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Saturday, October 20, 2007

ITA Regionals Underway; Brother vs. Brother; Greg Patton story in Tennis Magazine

It hasn't been two weeks since the completion of college tennis's first major, the All-American, but they're well into the process of deciding who will compete in the next one, the Indoor championships Nov. 1-4 in Columbus, Ohio.

The Indoor draws are only 32 for both men and women, and the majority of the spots will be decided at the Regionals, most of which are taking place right now at sites around the country. The Northwest's regional for men was last week and Stanford swept both the singles (Richard Wire) and doubles (Ted Kelly and Blake Muller) to earn spots in Columbus. The quarterfinalists from the All-American tournaments earn a place in the draw, as does the the consolation winner. The small college "Super Bowl" winner is invited to compete on the D-I level for the only time during the year at this event. Last year, Fresno Pacific's Jelena Pandzic reached the final. She isn't back (nor are the defending champions, Ben Kohlloeffel of UCLA and Audra Cohen of Miami), but Mislav Hizak of Embry-Riddle will compete for the third straight year. Two years ago he upended No. 1 seed and defending champion Ryler DeHeart of Illinois in the first round. The ITA's website recounts the small college results here.

Some of those playing in the regionals have already qualified for Columbus. Susie Babos of Cal, who has won back-to-back All-Americans, decided to play, she told Radiotennis.com's Ken Thomas at the All-American, because when she didn't play the regional last year, she came to the Indoor without sufficient match play, resulting in a surprising first round loss. There will be a few at-large selections for the Indoor, which will be announced on Tuesday, October 23rd, after the completion of most of the regionals. The regional results home page is here.

Today there was an interesting Ohio State - Michigan State confrontation that wasn't on the football field, when Buckeye freshman Matt Allare met his brother, Spartan junior John Allare in the first round of the regionals. Matt won, 6-4, 6-4, just as the OSU boys with helmets did.


The Mountain Region is down to the finals, and it will again be brother against brother, with Boise State's Luke and Clancy Shields earning spots in Columbus with semifinal wins today.

And speaking of the Shields brothers, I did want to mention that the feature story I wrote on Greg Patton, men's coach at Boise State, is in the October issue of Tennis Magazine, the one with Ana Ivanovic on the cover. There are a few errors that got inserted in the editing process (Patton was ITA National Coach of the Year for two different teams, and the won-loss record and conference championships are slightly off), and it was cut to fit, but I hope it's still an interesting look at the challenging job of a D-I men's tennis coach. Unfortunately, it's not available online, but if you have the magazine around, you might want to check it out.

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