 and was first to finish for the third time this week.
Pinnington-Jones in the #2 position won his match 3 & 3 and Maxted in the #4 position secured TCU's victory with a 7-6 6-3 win over his Tulsa opponent


-- Edited by Lambda on Monday 29th of January 2024 07:46:33 PM

Lambda wrote:

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Some news on some of January's US college debutants.

Henry Jefferson (Florida) opened his college career, playing at #6, with a 4 & 2 win against Bradey Minnich as the Gators opened their dual season on Friday with a Citadel 7-0 over Citadel.

Immi Haddad (USC) had a successful opening day on Thursday as she won both her singles against LMU (playing at #6) and UC Irvine (playing at #3)

Jasmine Conway (Pepperdine) opened her college career in an Invitational, winning 1 singles match and losing 2. One of those losses was to fellow Brit Alicia Dudeney (Florida) by 3 & 4.

Other debutants I know of, Eva Shaw, Hugo Coquelin and Oscar Weightman (who appears to be starting as a Sophomore) are yet to play I think.

While looking to see if Eva had played, I noticed that in an all British match playing at #1 Sofia Johnson (Old Dominion) defeated Vic Allen (Florida State) in a closely fought match, 4-6 7-5 7-6(5)

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 Only just had time to read it but really appreciated this 

And all the other posts above about how our current college players are doing 

 

#10 ranked Millie got NC State's only point against Michigan as she came back from being broken in the opening game to win in straight sets against the #9 ranked Kari Miller. As a group, they struggled after the efforts and europhia in beating North Carolina in the QFs the previous day. According to the commentators, Millie played outstandingly to get the previously mentioned win over Crawley in that QF. Millie also got the only doubles win for the Wolfpack as they lost the doubles point 1-2. Millie won all 3 of her singles matches and 2 of her 3 doubles matches across the 3 rounds they played this weekend. She is ranked #9 in doubles with partner Maddy Zampardo. Kristina Paskauskas didn't play this weekend and hasn't played since 21 Jan.

The other Semi-Final featured Angelica Blake and her Stanford team against Oklahoma State. Both Programmes were unbeaten in the dual season going into this match. Angelica was bagled in her doubles, and the singles was left unfinished in the deciding set as Oklahoma State white washed Stanford 4-0. Angelica won 1, lost 1 and 1 unfinished across the weekend.

So they'll be no British representation in the final.

Other British ladies playing in these Championships this weekend were Alicia Dudeney (Florida), Grace Piper (South California) and Jasmine Conway (Pepperdine)

Alicia, playing in the #5 position on Friday and Sunday and the #4 position on Saturday, lost 2 of her singles matches and, in the #1 position 2 of her doubles matches. Both her singles and doubles against Stanford were unfinished, though she was a set up in the singles.

Grace, playing in the #5 position, won 2 of her singles and was about to start a decider in the opening round singles match when it was abandoned. Shes 13-3 for singles this season. In doubles with regular partner Parker Fry, playing in the #2 position, she lot both matches, but won in the #3 position yesterday. She's 15-9 for doubles this season. Imogen Haddad, also with USC, didn't play this weekend. She is unbeaten, winning all 3 of her singles matches since joining last month. She hasn't played doubles.

Jasmine, playing in the #6 position, lost 2 and won 1 of her matches. She's 4-5 since joining last month. With partner Lisa Zara, she lost 1 and won 1 in the #2 doubles position and lost in the #3 double position yesterday. She is 2-4 for doubles over the season.

Thanks Lampda for the update.

Just to add that Angelica was also playing #1 on the Stanford team for the first time after more than 6 months of a stress injury to her foot and then a torn wrist ligament. Hence the reason she has played so few matches . Hopefully she is now injury free and will catch up with her best form in match play.

In fact Stanford was not whitewashed 4-0 by Oklahoma State. It was 4-2 with Angelica up 3-2 40-15 in the 3rd set when the match was clinched.

I dont think many would have predicted a Michigan v Oklahoma State final. It was a surprise that North Carolina lost to Millies NC State and then that NC State went out to Michigan.

Shame there was no 3rd place play off between Stanford and NC State.

-- Edited by Dannythomas on Monday 12th of February 2024 04:44:07 PM