British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Ollie Tarvet finished the 2024/25 college season as the highest ranked GB male at No. 5 in the ITA singles rankings, winning 23 matches and officially losing 2 but 1 was by retirement early in the 1st set. His only loss in a completed match this season was in the opening round of the NCAA singles championships in November.

To achieve such a high ranking at a mid-major university is a remarkable achievement and is in part thanks to aggressive scheduling by the Head Coach in the first part of the spring semester to play teams in the "power" conferences where the big ranking points are available.

He said when interviewed towards the end of March that he has every intention to return for his final year. The only thing that will stop him is if something remarkable happens in pros over the summer. He is targeting the individual NCAAs in November as he doesn't feel he has done himself justice in that event in previous years.

With the reputation he has and with his ranking he could - and surely does - get financially lucrative offers from the majors. But he has said he will not transfer from San Diego as he has loyalty and respect for his Head Coach and the faith that he has paid in him.

Coup Droit wrote:

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Yes, and it seems to me you can't have too many individual threads

The great thing is that they don't block things up and get in the way

Because if the player drifts off into obscurity, their thread just drops down and gets forgotten

(But it's waiting there, on page 6 or whatever, for when they suddenly have their glorious second coming )

Not that this applies to Oliver, of course

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Well, Ollie, who apparently hails from St Albans, so just up the road from me, ain't gonna drift off into obscurity for a while yet after his exploits in the Wimbledon FQR at Roehampton earlier today, beating the q29 & WR 144, Alexander Blockx, by 6-3 3-6 6-2 6-1!  

A quote from Ryan Keckley, the head tennis coach at San Diego Uni, where Ollie's reading for his degree:

Ollie is a flat-out competitor and plays with an intensity that is hard to teach. He will be a difference-maker on next year's squad because of how strong and confident he is on the court. He is a natural leader and come crunch time, Ollie is the guy you want on your side of the net because of the fire he brings to each competition. We are all very excited to see what Oliver can do over the course of his career at USD.

Oli will be playing fellow-qualifier, Leandro Riedi, in R1 at Wimbledon

Leandro is the Swiss young man who was hugely promising as a youngster (with Stricker, the Swiss new Federer and Wawrinka)

But has been plagued with awful injuries - two knee ops, I think, in the last 9 months

Tarvet has every chance

Which will then give a tricky decision

He's already implied he's happy to give up the £66k to stay one more year on the tennis programme at San Diego

But to give up £99K?

It's absurd he isn't able to receive the money one way or another. So here's an idea - why doesn't Wimbledon simply transfer the funds to the LTA who in turn promise to hold it for future coaching and development for Oliver?

I don't think it is fair in the absolute
It seems a daft rule to me, completely out of date

But it certainly is fair, as in Oli is not being specifically hard done by, noone has moved the goalposts, the rules are open and transparent

And unfortunately the idea of the lta or whoever holding the money 8n escrow is not a legal solution - if the money is ringfenced for Oli, then it's his money, beneficially, earned from playing in pro events

Which is not allowed

(Same way as you can't earn money by working and have it paid to your elderly broke mum instead, and therefore pay practically no tax because you claim its not you earning the money, yiu havent received a penny, and she has no income, say, and sobarely pays tax )

If one assumes that a student athlete should be able to benefit from prize money, that student's tax status becomes an issue: scholarship funds are tax-free (because they are designed to enable education), but if the student earns (taxable) prize money as a direct result of that scholarship, then the scholarship itself could - and probably would - be deemed taxable. This would lead to a right pickle* This is something that the student athlete's that are allowed to share income from NCAA colleges (TV rights, Name Image Likeness payments etc.) are currently being surprised with.

* official HMRC term.