Winter Nationals Lives Up to Its Name:: The Tennis Recruiting Network
Julie Wrege of The Tennis Recruiting Network has a great summary of the entire Winter Nationals, and it couldn't have been easy to cover the 18s, 16s, 14s and 12s, as the latter two divisions were played in Tucson, while the older players were in Phoenix, two hours away.
There are photos of all the winners, including those that I didn't have for the slide show: Emily Gelber (18s), Nathan Pasha (14s) and Jerricka Boone (12s). And if you wonder how Sponge Bob became a spectator at the girls' 12s final, Wrege has the details.
Marcia Frost of collegeandjuniortennis.com is now in Tucson covering the Copper Bowl, which includes both girls and boys in all age divisions. Her updates and photos are here.
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I don't know where else to ask this, so I'll do it here.
Does anyone know who's been selected to represent the U.S. at Les Petits As and Teen Tennis this month? I can't find that information for the life of me.
According to what I read, there was supposed to be an 8 player playoff in mid-December for two of the spots. The players selected for the playoff were Christian Harrison, Emmett Egger, Mika De Coster, Shane Vinsant, Andrew Korinek, Spencer Newman, Ashok Narayana, and Jeremy Efferding. However, I can't find out who won that playoff, nor who was selected for the other two spots.
I understand that Christian Harrison, Mika De Coster, Emmett Egger and Sean Berman will represent the U.S. later this month in those two tournaments.
surprised berman selected. he has been injured and didn't play the playoff, orange bowl and winters. Am i missing something in his previous results. sounds like typical USTA politics.
As for its picks for Les Petits the USTA does what it wants for whatever reason which is often foreign to many of us. At least the 93 team is all americans. For the 91s they took a russian kid, laso, to be on team USA rather than give that a top US player the opportunity.
Berman is from New Zealand
Juniortennis.com lists two Sean Bermans: one from New Zealand and one from the U.S. Are you saying that the U.S. Sean Berman is also originally from New Zealand? Either way, it doesn't matter if he's representing the U.S. now.
As for the 2004 team, I don't see a kid named Laso in the draw for either Les Petits As or Teen Tennis. And when you say he was Russian, do you mean that he was representing Russia in those tournaments or just that he was originally from Russia? If it's the latter, I don't see the problem.
Lazare Kukhalashvili from Georgia (the country, not the state) went to Teen Tennis and Les Petit As with the U.S. team. He is currently playing on the ITF junior tour as a Georgian, and is in the main draw at the Australian Open Junior Championships.
I can't address the issue of two Sean Bermans on juniortennis.com.
It would be interesting to know what criteria the USTA uses to choose the traveling team. Of course it is political, but what isn't? Seems odd though, that they would go so far down in the rankings in order to pick the playoff players, when there are better players above those chosen. The real test will be at next year's Orange Bowl when the kids are 14 and have another year of growth on them.
Coleen,
Can the USTA put a non-US player like Lazare Kukhalashvili on the 91 team selected for Les Petits instead of a US kid? It's not part of thier mission to develop and sponsor foreign players. Winning at all costs was clearly more important than patriotism.
Colette, why is Les Petit considered so prestigious anyway? Looked at the draw it's a high % of French juniors players and two top international juniors, Bernard Tomic and Rhyne Williams have never played it. Eveyrone plays the orange bowl and in the 14s the have a 256 qualifying.
People you must remember that these tournaments use the international birth date so any kids turning 15 at any point in the coming year are ineligible to participate which eliminates a whole lot of people. Maybe the U.S.T.A. is trying to take the best team period since they are being held accountable for the results of all the kids. Berman doesnt have a long players record but the Semis of the Hard Courts is pretty impressive and the results of the kids other than Decoster, Egger and Harrison arent real good.
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