UCLA Squeezes Past Virginia in NCAA Team Final Rematch; ITA Partners with Universal Tennis Ratings; Townsend Beats Knapp at BNP Paribas Open

 Given the setting, the significance and the circumstances of their last meeting in the NCAA final (see yesterday's post for more on that), the UCLA-Virginia match today couldn't possibly top it.  But it came darn close, with five of the six singles matches going to three sets, with the last three all in third-set tiebreakers when Bruin Marcos Giron beat Alex Domijan at line 2 to clinch the win for UCLA.

UCLA got a huge boost by winning the doubles point, which has been a weak spot for them all season.  But a couple of new combinations paid off, with Gage Brymer and Mackenzie McDonald clinching the point at No. 3 with an 8-5 win over Thai Kwiatkowski and Mac Styslinger.

Once singles began, UCLA won four first sets in singles, but Virginia came back in three of those, while UCLA forced a third set in the two matches when they lost the first set.  The only straight-set win went to Mackenzie McDonald, who beat Ryan Shane 7-5, 6-4 at line 3, and the score was 2-0 UCLA for a long time.

Kwiatkowski put Virginia on the board with a 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-2 win over Karue Sell at line 5, and Clay Thompson got a late break over Mitchell Frank at 1 to win 7-6(1), 3-6, 7-5, making it 3-1 UCLA. By that time, Giron and Domijan, Styslinger and Brymer (at 4) and Joe DiGiulio and Justin Shane (at 6) were all in tiebreakers. Virginia needed to win all three, of course, and Giron prevented a last-match-on scenario with his 5-7, 7-6(7), 7-6(4) win.  The other two matches did finish, with Styslinger and Shane getting the wins for a 4-3 score that still doesn't convey just how close the match was.  There's many, many matches to be played between now and the NCAAs in May, but few are likely to be that closely contested on every court.  Accounts of the match can be found at the UCLA website and the Virginia website.

There are two big Top 10 clashes on Friday, with the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes traveling to Norman to play No. 4 Oklahoma in men's play, and No. 6 USC hosting No. 3 UCLA in women's play.

============================================
#3 UCLA 4, #2 Virginia 3
Mar 06, 2014 at Los Angeles, CA (Los Angeles Tennis Center)

Doubles
1. Domijan/J. Shane (VA) def. Giron/Sell (UCLA) 8-4
2. Di Giulio/Thompson (UCLA) def. Luca Corinteli/Frank (VA) 8-3
3. Brymer/McDonald (UCLA) def. Kwiatkowski/Styslinger (VA) 8-5

Singles
1. #1 Clay Thompson (UCLA) def. #4 Mitchell Frank (VA) 7-6(1), 3-6, 7-5
2. #5 Marcos Giron (UCLA) def. #92 Alex Domijan (VA) 5-7, 7-6(7), 7-6(4)
3. #35 Mackenzie McDonald (UCLA) def. Ryan Shane (VA) 7-5, 6-4
4. #73 Mac Styslinger (VA) def. #74 Gage Brymer (UCLA) 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(5)
5. Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (VA) def. #98 Karue Sell (UCLA) 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-2
6. Justin Shane (VA) def. Joseph Di Giulio (UCLA) 1-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(4)
Match Notes
Virginia 9-2; National ranking #2
UCLA 10-1; National ranking #3
Order of finish: Doubles (2,1,3); Singles (3,5,1,2,6,4)
============================================

The ITA announced today an enhanced partnership with the Universal Tennis Rating System, which seeks to rate every competitive player regardless of age.  Based on the French rating model, the system is designed to promote more local play between juniors and older competitors, and to allow players to better judge the level of competition when selecting tournaments to compete in.

A Frequently Asked Questions document about the system is available here.

Wild card Taylor Townsend, who will be 18 next month, picked up her first WTA Top 50 win today at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.  Townsend, who also won her first round match there last year, beat No. 49 Karin Knapp of Italy 7-6(1), 6-1 and will play No. 20 seed Flavia Pennetta, also of Italy, in the second round.  Wild card Vicky Duval led 4-1 in the final set, but lost to Alisa Kleybanova of Russia 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 in their nearly three-hour first round meeting today.  Donna Vekic of Croatia, another teenage wild card, beat qualifier Olivia Rogowska of Australia 6-2, 6-0.

In the all-American matches, Tim Smyczek beat wild card Jack Sock 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 and Michael Russell(Miami) defeated Donald Young 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Many first round matches are still on the schedule for this evening. See the tournament website for results and draws.

