Some surprising omissions from this weekends draws and entry lists.
Sofia Johnson, who should be our best chance for a singles qualifier, is not playing. Hopefully, its an interesting strategic choice, albeit rather risky, to take her chances in the last of qualifying competitions next month rather than being injured.
Missing from the Texas men's doubles is Lui Maxted. He's qualified for the NCAAs in singles from the All-Americans, but just missed out on qualifying for doubles. He should have been among the favourites for doubles this week, but perhaps with only 1 qualifying place available, compared with 3 in the next event perhaps again it's a strategic decision.
Max Basing in the Northwest regional is our best chance of a men's singles qualifier and Freddy Blaydes in the doubles of the Southeast regional the best chance of a men's doubles qualifier.
I am also surprised not to see Talia Neilsen-Gatenby in the singles draw in the Southeast regional - she's only playing doubles. But I am pleased to see Eva Shaw as 1 of 9 British women, by my count, in the main draw. I was a little worried she was injured again when the Seminoles didn't name her in their pre-tournament story. In doubles, we have Millie B, Alicia D and Given in 3 of the top 4 seeded pairings.
Are these all in that south east region? Is this the dominant region in terms of British tennis players and their choice of university? Im guessing south east covers Florida, Carolinas?
Jon, Each regional takes place over 5 or 6 days starting Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and finishing Monday or Tuesday with both singles and doubles competitions taking place concurrently over those days. Its up to the region which weekend of the 2 they schedule their competition.
I don't think there is a live list of qualifiers that they add to, but they will probably publish a news story that includes a list of qualifiers from the regionals once they've all finished if past form is anything to go by. They may include those already qualified from the All-Americans in that list.
Some surprising omissions from this weekends draws and entry lists.
Sofia Johnson, who should be our best chance for a singles qualifier, is not playing. Hopefully, its an interesting strategic choice, albeit rather risky, to take her chances in the last of qualifying competitions next month rather than being injured.
Missing from the Texas men's doubles is Lui Maxted. He's qualified for the NCAAs in singles from the All-Americans, but just missed out on qualifying for doubles. He should have been among the favourites for doubles this week, but perhaps with only 1 qualifying place available, compared with 3 in the next event perhaps again it's a strategic decision.
Max Basing in the Northwest regional is our best chance of a men's singles qualifier and Freddy Blaydes in the doubles of the Southeast regional the best chance of a men's doubles qualifier.
I am also surprised not to see Talia Neilsen-Gatenby in the singles draw in the Southeast regional - she's only playing doubles. But I am pleased to see Eva Shaw as 1 of 9 British women, by my count, in the main draw. I was a little worried she was injured again when the Seminoles didn't name her in their pre-tournament story. In doubles, we have Millie B, Alicia D and Given in 3 of the top 4 seeded pairings.
Are these all in that south east region? Is this the dominant region in terms of British tennis players and their choice of university? Im guessing south east covers Florida, Carolinas?
Yes, in the southeast region, which covers Florida and Georgia. The Carolina's have their own regional. For our current crop of top women it is the dominant region, not so much for the men who are more spread around the country.
The final regionals are all now underway. A quick update of the one's I'm following.
In the men's Northwestern regional Max Basing (Stanford) got through his first match without difficulty. Without tempting fate, it should be fairly straightforward to the quarters for Max.
The Southeast regional is further along and Jamie Connel (Florida State) [7] has reached the semi-final, on the way defeating Freddy Blaydes. Standing in his way of reaching the final and qualifying for the NCAAs is 4th seed Martin Katz (Miami). Freddy Blaydes+ (Georgia) [1] and Henry Jefferson+ (Florida) are in the quarters of the doubles.
In the women's regionals, in the Southeast regional Hannah Rylatt (Central Florida) qualified to make it 10 Brits in the main draw. Results, with 1 exception, went as expected with Jaquelyn Ogunwale (Miami), Millie Bissett (Florida State) and Alicia Dudeney (Florida) making it through to the 2nd round. The exception was 3rd seed Kylie Bilchev (Georgia Tech) losing 5 & 2 on her home court. To be honest I'm not too surprised having watched Kylie a few times at the back end of last season and a bit of this match. She has times when she shows she has the talent but breaks down in rallies too easily making far too many UEs, mostly into the net. If she is to be the 'jackets No 1 this season I fear it may be a struggle. Alicia defeated Given Roach (Georgia Tech) 6-3 5-7 7-6(3) in a very enjoyable match to watch despite me not having any clue what the score was. I was pleasantly surprised at Given's performance with her not being selected for singles much last season. It was, in my view, a better performance than Kylie's. Alicia has been doing her own version of the British Tour having played Brits in her last 4 matches! Also a mention for Aryana Bartlett (North Florida) who made Georgia's Guillermina Grant (4th seed) work for her 7-6(1) 7-5 win. While not winning, a commendable scoreline against the Georgia senior on one of the strongest Women's tennis programmes.
