British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Lambda · Top national player

RE: US College chat 2025/26

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
There are no more British qualifiers from the Regionals. Savannah is our only remaining competing player and is in the semi-final o the Carolina regional where she'll play the No 1 seed tomorrow.

In summary our NCAA qualifiers so far
In singles Savannah Dada-Mascoll, Kristina Paskauskas, Luca Pow
In doubles Henry Jefferson.

That feels a lot fewer than end of the regionals last season?

Lambda · Top national player

It is, but I wasn't expecting much. the women have exceeded my expectations in singles - we had no female singles qualifiers at this stage last year and I wasn't expecting any this year. I did perhaps expect a bit more success in mens doubles given the rankings but not to be so far. We had quite a few doubles semi-finalists in both men and women that I'd hope some of them can repeat that at the Sectionals to qualify. I'm not really seeing where singles qualifiers are going to come from

Coming in to this season, I thought it to be more of a transitional year. We have a few women who were top 100 juniors or have had success in W35s that I'd be disappointed for if they didn't make NCAAs at some point in their college career but I think it's a year or two too early for most of them. It may be my lack of knowledge of men's tennis but I'm not seeing who can carry on the mantle from Fearnley and Tarvet in the coming years. With a couple of exceptions the quality of our boys going to college in the last couple of years seems not to be that high to this unknowledgeable observer.

Lambda · Top national player

Wowsers! Savannah is on fire. She defeats the No 1 seed Rabman (UNC) 1 & 3. Rabman is pre-season ranked No 12. She proves that qualification for the NCAAs at the all Americans was no fluke.

I've no idea where this has come from. Sure she was arguably the 2nd best women in the sun belt conference last year behind Sofia Johnson but I still didn't see this coming. It's safe to say I think she has the sun belt female player of the season wrapped up already.

Let's see if the winner of the other semi wants to play the final.

the addict · Tennis legend

The mention of Sofia Johnson reminds me to point out she has just made it through qualifying in the Hilton Head W15 - on clay.

Lambda · Top national player

The winner of the other semi didn't want to play the final, but neither did Savannah so she is co-champion of the Carolina region. Most players don't play the final because their objective is to qualify for the NCAAs. Savannah had already done that so I'm surprised she opted out of the final.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Thanks Lambda / I think Savannahs performance this fall is one of the stories of the year, tbh, completely out of the blue and v impressive

Lambda · Top national player

The selections for the ITA Conference Masters have been announced. The Conference Masters features one singles player and one doubles team from each conference. Some conferences have tournaments to select it's entry, but for most conferences it is an arbitrary process behind closed doors. It starts Thursday next week at Barnes Tennis Centre, San Diego and is the last chance, along with the sectionals running at the same time, to qualify for the NCAAs. The 4 singles semi-finalists and final 3 doubles teams will qualify for the NCAAs from the Conference Masters.

There was British success last year in this event with Sofia Johnson (Old Dominion) winning the women's singles title and Savannah Dada-Mascoll (Appalachian State) winning the women's doubles title, both representing the Sun Belt Conference.

This year we have no selections for the women's singles.
For the men's singles our selections are Raffaello Papajcik (Denver representing the Summit League) and Zechariah Hamrouni (Old Dominion, Sun Belt conference)

In women's doubles we have
Francesca Davis (William & Mary, Coastal Athletic Association), Paulina Jurkowska (Delaware, Conference USA) and Jemma Cave (Stephen F Austin, Southland Conference)

In men's doubles we have
Thomas Giles (DePaul, Big East), Derrick Chen (Georgia, Southeast) and Zechariah Hamrouni (Old Dominion, Sun Belt)

Its impressive for Zech to have been selected to represent his conference in singles and doubles so early in his college career. Last year's NCAA singles champion, Michael Zheng is selected to be the Ivy League's representative here and is head and shoulders above the rest and should breeze to the men's singles title.