Tennis.com Looks Back at UCLA-Virginia NCAA Final; Kosakowski Qualifies at BNP Paribas Open; ITF Grade 1 Carson Acceptances

UVA's Mitchell Frank exhorts crowd in NCAA Team final versus UCLA

Last week I was contacted by Tom McFerson, who was putting together an oral history of last year's NCAA Men's Team final between UCLA and Virginia for tennis.com.  With the two teams meeting Thursday for the first time since that memorable final, McFerson spoke with Mitchell Frank, Adrien Puget, Billy Martin, Brian Boland and me about that dramatic and heart-breaking finish. If you weren't in Champaign that day last May, or even if you were, read what Tom has put together on a truly memorable match.  And if you are so inclined, please comment on that post, which may help assure future features on college tennis.

Yesterday, I was asked by tennis.com's online editor Ed McGrogan to do a short podcast on college tennis, which can be found here.  There is some discussion of the Virginia - UCLA rematch, but mostly I discuss the current contenders for the NCAA team championships, the value of college tennis for aspiring professionals, and the format experiments. Again, if there is enough interest, I think tennis.com might do another podcast on college tennis prior to the NCAAs in May, so please give it a listen.

Speaking of college tennis, two former college players qualified for the BNP Paribas Open.  Dan Kosakowski, who played one year at UCLA in 2010-11, defeated No. 3 seed and ATP No. 95 David Goffin of Belgium 6-3, 6-2 one day after breezing past No. 16 seed Thiemo De Bakker of the Netherlands 6-1, 6-2.  Kosakowski's win over Goffin wasn't his best, ranking-wise, as he claimed victories in 2012 over No. 82 Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia in the second round of US Open qualifying and No. 85 Benjamin Becker of Germany in the first round of the Sacramento Challenger a month later, but he is now competing in his first Masters 1000 event on the ATP tour.  Kosakowski went through the prequalifying tournament at the BNP Paribas, but found out before the final was played that he would received entry into qualifying based on his protected ranking.  In this article, Kosakowski explains the shoulder injury that kept him off the circuit for six months last year.

Australian JP Smith, the eight-time All-American at the University of Tennessee, also reached the main draw of an ATP 1000 event for the first time.  Smith beat No. 12 seed Wayne Odesnik 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(1) Tuesday, and earned his place in the main draw with a 6-3, 7-5 win over No. 13 seed Andrej Martin of Slovakia today.

Alex Kuznetsov, seeded No. 11, and Robby Ginepri also reached the main draw with wins today.

The women's main draw began today, with Madison Keys, Lauren Davis and wild card Shelby Rogers posting first round wins.  World No. 1 junior Belinda Bencic of Switzerland lost to qualifier Heather Watson of Great Britain 7-5, 6-4.

Results, draws and the order of play can be found at the tournament website.

The acceptance lists for the ITF Grade 1 in Carson, which begins late this month, are out.  The ITF's No. 2 junior Stefan Kozlov will not be defending his title, but Francis Tiafoe(8) and Michael Mmoh(9) have entered, as has 2013 finalist Henrik Wiersholm and 2012 semifinalist Noah Rubin.  Naoki Nakagawa of Japan is the highest ranked international player entered, at 24. No ITF Top 10 girls are entered--Tornado Black and Louisa Chirico are not playing, but Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic and Sandra Samir of Egypt give the tournament two Top 20 players.  2013 semifinalist Christina Makarova is entered, as is Sofia Kenin, Johnnise Renaud, Dasha Ivanova and CiCi Bellis.

The complete list can be found at the ITF Junior site.

February Aces; Duke Women, Ohio State Men Stay No. 1; USC's Santamaria Out for Season; BNP Paribas Update

My monthly Aces column for the Tennis Recruiting Network was posted today, with 13 junior and college players (current and former) highlighted for their performances in February.

Division I and Division III rankings were released today (Division II came out last week, with Barry men and Armstrong Atlantic women at No. 1), with the National Indoor champions--Ohio State men, Duke women, Washington (St. Louis) men and Johns Hopkins women-- at the top of all four lists.  The D-I men's rankings look a bit better now that Virginia has gone from 10 to 2 and Georgia from 35 to 16, but the Stanford women, who are 7-0, fell from 4 to 9, while Florida, whom Stanford shut out less than two weeks ago moved to No. 2.  Alabama achieved the highest ranking in program history when it moved from 10 to 4.   Two big matches involving the top 4 men's teams are set for this week.  Virginia travels to UCLA on Thursday(more on that tomorrow), and Oklahoma hosts Ohio State Friday.  The next college match day streamed on ESPN3 is Sunday, with the Oklahoma State women hosting Oklahoma at 1 p.m.