In the Carolina regionals, 2 rounds were played yesterday. Of our NC State trio, Kristina had a tough match against 2022 USTA Girls champion Eleana Yu who proved too much. Gabia and Jasmine both made it through but didn't progress any further. Gabia losing by a respectable 3 & 3 to the top seed. However, Savannah Dada-Mascoll (Appalachian State) has made it through to the round of 16 being the last to finish yesterday with a 2-6 6-3 6-0 win over Krystal Blanch (Wake Forest). All 4 are still alive in the doubles with Kristina and Jasmine due to play Savannah in their next round.
In the Southwest regional, our last woman standing is not who you would think it would be. Hannah Read (San Diego) had an excellent, and unexpected, win over seeded Vivian Yang (Pepperdine) and followed that up with a 6 & 0 win in the next round. Her reward in the round of 16 is 2nd seed Amelia Horner (UC Santa Barbara) who knocked out Imogen Haddad (USC) in the round of 32. Grace Piper (USC) surprisingly lost her opening round match in 3 sets, but she already has a place in the sectionals next month for the final chance to qualify for the NCAAs.
Mens Singles Oliver Tarvet Lui Maxted Jamie Connel
Mens Doubles Oliver Tarvet Luca Pow Freddy Blaydes or Henry Jefferson
Women Singles None
Women Doubles Grace Piper Lily Hutchings
Hopefully we can add to that with 1 or 2 others by Tuesday. Best chances are Max for the men and the Southeastern doubles for the women where 7 of the 16 teams still in feature a Brit.
Southeast, QF (maybe) Millie Bissett [9-16] (annoyingly they turned the stream off half way through a set when it was the only match left playing, so not sure if she won and the score hasn't been added to the draw. Millie had won a set, which must have been the 1st (no live scores or scoreboards) and seemed to be up in the next but when I went to see if the stream was back up getting on for an hour later I got a stream on another court with no match there and I heard lots of crowd noise with frequent shouts of Go Millie so it must have gone to a third)
Womens Doubles Atlantic, QF Danielle Hack (Maryland), Francesca Davis (William & Mary)
Lambda wrote:Also a mention for Aryana Bartlett (North Florida) who made Georgia's Guillermina Grant (4th seed) work for her 7-6(1) 7-5 win. While not winning, a commendable scoreline against the Georgia senior on one of the strongest Women's tennis programmes.
To put this into context, Grant has played her next 2 matches for the loss of just 1 game and that included a match against a 9-16 seed.
In an upset, Henry Jefferson+ claim the Southeastern regional doubles title and claim their place at the NCAA Championships, defeating the home duo including Freddy Blaydes. Jamie Connel's singles final was not played. Its not the first singles final in this year's regionals not to be played because the objective of reaching the NCAA Championships had been achieved. That needs to be looked at for next year.
Billy Blaydes & Will Nolan are in the doubles final of the Southern Championships where they will play the top seeds, but Billy didn't progress past the semis in singles.
No updates on Max yet in the Northwest regional, nor any results from Northeast regional.
In the women's regionals, the only British interest remaining that I can see is Hannah Rylatt+ and Alicia Dudeney+ in the doubles SFs in the Southeastern regional. They are on opposite sides of the draw. Hannah+ had an impressive 8-1 win over Given+, but will play the 5th seeds who bagelled Millie Bissett+. Alicia+ (4th seeds) play the 7th seeds.
In this morning's update I forgot about USC's Grace Piper+ and Imogen Haddad+ in the doubles QF in the Southwest regional, but they both lost today.
Mens Singles Oliver Tarvet Lui Maxted Jamie Connel
Mens Doubles Oliver Tarvet Luca Pow Freddy Blaydes or Henry Jefferson
Women Singles None
Women Doubles Grace Piper Lily Hutchings
Hopefully we can add to that with 1 or 2 others by Tuesday. Best chances are Max for the men and the Southeastern doubles for the women where 7 of the 16 teams still in feature a Brit.
Thanks for the update, Lambda, and so Henry J takes that doubles place above.
Out of interest, if one of a pair gets injured between now and the NCAA Finals, can the remaining player "repair", or do they both fall away?
They have to play with the partner they qualified with. It was a contentious matter last season when UNC's Elizabeth Scotty couldn't play the NCAA's even though she was 1 half of the #1 ranked team and was in the top 25 of the rankings with 3 different partners. As she was qualified with her partner who she was ranked 1 with, that's who she had to play with, but her partner was out since early spring with a major knee injury. She wasn't allowed to be selected with her partner from either of her other 2 top 25 entries.
I tempted fate and it bit me on the behind. Max's straight forward run to the QF turned out not to be straight forward as he lost his R16 match in 3 sets to Nedim Suko. Suko may have had home advantage, but comparing their WTNs and considering that Suko has only made it out of a M15 qualifying once, that should still have been one Max won easily. Disappointing.