Kandath to Stanford; SoCal High School Tennis; Northwestern Women Have New Assistant
If you went to the Tennis Recruiting Network this morning, you saw that Matt Kandath has chosen Stanford over Duke, Princeton and Virginia for his college tennis. Blue chip Walker Kehrer is also listed as committed to the Cardinal, while Denis Lin and Fillip Pogostkin are also interested, so it looks like another good recruiting year for John Whitlinger.
Kandath is a two-time New York state high school tennis champion, which segues into this story from San Diego's North County Times about the pros and cons of high school tennis in Southern California. The reporter, Scott Bair, centers the story on Gabrielle DeSimone, but he talks with many local high school coaches about the challenges that level of competition presents for nationally ranked players. Unlike college tennis, which will always offer stiffer competition to a junior player, high school tennis can often involve players with much less skill, so the social and community aspects become more important.
2008 ITA National Coach of the Year Claire Pollard of Northwestern announced last week that Jackie Holden, her former doubles partner when they won the NCAA title in 1989 at Mississippi State, will join the Wildcats as assistant coach. Holden, a highly regarded national coach at the LTA for the past three years, replaces Dave Mullins, who accepted the head coaching position at Oklahoma this summer. Pollard's team have won the Big Ten title all ten of the years she has been head coach.
And finally, the ITF Grade 2 in South Carolina is well underway. See the TennisLink site for complete draws.
5 comments:
Did Ryan Thacher not compete in the regionals?
Only in doubles.
High school tennis is taken pretty seriously here in Texas. The New Braunfels Tennis Team is heading out to Corpus Christi this weekend to try to win Regionals and move on to State. They are the defending 4A state champions and just moved up to 5A.
Team Tennis is just like playing zonals, you never play your own teammate. It is the best program and so much fun.
Texas also has individual tennis season that is more common among other states, and New Braunfels has defending State Champions in girls singles (Lilly Kimbell), boys singles (Jake Hendrie), and mixed doubles (Matt Dooley/Ashley Turpin).
Is there anybody (male or female) among U.S juniors that are playing as well as this Cako girl from Washington right now? Almost every draw I see her in, she is slicing through at least to the semi's, and when she loses, it is usually barely. I see she is now in Finals at South Carolina ITF. Anybody know if she is turning PRO, or going the College route? Does she still train in Washington, or is she with USTA or some academy?
just curious?
So far from all my sources in WA who know her pretty well, she is still on the college route. However, she is doing so well you'd think she might reconsider her decision. However, most of the ones she's done well in have been the $10,000.00 ones and the $50,000.00 ones + are a lot tougher.
No real tennis academy. She used to work with Mark Hansen but now works with someone else for the last few years. She still attends some group lessons around the area. She apparently works mostly one on one with one pro up there for no charge is what I have heard. I have also heard that she wants to try to stay close to home (possibly U of W?) to be closer to that pro. That pro is doing a great job with her.
She has the mental mindset; don't know about the talent being enough, but I tell you, she is different than any other teenager I have ever known. Is that enough?
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