Men's Top 10:
1. Ohio State
2. Virginia
3. UCLA
4. Oklahoma
5. Southern Cal
6. Illinois
7. Texas
8. Texas A&M
9. Notre Dame
10. Duke

Women's Top 10
1. Duke
2. Florida
3. UCLA
4. Alabama
5. Virginia
6. Southern Cal
7. Vanderbilt
8. Northwestern
9. Stanford
10. Texas A&M

The ITA ranking page has links to the full lists for all divisions.  There were no individual rankings this week.

Southern Cal received some bad news today, with their No. 1 Sabrina Santamaria suffering a torn ACL. From the USC release:

World University Games silver medalist and one half of the defending NCAA Doubles Championship team, junior Sabrina Santamaria has been sidelined for the remainder of the season after suffering an ACL tear in her No. 1 singles match on March 2. Santamaria entered the 2013-14 season ranked No. 1 in the nation in singles and in doubles with senior teammate Kaitlyn Christian. A four-time ITA All-American, Santamaria was the 2013 Pac-12 Player of the Year as a sophomore -- the same season that she and Christian became USC’s first-ever NCAA doubles winners and completing the first collegiate tennis “Triple Crown” as doubles champs at the ITA All-American Championship, the ITA National Indoors Championship and the NCAA Tournament. The pair also has been named the Pac-12 Doubles Team of the Year the past two seasons. In her two-and-a-half seasons of work to date, Santamaria has gone 79-19 overall in singles and 83-18 in doubles. 

Men's qualifying got underway today at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, with former UCLA Bruins Dan Kosakowski and Nick Meister getting through in contrasting manners. Kosakowski breezed past No. 16 seed Thiemo De Bakker of the Netherlands 6-1, 6-2 in 54 minutes, while Meister saved two match points in the third set tiebreaker to beat No. 20 seed Illya Marchenko of Ukraine. Meister, who received entry via the pre-qualifying wild card, served for the match at 5-4, was broken, went up 6-4 in the tiebreaker, lost both those points, saved match points at 6-7 and 7-8 before finally posting a 4-6, 6-2, 7-6(8) win in just under three hours. UCLA's Clay Thompson and Marcos Giron and Southern Cal's Raymond Sarmiento have yet to complete their first round matches as of 8:30 pm Eastern time, but results can be found here.

Sixteen-year-old Stefan Kozlov lost to Australian Sam Groth 6-3, 6-4.

In the women's final round of qualifying, Madison Brengle went out to Camila Giorgi of Italy 6-2, 6-2 but wild card Allie Kiick made it through, beating An-Sophie Mestach of Belgium 6-4, 7-5. Kiick saved a set point at 4-5 in the second.

The men's draw was revealed this afternoon, with 11 US men competing. Only John Isner(12) is seeded, and he has a first round bye.  Tim Smyczek and wild card Jack Sock meet in the opening round, as do Michael Russell and Donald Young.  Wild card Ryan Harrison drew Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan, Sam Querrey plays a qualifier, wild card Rhyne Williams faces Jeremy Chardy of France, wild card Rajeev Ram plays Horacio Zeballos of Argentina, wild card Steve Johnson meets Roberto Bautista-Agut of Spain, and Bradley Klahn faces Australian Marinko Matosevic.  The draw is available at the tournament website.

Bollettieri Among International Tennis Hall of Fame Inductees; Men's Qualifying, Women's Main BNP Paribas Draws; Notre Dame's Dooley Comes Out

Today is World Tennis Day, a perfect day to announce the International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees for this July's ceremonies. Finally, after twice being denied induction, 82-year-old Nick Bollettieri has been tapped for admittance, as has Lindsay Davenport, former USTA president and CEO Jane Brown Grimes, BBC announcer John Barrett and Paralympian Chantal Vandierendonck.  That Bollettieri could be denied induction never made sense to me, as he changed the landscape of the sport as few have or will, but now that he's in, there's no point in dwelling on the past.  Chris Clarey of the New York Times provided this feature on Bollettieri in Saturday's paper.

The men's qualifying draw for the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells has just been released, with many former and a few current* college players among the 48 participants. Let me know if I've missed anyone.

Somdev Devvarman(1), Virginia
Greg Ouellette, Florida
James McGee, North Carolina State
Dan Kosakowski, UCLA
Marcos Giron(WC), UCLA*
Clay Thompson(WC), UCLA*
Bobby Reynolds(23), Vanderbilt
Robert Kendrick, Pepperdine
Nick Meister(WC), UCLA
Jesse Witten, Kentucky
Austin Krajicek, Texas A&M
Raymond Sarmiento(WC), USC*
Ted Angelinos, Virginia
Miguel Reyes-Varela, Texas
JP Smith, Tennessee

Sixteen-year-old Stefan Kozlov received a wild card and will play No. 22 seed Sam Groth of Australia in the first round of qualifying, which begins Tuesday. The order of play is here.

