General college chat 2024/25

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

US College signings and general college chat 2024/25

Lambda · Challenger level

Eden Richardson has been appointed women's assistant coach at Fordham University. Since leaving college she has been the Head Tennis Pro at the Bedens Brook Club in 2022 and since January of 2023 has been serving as the Head Tennis Pro at the Bronxville Field Club. She is PTR Certified pro in both Tennis and Padel.

https://fordhamsports.com/news/2024/9/9/womens-tennis-eden-richardson-named-volunteer-assistant-womens-tennis-coach-at-fordham.aspx

Lambda · Challenger level

Many colleges start their fall programmes this weekend ahead of the ITA All-Americans starting next weekend. Many of the events still have to release their player lists but where they are available these are the Brits I have spotted that are in action. These are mostly individual competitions and run Friday to Sunday.

Battle in the Bay Classic, Berkeley, CA (Thursday to Sunday)
Lui Maxted (TCU), Imogen Haddad (Southern California), Sally Pethybridge (Portland)
All are in singles and doubles. Lui is in the top seeded team in mens doubles with Pedro Vives and seeded 4 in singles.
ATP Challenger and Women's ITF WC on offer to the winners.

Kitty Harrison Invitational, University of North Carolina
Alicia Dudeney (Florida), Sofia Johnson (Old Dominion), Talia Neilsen-Gatenby (Florida)

Southern Intercollegiates, University of Georgia
Freddy Blaydes (Georgia)

Bedford Cup @ JTCC, Maryland
Tamzin Poutney (Towson)

Baylor Mens Invite
Louis Bowden (Baylor)

Bedford Cup in the Mountains, US Air Force Academy, Colorado
Jojo Bach (Montana State), Sorcha Caves (South Dakota)

Wildcat Invitational, University of Arizona
Kai-Luca Ampaw (Gonzaga)

SEC Challenge, Alabama
Billy Blaydes (Auburn)

Blue Raider Invite, Middle Tennessee State
Lance Nisbett (Tennessee)

Emily Mcnall Classic, UNC Asheville
Aryana Bartlett (North Florida)

There is also likely to be British representation in the Debbie Southern Furman Fall Classic, Furman, South Carolina where some of the women of Georgia Tech and NC State will be playing.

Lambda · Challenger level

At the Battle in the Bay Lui Maxted (seeded 4, ranked 39) has reached the semi-final where he will face 5-8 seed Jay Friend (Arizona; ITA ranked 15). For Lui to be seeded higher than Jay I'm assuming seedings are based on WTN. Imogen Haddad won her opening singles match but lost to Pepperdine's Viven Yang in the Round of 16. Sally Pethybridge lost in the opening round to Parker Fry (USC). Doubles was an unmitigated disaster with all our players losing their round 1 match.

There was a clean sweep of British wins at the Kitty Harrison Hidden Dual Invitational in North Carolina Chapel Hill. Sophia Johnson retaining her position as ODU's #1 player won her opening match, Alicia Dudeney playing at Florida's #2 position also won and Talia Neilsen-Gatenby, coming straight in as Florida's #3 opened her college career with a 6-1 7-6 win.

At the Debbie Harrison Invitational, there are several British players in action. In the flight 1 draw Kylie Bilchev lost out to Georgia's Guillermina Grant (ranked 75) 5 & 1. In the flight 3 draw Kristinia Paskauskas got a 3 & 1 win over Whitley Pate (Wake Forest) but Annabelle Davis (Clemson) lost to Ava Esposito (Auburn). In flight 5 Gabia Paskauskas got a 4 & 4 win over Given Roach. In the flight 6 draw Jasmine Conway lost to Krystal Blanch (Wake Forest). I was very surprised to see Jasmine placed below the Paskauskas sisters in the NC State order. In the flight 7 draw Jess Dawson (Furman) lost to Sara Nayar (Alabama). There were wins in doubles for Given (flight 2) and Gabia (flight 4) but losses for Kristina & Jasmine (flight 2) and Jess, Annabelle and Kylie (flight 3).

We also have several men at the SEC Challenge. Hugo Coquelin (Vanderbilt), Roan Jones (Alabama), Billy Blaydes (Auburn), Matt Rankin (Kentucky), Henry Jefferson (Florida) and Will Nolan (Auburn) all won. And all apart from Matt and Will won their doubles as well.

Lambda · Challenger level

Lui Maxted got his highest ranking win in his college career as he beat Jay Friend to reach the final of the Battle in the Bay Classic. Unfortunately in the final he lost in a close match. TCU confirm he will be next in action at the All-American championships next week.

In the SEC Challenge, Roan Jones won 3 singles and 3 doubles to, with his pairing, win the Crimson draw, defeating Hugo Coquelin along the way. Players paired with another player from their team to play 2 singles and a doubles match and the duo to win 2 of the 3 matches progressed to the next round.

Kristina Paskauskas and sister Gabia finished runners-up in their draws at the Debbie Southern Furman Fall Classic. Unfortunately NC State women have no other events scheduled for the fall season outside of the 4 NCAA feeder ITA events so they, along with Jasmine, may not have further opportunities to play until the spring season.

Florida had 2 tough match ups for the final 2 days of the Kitty Harrison Invitational against Duke and UNC and Alicia Dudeney lost both singles matches. Talia lost her singles match against Duke's Katie Codd (#49) and didn't play against UNC. Sophia Johnson (ODU) won her singles match against Virginia but dropped the match against Duke in a match tie-break.

Lambda · Challenger level

Just so it is recorded here, as noted in the dedicated thread, Oli Tarvet (San Diego) is the men's All-American Singles and Doubles champion. With it he becomes the first to be awarded All-American status for this season with the ITA deciding to recognise the prestige of winning this event by adding it to the criteria that gives All-American status.

