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Thursday, September 11, 2008

US Open Junior Wrap; Bollettieri's Legacy; More US Open Junior Talk

I'm far from finished with the U.S. Open Junior Championships, despite spending the past four days working on stories and photos about them. My weekly post for The Tennis Recruiting Network is a synopsis of the tournament with a particular focus on the path to the finals for Vandeweghe and Britton.

There are transcripts available for all four of the interviews with the junior finalists at ASAP Sports.

Britton's plans for the future are also mentioned in this feature that appeared yesterday in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

Britton has been at IMG/Bollettieri's for three years, and although he isn't mentioned in this espn.com piece on Nick Bollettieri by Greg Garber, several juniors are. No longer a junior, Donald Young also is getting advice from Bollettieri these days. I saw Nick at many junior matches last week: Rhyne Williams vs. Ryan Harrison; Britton vs. Bradley Klahn; Filip Krajinovic vs. Jarmere Jenkins, keenly interested in the tennis technique and strategy, despite what he says in this story. I only hope I am able to see half as many tennis matches as Nick Bollettieri in my lifetime, and to enjoy them all as much as he does.

I will be a guest on the Friday, September 12th webcast of tennisliveradio.com, where Todd Skovron and I will talk about the U.S. Open Junior Championships. It's a free service, so sign up now and log in, whether it's during the live show Friday at 6 p.m., or to listen to archives. My July 29 Kalamazoo preview is available in the "Interviews" section.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

any updates on who Georgia is looking to bring in now that their only real recruit for this season, Matt Reid, appears to have turned pro? Seems like they will almost need to sign two folks to start in January

Anonymous said...

You do such a great job, Colette!

Colette Lewis said...

Georgia is expecting Reid in January.

scott said...

Colette, I wonder what, if anything, you knew about Carlos Gonzalez De Cueto from Spain and Antoine Benneteau from France. Florida updated their roster yesterday to include those 2 players, but thus far, I can't find any info on either one of them. You don't have to publish this if you don't know. Thanks.

Colette Lewis said...

I've heard that Antoine is Julien's (now ranked 53 ATP) brother. I don't know anything about de Cueto.

Anonymous said...

Someone asked a while ago about Amanda Craddock , where she'd gone and what she was doing. Seems like she's going to Texas because she's now on their roster, although there's no bio for her yet.

It seems like there's been alot more transfers this year than in past years. Apart from Craddock to Texas (not really a transfer but sort of) there's Johansson from GT to UCLA, Flower from GT to Ohio, Cohen from Florida to Miami and Borsanyi from Florida to Baylor. I was also told there's another 2-3 transfers but I'm not sure who they are.

Kind of weird that three key GT players are now at other schools. I know that everyone loves coach Shelton but I wonder if the problem they have is with the GT courses because theyre not as extensive as in other places.

scott said...

I've never seen a sport where so many top players transfer from 1 top team to another. And I guess they all get their releases if they are eligible to play right away. This year seems higher than usual, or maybe I'm just more aware of it.

As a Florida fan, I'm especially concerned about this becoming a trend, if it isn't already, indicating there is stuff going on behind the scenes leading to all these transfers. It's kind of scary right now they only have 5 on roster(I know a 6th will be there in the spring), but another season with no depth is no way to survive. They had 6 in 2001 as well, and multiple years since they've only had 7.