In the women's qualifying today, Irina Falconi and Grace Min lost, but Madison Brengle and Allie Kiick advanced to the second round. Kiick beat No. 19 seed Mandy Minella 6-3, 6-0, avenging her 6-0, 6-0 loss to Minella last fall in a Florida $50,000 Challenger.

The women's main draw was released today. Wild card Vicky Duval drew Alisa Kleybanova of Russia, wild card Taylor Townsend will play Italy's Karin Knapp and world No. 1 junior Belinda Bencic, also a wild card entry will face a qualifier.

Complete draws can be found here.

Last fall I posted a link to this New York Times story about Fresno State women's coach Simon Thibodeau announcing he is gay. Today Matt Dooley, a senior on the Notre Dame team, posted this courageous and often harrowing account of his difficult journey to that same announcement to his family, his friends and his teammates.  According to the Outsports.com article, Dooley is now working with the You Can Play Project to create an inclusive atmosphere in sports, regardless of sexual orientation.

BNP Paribas Women's Qualifying Draw; Top-ranked Duke Women Beat UNC; Virginia, Georgia Men Win; Rola Claims Challenge Title; Johns Hopkins Women Repeat as D-III Women's Indoor Champions

Qualifying begins on Monday for the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, after the rain-delayed pre-qualifying finished on Saturday.  Nick Meister beat former UCLA teammate Dennis Novikov 7-6(5), 6-2 in the semifinals, while Dan Kosakowski, another former Bruin, beat 16-year-old Taylor Fritz 6-2, 6-2. Meister and Kosakowski did not play the final however, when Kosakowski learned he had advanced into the qualifying draw based on a protected ranking, so Meister was declared the recipient of the wild card reserved for the pre-qualifying winner.

The women's pre-qualifying final was played, with Australian Anastasia Rodionova beating former North Carolina All-American Sanaz Marand 7-6, 6-0 in the final. Marand had an excellent tournament however, beating top seed Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-2 in the quarterfinals and taking out Mayo Hibi 7-6, 6-4 in the semifinals. Frequently, the finalist also receives a wild card with late withdrawals, etc., but not this year.  See the tournament website's events page for complete pre-qualifying draws.

All of the Americans in the women's qualifying draw received entry via wild cards.  Grace Min will play top seed Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic, Irina Falconi faces No. 5 seed Camila Giorgi of Italy, Madison Brengle meets No. 24 seed Romina Oprandi of Switzerland and Allie Kiick plays No. 19 seed Mandy Minella of Luxembourg. The 18-year-old Kiick will be particularly motivated in her match with Minella, after losing 6-0, 6-0 to her in the semifinals of the $50,000 Captiva Island Challenger last November.  The complete draw can be found here.  The men's qualifying draw will be revealed on Monday, although it was announced that UCLA's Marcos Giron received a wild card, so he, Clay Thompson, Kosakowski and Meister will give the Bruins two alumni and two current players in the draw.

Ohio State's 2013 NCAA singles champion Blaz Rola won his first ATP Challenger title in singles over the weekend at the $50,000 plus hospitality tournament in Guangzhou, China. The left-hander from Slovenia, seeded second, beat No. 4 seed Yuichi Sugita of Japan 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-3 in the final. With the title, Rola will be ranked inside the ATP Top 130 for the first time in his career.

Former Illinois All-American Kevin Anderson reached his second consecutive ATP final in Acapulco, and the 27-year-old South African has also reached a career-high in the ATP rankings: 18.  Anderson, the 2006 NCAA doubles champion (with Ryan Rowe), won the doubles title in Acapulco, with Australian Matt Ebden.

In high-profile college matches this weekend, the top-ranked Duke women repeated their Team Indoor quarterfinal win over over North Carolina, taking down the No. 11 Tar Heels 5-2 in Durham.  Jamie Loeb did avenge her Charlottesville loss to Trice Capra by a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 score, but the team match had already been decided, with Duke getting the doubles point and wins from Rachel Kahan, Ester Goldfeld and Hanna Mar.  A complete recap can be found at the Duke website.

If you think the University of Virginia men are actually the tenth-best team in the country (few do), then they claimed two upset wins this weekend in Charlottesville.  On Saturday, the Cavaliers beat No. 8 Baylor 6-1 and today they downed No. 6 Notre Dame by the same score, with Mitchell Frank not playing against the Fighting Irish.  Expect Virginia's ranking to reach a more appropriate elevation on Tuesday.