Joining Oli in reaching the quarter-finals of singles and thereby qualifying for the NCAAs in November was Lui Maxted (TCU). Both also qualified for the NCAAs in doubles, along with Grace Piper as our only qualifier in the womens so far.

The next qualifying event for the NCAAs will be the Regionals which, depending on the region, will be in 2 or 3 weeks. Players that have qualified for the NCAAs can play the Regionals but are unlikely to, both because they won't want to but also because with limited spots available and a guaranteed spot in the main draw for each school's highest ranked player that is selected, some colleges will be doing a bit of strategic selection of who they will send there.

Away from the All-American Championships, there was a full program of Invitational events going on. Some highlights that I have noted having a quick skim through are

Luca Bluett in his debut appearance for Santa Clara won 4 matches over 3 days to win the white flight of the Aggie Invitational at UC Davis. He also won both his doubles matches. Also competing there was Kai-Luca Ampaw (Gonzaga) who reached the semi-final of his flight.

Matt Rankin (Kentucky) won the Flight 1 singles bracket in the EKU Invite (East Kentucky)

On the women's side there was lots of British interest in the Rocket Invite in Toledo. This included DePaul and Michigan State which between them have 7 Brits on their rosters. On the DePaul roster are Hannah Smith (junior), Eleanor Nobbs (senior), Eleanor Cochran (freshman) and Isabella Gibson (freshman). Hannah picked up 3 singles wins and 3 doubles wins to go unbeaten over the 2 days. Eleanor Nobbs 2-1 in singles and 3-0 in doubles, Cochran and Isabelle both went 1-1 in singles and doubles. On Michigan State's roster we have Issey Purser (junior), Oriana Parkins-Godwin (redshirt sophomore) and Ellie Blackford (freshman). Issey went 3-0 in singles and 2-1 in doubles, Oriana went 1-2 in singles and doubles. Ellie didn't play.

Having a quick look forward to next weekend there appear to be some tasty invitationals with the men's Big 12/SEC Challenge and the USC's Women of Troy Invite which will hopefully include Grace and Immi. Many of our Florida based women - and we have a few - will be in the Florida edition of the Bedford Cup postponed from the weekend just gone due to the hurricane.

Lambda · Challenger level

Scrolling down the list of winners in the Regional Small College Championships, I notice that Destinee Martins having graduated from TCU (where she moved up the order last season from No 3 to finish playing at No 1 and ranked 95) now plays in the NAIA for Keiser University. A couple of weeks ago she won the doubles in the NAIA Florida Regional with Violet Apisah who she played with at Tyler Junior at the start of her college career and has joined up with again at Keiser. Destinee also reached the singles final but lost to Violet.

Lambda · Challenger level

On the back of Jake's meteoric rise up the ATP rankings, Mark Hilton discusses the LTA's NCAA support programme.

Sounds like JPJ returning to college is still to be decided.

Lambda · Challenger level

We have 2 more qualifiers for the NCAA Championships today. Both in doubles.

Lily Hutchings (Tulsa) was the first to qualify by winning the Central Regional Championships with partner Maria Berlanga. They defeated a pair from Oklahoma that included last year's Central Regional champion and 1 half of the partnership that finished 9th in last season's doubles ranking.

Luca Pow (Wake Forest) followed by winning both his SF and F today with regular partner Luciano Tacchi. They defeated the top seeded pairing from Clemson in the final of the Carolina regionals.

Many congratulations to them. biggrin

The most notable other result in terms of going to the business end were Hugo Coquelin (Vanderbilt) narrowly losing his doubles semi-final to the eventual winners in the Ohio Valley Regionals and reaching the Quarters in singles to the top seed who went on to make the final. Matt Rankin (Kentucky) also made the quarter-final of the doubles here.

Will Jansen (Ohio State) appears to be missing from the Midwest draws - I could have sworn I saw him in the draw earlier in the weekend - but he will be eligible for the final qualification tournament for the NCAAs next month from reaching the QF in the All-Americans last month.

Holly Fischer (Harvard) was top seed in the doubles in the New England regionals, which were played at Harvard, and she reached the QF in her first appearance this season. Curiously she didn't play singles.

Both the men's and women's Southeastern Regionals (that include schools from Florida and Georgia) were postponed due to "inclement weather", ie the hurricane, and will take place this coming weekend.

As well as the Southeastern regionals this coming weekend, the regionals that include Stanford and TCU men and North Carolina State, ODU and USC women are also due to take place.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Thanks Lambda - is there a site with the regional draws in one place or is it a case of sleuthing around (and if so, Ill stick to your excellent updates!)

Lambda · Challenger level

JonH comes home wrote:
Thanks Lambda - is there a site with the regional draws in one place or is it a case of sleuthing around (and if so, Ill stick to your excellent updates!)

https://wearecollegetennis.com/ita-division-i-regional-championships/

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Thank you, Lambda

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:
Thanks Lambda - is there a site with the regional draws in one place or is it a case of sleuthing around (and if so, Ill stick to your excellent updates!)

https://wearecollegetennis.com/ita-division-i-regional-championships/

Out of interest, Lambda, are they playing doubles one weekend and singles the next or are all events split with singles and doubles action over both weekends (doesnt look like they are playing during the week?).

Does wearecollege summarise the NCAA qualifiers anywhere do you know, both from these events and the previous ITA event? Just wondering if we have a list that we can access to find the overall British qualifiers to date/in running for the NCAA in the 4 disciplines?

Lambda · Challenger level

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.

Lambda · Challenger level

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. hmm

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.