British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

US College chat 2025/26

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
She's a US roving reporter for junior and college tennis (and other US tennis) and does a daily blog - she's extremely knowledgeable, writes well and gives summaries that are about the right length - enough detail but not too long
She also often does interesting interviews with the players or their coaches or whatever

tenniskalamazoo.blogspot.com/

Thanks CD, Ill take a look!

Lambda · ATP level

JonH comes home wrote:
Lambda wrote:
Alex lost 6-1 3-6 5-7
Roan lost 4-6 6-7

Through to round 2 we have Luca, Savannah and Gabia. Henry, Alex and Roan head to the consolation draw.

Who'd have thought this morning that at the end of the day we'd have more women than men still left in singles?

L32: Luca Pow (Wake Forest) v [9-16] Devin Badenhorst (Baylor)

L32: Savannah Dada-Mascoll (App State) v Josie Usereau (Arizona)
L32: Gabia Paskauskas (Florida) v [6] Piper Charney (Michigan)
With the singles being at last 32 stage, how do they finish on Sunday? Do they play two rounds on one day? Seems poor scheduling if that is the case, given the weather seems fine?

There's 2 rounds tomorrow. They're trying to balance giving as many players as possible an opportunity while minimising time away from class

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:

Lambda wrote:
Alex lost 6-1 3-6 5-7
Roan lost 4-6 6-7

Through to round 2 we have Luca, Savannah and Gabia. Henry, Alex and Roan head to the consolation draw.

Who'd have thought this morning that at the end of the day we'd have more women than men still left in singles?

L32: Luca Pow (Wake Forest) v [9-16] Devin Badenhorst (Baylor)

L32: Savannah Dada-Mascoll (App State) v Josie Usereau (Arizona)
L32: Gabia Paskauskas (Florida) v [6] Piper Charney (Michigan)
With the singles being at last 32 stage, how do they finish on Sunday? Do they play two rounds on one day? Seems poor scheduling if that is the case, given the weather seems fine?
There's 2 rounds tomorrow. They're trying to balance giving as many players as possible an opportunity while minimising time away from class

ok, got it - which makes sense.

Lambda · ATP level

And then there was one. Savannah is the last Brit standing in singles.

L32: Savannah Dada-Mascoll won 1 & 4
L32: Gabia Paskauskas lost 1 & 1
L32: Luca Pow lost 3 & 4

L16: Savannah Dada-Mascoll (App State) v Tatum Evans (UNC)

Gabia and Luca go into the consolation draw

Lambda · ATP level

In doubles we have 3 mens teams through giving us representation in 3 of the 4 QFs.

Luca Pow+ won 1 & 1
Henry Jefferson+ defeated the Blaydes brothers 2 & 2
Alex Okonkwo+ defeated the 2 seeds 11-9 in a MTB

Jasmine Conway+ lost 3 & 3

-----

QF: [7] Luca Pow/Szymkowiak (Wake Forest) v [1] Sanchez Martinez/Jovanovic (Mississippi State)
QF: Henry Jefferson/Nirundorn (Florida) v Brown/Gorzny (Texas)
QF: [q] Alex Okonkwo/Bernard (Ohio State) v Suresh/Delgado (Wake Forest)

The winners qualify for the NCAAs.
Luca's match pits the two teams with the 2 best combined doubles WTN and only remaining seeds in the draw against each other. It's an unfortunate draw but the results of the top seeds have looked far from convincing so far.
Alex+ strategy will be clear. Keep the ball away from Suresh. Suresh has the best doubles WTN in the draw and is generally regarded as the best men's doubles player in college tennis. He had 5+ entries in last seasons rankings such that he can play with anyone and still win. Suresh's partner has the 4th worst doubles WTN in the draw.
For Henry+ this id say is 50/50. I'm not familiar with the Texan's doubles pedigree.

Good luck to all and Savannah in singles, all one win away from the NCAAs.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

thanks Lambda - good luck to them all!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Savannah sadly lost in straight sets in the singles

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
In doubles we have 3 mens teams through giving us representation in 3 of the 4 QFs.

Luca Pow+ won 1 & 1
Henry Jefferson+ defeated the Blaydes brothers 2 & 2
Alex Okonkwo+ defeated the 2 seeds 11-9 in a MTB

Jasmine Conway+ lost 3 & 3

-----

QF: [7] Luca Pow/Szymkowiak (Wake Forest) v [1] Sanchez Martinez/Jovanovic (Mississippi State)
QF: Henry Jefferson/Nirundorn (Florida) v Brown/Gorzny (Texas)
QF: [q] Alex Okonkwo/Bernard (Ohio State) v Suresh/Delgado (Wake Forest)

The winners qualify for the NCAAs.
Luca's match pits the two teams with the 2 best combined doubles WTN and only remaining seeds in the draw against each other. It's an unfortunate draw but the results of the top seeds have looked far from convincing so far.
Alex+ strategy will be clear. Keep the ball away from Suresh. Suresh has the best doubles WTN in the draw and is generally regarded as the best men's doubles player in college tennis. He had 5+ entries in last seasons rankings such that he can play with anyone and still win. Suresh's partner has the 4th worst doubles WTN in the draw.
For Henry+ this id say is 50/50. I'm not familiar with the Texan's doubles pedigree.