Speaking of jarring ranking numbers, Georgia at No. 35 is certainly one, but today the Bulldogs traveled to Knoxville and defeated the No. 11 Volunteers 4-0. Georgia won the doubles point by taking lines 2 and 3 in tiebreakers, after Tennessee had won at 1.  Singles wins came from Austin Smith at 1, Nick Wood at 6 and Hernus Pieters at 5.

Top-seeded Johns Hopkins defended their Division III Women's Team Indoor title, beating No. 3 seed Carnegie Mellon 8-1 in today's final at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind.

Last year, Johns Hopkins came from 4-2 down to beat Carnegie Mellon 5-4; this year, the Blue Jays were much more dominant, with a 6-3 semifinal win over No. 4 seed Pomona-Pitzer the closest match they had.  In today's final, Carnegie Mellon's only point came in doubles, with Johns Hopkins sweeping the singles.  For the ITA's account of the championship match, click here.

Michael Joyce Talks Coaching Philosophy, US Player Development and More; New USTA Spring Team Championships in Mobile

Californian Michael Joyce, a former ATP professional famous from his playing days due to a seminal essay about him by David Foster Wallace, (required reading for any one with an interest in tennis) and more recently, due to his coaching of Maria Sharapova, is now working with young American Jessica Pegula. Joyce, who won the Kalamazoo 18s in 1991, also has started a new venture called Ask Michael Joyce, a consulting service.  Joyce talked with Barry Buss in a two-part interview, with Joyce discussing his coaching philosophy, what has gone wrong with American tennis and why the USTA shouldn't shoulder the blame for it. He expresses impatience with the unceasing criticism of the USTA and its Player Development and believes a family would be unwise to decline an opportunity to send their child to its Boca Raton training facility.

Joyce debunks the idea that the USTA "steals" players, saying:

So they are trying to say "stay home with your coach because he's the only person who can possibly help you with your tennis? That its because of him you're this good? Its got nothing to do with how hard your(sic) working...or all those matches you gutted out..It's him...And that you should pass up an all expenses paid opportunity to train with the best players and coaches America has at a state of the art training facility either in Southern California..or South Florida...And you're not supposed to do this because why? It will break your relationship with your coach?" You can't Skype or Facetime or pick up the phone and talk to him still while taking advantage of this amazing training opportunity being offered you?

Joyce goes on to extoll the virtues, indeed the necessity, of such a move, which seems to be the opposite of what's suggested in this Daniel Coyle post about (now) Olympic gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin. The youngest Olympic slalom medalist ever, at 18, may not be that different from Joyce himself however, in understanding what it takes to compete at the highest level of any athletic competition, and like many a tennis family, her parents ended up living in two different parts of the country to provide Shiffrin with what they considered the best atmosphere for her development. See this Washington Post article on the Shiffrins for more details on their choices.

Joyce also has little use for those coaches who emphasize technique, although he does admit he himself had solid fundamentals instilled in him by legendary Southern California coach Robert Lansdorp.

Plus so much of learning is feel and visual...the technicians in our sport, sure they have a place...but you and I have talked about this before...I don't care what a kid does, as long as he can repeat it. Some things are easier to repeat than others...Its easy to get all caught up in a players grips and swings...When you see players getting erratic, way more often than not its balance, spacing, timing, preparation, conditioning, concentration, intensity, nerves, impatience or just poor shot selection that are the culprits..not their technique..

This two excerpts are a tiny sliver of the interviews (Part 1 and Part 2), so please read them in their entirety for the full range of his views on all the important developmental topics.  For a brief look at his discussion of USTA Player Development, see this tennis.com article.

As part of the new USTA Junior Competition schedule, the 18s Spring Nationals no longer exist, but the Copeland-Cox Tennis Center in Mobile, Alabama will host the first annual USTA Spring Team Championships, with registration beginning next Friday, March 7th.

After two days of practice and education, the competition will start and run for four days. There are 16 boys teams and 16s girls teams, each made up of two players from the 12s, the 14s, the 16s and the 18s, in a compass draw, with the top three teams receiving gold, silver and bronze balls.  Four eight-game pro set doubles matches and eight singles matches will be played to determine who wins the match.  More details on how the teams are set up can be found at the TennisLink site.

The competitors list is available via this google document.

I will be onsite for coverage of the tournament, and as I learn more about its structure, I'll post about it, but with little familiarity with junior team events, I'll definitely be out of my comfort zone on this one. I am looking forward to meeting more of the country's top junior development coaches and to observe on-court coaching at a junior event, as well as getting a little early taste of spring.