Field Takes Shape for ITA Indoor
In just over a week, November 1, to be precise, the second major of the college season, the ITA Indoor, will begin in Columbus, Ohio. Most of the regional qualifying is finished, or at least the finalists have been determined (in singles both finalists earn a spot in the draw, with the exception of the Men's Northwest and West, which is winner only). In the women's eight regionals, fully half the finals were between members of the same team, and most have scheduled those matches on their home courts for later this week.
I've created my own lists of those participating and am posting links to both the Men and the Women. (Be patient-it may take a minute to load). I've included all eight All-American quarterfinalists, the consolation winner there, the at-large bids announced today and the small college champions, but I'm still coming up one short on the women's side and three short on the men's. (I'm not sure why Begemann of Pepperdine was granted an at-large when he won the West, but maybe that final was completed after the deadline.) I'm sure there will be a full list posted on itatennis.com when all the dust has settled. To see the alternates and the at-large doubles teams, click here.
A few thoughts that occurred to me as I was reviewing the field:
Five Georgia Tech women
Three women from Baylor
Both of Duke's blue chip freshmen women
No Lindsey Nelson of USC (still injured?)
No Diana Srebrovic of FL, 2005 Indoor champion (didn't qualify)
Only one Stanford woman
No Stanford women's doubles team
Three men from Virginia
Three men from Ohio State
Only one freshman on men's side in singles
No Georgia men's doubles team
No UCLA player in men's singles
Do those of you who follow college tennis closely notice anything that makes you go hmmm?
7 comments:
Even if Nelson was healthy she did not meet the requirements for an at-large berth, unless she received the ITA WC. According to requirements, all at-large berths must have reached the quarterfinals at regionals. Order is then determined by preseason rank. By my calculations the missing at-large berth should be Catherine Newman (No. 27) who lost to Zslinszka in the quarters. That is unless she declined, which I doubt.
Real simple, if you've got a women's event and the draw is missing players like Alexander, Fansler, Fink, Nelson (if not injured), Burdette, Srebovic, Dancevic and Lin then something is wrong. Yeah, I know they didn't qualify but you've got to ask yourself why players of that calibre weren't able to make it. Says to me that even though people try to boost these tournaments up as 'majors', not all of the players and teams care equally about them.
Some regions are clearly more difficult to qualify from which makes this field not nearly as good as it could be.
The east is usually a joke comparatively.
There might be no UCLA players but 3/4 semifinalists in their region were from there.
So true. It's just ridiculous that a player from a weak region could get through but a better player from a tougher region doesn't. Megan Moulton-Levy is a great player but look at the competition she faced in the East regional. Same thing with Georgia Rose in the MidWest regional. She's a great player but her competition was weak. In the SouthEast, the top seed was only the 26th ranked player and the 2nd seed was ranked 39th. No wonder Zslinszka was able to sneak in for a win. The Southwest was just as bad, probably weaker. Then look at how tough the ITA West, Northwest and Southern were. In the Southern you had Miller and the rest of the GT team who are all tough, plus Srebovic, the Hyndmans, Alexander, Dancevic, Vallverdu and Benik. In the Northwest you had Burdette, Babos, Gloria and Durkin. The West was even tougher again,with Zalameda, Fansler, Gantcheva, Lin, Fink, Lumpkin, Grady and Nedeltcheva.
on the men's side the at-large selections ended at about no. 14. bottom line is if you are top player you should be able to reach the qf of your regional no matter how strong the region is. just kind of a strange year on the women's side
Post a Comment