Good luck to all and Savannah in singles, all one win away from the NCAAs.

Well, Henry won, 6 and 6. And into the NCAAs.

Alex+ are a set up as I type, Luca + just started.

Lambda · ATP level

Congratulations to Henry for booking his place at the NCAAs.

Unfortunately the top seeds proved too good for Luca+ who loses 4&3.
Henry+ now play the top seeds in the SF.

Alex+ came very close but lost 6-3 6-7(4) [9-11]. Alex's partner had retired in singles earlier in the day and I was worried they may give a walkover so it was good to see they played

I'm keeping an eye on the consolation draws for singles where there is still a NCAA place up for grabs for the winner of each half of the draw. I don't expect any of our players to get that place. But we had a couple of notable results yesterday.
Alex Okonkwo surprisingly defeated Luca Pow 3&5. He next plays TCU's Duncan Chan who has been the surprise package so far this season and is 13-1 for the season, including at least 6 ranked wins, having won the Battle in the Bay on the opening weekend of the season and going through qualifying here. His first and only loss so far this season was yesterday to top seed DK Suresh in 3 sets. Alex will have his work cut out to make any further progress.

In the womens consolation draw Savannah has fed in to the same half as Gabia but different quarter.
Yesterday, Gabia first beat Kentucky's Julia Zhu in a 2nd set tie break although should have won it much earlier having 4 match points at 5-2 40-0* and 2 match points in the next game. But more impressively, and of note, is she then went on to beat Alyssa Ahn of Stanford (WTA658 and USTA Girls 18s National Champion) 5-7 6-2 6-4. A result in the next match against 9-16 seed Mao Mushiko (Cal) would be even more impressive.

Lambda · ATP level

Perhaps Henry's anger at their preseason ranking has spurred him on. He said to the university newspaper earlier this month

I think the preseason ranking is a little bit of a joke, to be honest, how they put us at 33 when we finished at 16, Jefferson said. Yeah, it's whatever, preseason ranking doesn't mean anything. I think we're definitely one of the best players in college, and we're going to show that this year.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Hey Lambda

Just remind us , from the forthcoming events, how does the NCAA field get filled? And are there any direct entries into the NCAA through rankings etc? I cant recall, did the mid October regionals feed the sectionals field or do they provide a route into the NCAA as of their own right? Thanks!

The main dates this year
20 - 28 September All-Americans (Men Tulsa, Women Cary)
Mid October Regionals
6 - 9 Nov Sectionals
6 - 9 Nov Conference Masters (Barnes TC, San Diego)
18 - 23 Nov NCAA individual singles and doubles championships, USTA National Campus, Lake Nona, Florida

Lambda · ATP level

There is no entry by ranking into the NCAAs because there are no rankings calculated based on play this season before the NCAAs - the 1st rankings based on play this season will be at the end of the fall season after the NCAAs.

Entry to the NCAAs is
Regionals - singles finalists and doubles winner at each of the 13 regionals
Sectionals - 6 singles and 3 doubles at each of the 4 sectionals
Conference masters - singles SFs and 3 doubles teams

To be eligible for the sectionals they supposedly have to have reached a certain round (I can't remember the round) in either the All Americans or Regionals and not already have qualified for the NCAAs but last year I don't think they stuck to the round reached criteria rigidly.

Lambda · ATP level

Savannah Dada-Mascoll (Appalachian State) continues to defy the odds. In the consolation draw today she has beaten the pre-season #27 Bridget Stammel (Vanderbilt) 4&6 and #13 Julia Garcia-Ruiz (Oklahoma) 4&4 to reach the final for her half of the draw and again be 1 win away from a NCAA place. It is the 2nd year running the Sun Belt conference has had a representative reach the final stage of the consolation draw with Sofia Johnson doing the same last year. Quite a feat for a mid-major conference. For the NCAA place she will play either #48 Ashton Bowers (Auburn) or #17 Mao Mushika (Cal) with Bowers currently a set up. Gabia withdrew overnight.

Lambda · ATP level

Savannah completes her dream week with another ranked win winning the consolation draw semi-final 2 & 3 and with it books her place in the NCAA championships. biggrin

(The final isn't played)