The full lists are here

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
The selections for the ITA Conference Masters have been announced. The Conference Masters features one singles player and one doubles team from each conference. Some conferences have tournaments to select it's entry, but for most conferences it is an arbitrary process behind closed doors. It starts Thursday next week at Barnes Tennis Centre, San Diego and is the last chance, along with the sectionals running at the same time, to qualify for the NCAAs. The 4 singles semi-finalists and final 3 doubles teams will qualify for the NCAAs from the Conference Masters.

There was British success last year in this event with Sofia Johnson (Old Dominion) winning the women's singles title and Savannah Dada-Mascoll (Appalachian State) winning the women's doubles title, both representing the Sun Belt Conference.

This year we have no selections for the women's singles.
For the men's singles our selections are Raffaello Papajcik (Denver representing the Summit League) and Zechariah Hamrouni (Old Dominion, Sun Belt conference)

In women's doubles we have
Francesca Davis (William & Mary, Coastal Athletic Association), Paulina Jurkowska (Delaware, Conference USA) and Jemma Cave (Stephen F Austin, Southland Conference)

In men's doubles we have
Thomas Giles (DePaul, Big East), Derrick Chen (Georgia, Southeast) and Zechariah Hamrouni (Old Dominion, Sun Belt)

Its impressive for Zech to have been selected to represent his conference in singles and doubles so early in his college career. Last year's NCAA singles champion, Michael Zheng is selected to be the Ivy League's representative here and is head and shoulders above the rest and should breeze to the men's singles title.

The full lists are here

Thanks Lamda - I noticed they have 30 women listed and I think it was 26 or 27 men - do they not fill out the field (and have some conferences chosen not to send anyone?) and therefore have some byes in this one?

What is the structure of the sectionals event that takes place at the same time?

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

With only 4 Brits in total in to the NCAA's so far, could do with someone coming through from these Masters events.

Lambda · Top national player

You're more observant than me Jon. This might sound counter intuitive but the reason for the lower number of mens participants is down to the Title IX US law that requires educational programs that receive federal funding to provide women to have equal opportunities to participate in sports, among other equality requirements. There are more women's tennis programs than mens as women's tennis is used to increase the number of women in the athletics programs to meet the equality laws. In consequence this means in some conferences men's tennis is not sponsored so the universities that are members of those conferences and have a men's tennis program have to affiliate with another existing conference for men's tennis. For example, Missouri Valley Conference does not sponsor men's tennis, so Belmont play their women's team in the Missouri Valley Conference and their mens team in the Horizon League. So there are fewer conferences sponsoring mens tennis than women's tennis is why there are fewer men in the selections.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
You're more observant than me Jon. This might sound counter intuitive but the reason for the lower number of mens participants is down to the Title IX US law that requires educational programs that receive federal funding to provide women to have equal opportunities to participate in sports, among other equality requirements. There are more women's tennis programs than mens as women's tennis is used to increase the number of women in the athletics programs to meet the equality laws. In consequence this means in some conferences men's tennis is not sponsored so the universities that are members of those conferences and have a men's tennis program have to affiliate with another existing conference for men's tennis. For example, Missouri Valley Conference does not sponsor men's tennis, so Belmont play their women's team in the Missouri Valley Conference and their mens team in the Horizon League. So there are fewer conferences sponsoring mens tennis than women's tennis is why there are fewer men in the selections.

Understand that - thanks! But both men and women will be short of a normal 32 draw field, presumably a number of players get a bye in round one therefore, the seeds presumably (if there are seeds!)

Lambda · Top national player

As well as the Conference Masters mentioned in previous posts, the Sectionals start on Thursday for the final chance to qualify for the NCAAs. In each of the 4 sectionals, the singles semi-finalists and 2 quarter-finalists (decided by playoff) will qualify for the NCAAs and the final 3 doubles teams will qualify. The entry priority for the sectionals goes to those that went furthest in the All Americans and Regionals without qualifying for the NCAAs and so its more or less the familiar names that are giving it a final go to make it to Orlando for the NCAA finals.

Men singles - Louis Bowden (Baylor), Luc Koenig (Baylor), Alex Okonkwo (Ohio State), Roan Jones (UNC), Billy Blaydes (Auburn), Hugo Coquelin (Vanderbilt), Will Jansen (Georgia), Henry Jefferson (Florida), Matt Rankin (Kentucky), Luca Bluett (UC Santa Clara)
Men doubles - Luc Koenig (Baylor), Alex Okonkwo (Ohio State), Roan Jones (UNC), Ant Wright (UNC), Freddy Blaydes (Auburn), Billy Blaydes (Auburn), Will Jansen (Georgia), Luca Bluett (UC Santa Clara)

Women singles - Daniela Piani (South Carolina), Isabelle Lacy (Virginia), Hephzibah Oluwadare (Ohio State), Gabia Paskauskas (Florida), Millie Bissett (Florida State), Eva Shaw (Florida State), Immi Haddad (USC), Hannah Read (San Diego)
Women doubles - Isabelle Lacy (Virginia), Jasmine Conway (NC State), Erin Pearce (Vanderbilt), Millie Bissett & Eva Shaw (Florida State), Gabia Paskauskas (Florida), Jessica Matthews (Idaho)

I'm not going to make any predictions about our chances of getting more qualifiers and I'm just going to hope that some have a good weekend.

event page

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Good luck to them all!

I had a thought - it seemed relatively easy for Sheddie to create the player of the season section for threads and posts etc around that.

We have a section for juniors and men, women etc.

Might it be possible to have specific college section? It could include the signings and chat threads as current but then it would allow more easily to put in specific tournament threads to track the NCAA teams, individual events and these variety of sectional and regional and masters qualification events?

And it would make it all easier to check back and follow?

Sorry if Im alone but if it is possible and we have room within the structure to do that, why not??

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
The selections for the ITA Conference Masters have been announced. The Conference Masters features one singles player and one doubles team from each conference. Some conferences have tournaments to select it's entry, but for most conferences it is an arbitrary process behind closed doors. It starts Thursday next week at Barnes Tennis Centre, San Diego and is the last chance, along with the sectionals running at the same time, to qualify for the NCAAs. The 4 singles semi-finalists and final 3 doubles teams will qualify for the NCAAs from the Conference Masters.

There was British success last year in this event with Sofia Johnson (Old Dominion) winning the women's singles title and Savannah Dada-Mascoll (Appalachian State) winning the women's doubles title, both representing the Sun Belt Conference.

This year we have no selections for the women's singles.
For the men's singles our selections are Raffaello Papajcik (Denver representing the Summit League) and Zechariah Hamrouni (Old Dominion, Sun Belt conference)

In women's doubles we have
Francesca Davis (William & Mary, Coastal Athletic Association), Paulina Jurkowska (Delaware, Conference USA) and Jemma Cave (Stephen F Austin, Southland Conference)

In men's doubles we have
Thomas Giles (DePaul, Big East), Derrick Chen (Georgia, Southeast) and Zechariah Hamrouni (Old Dominion, Sun Belt)

Its impressive for Zech to have been selected to represent his conference in singles and doubles so early in his college career. Last year's NCAA singles champion, Michael Zheng is selected to be the Ivy League's representative here and is head and shoulders above the rest and should breeze to the men's singles title.

The full lists are here

The draws for the Conference Masters are out, below

Mens

https://colleges.wearecollegetennis.com/competitions/ITA/Tournaments/draws/9DED4163-DC93-4943-88C2-20C00F9CFD9F

Womens

https://colleges.wearecollegetennis.com/competitions/ITA/Tournaments/draws/9DED4163-DC93-4943-88C2-20C00F9CFD9F/C1C29563-8DCA-483E-8FD7-A0AEF2540453