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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

ITA Award Winners

At the ITA/NCAA Individual Tournament luncheon today at Kyle Field's Zone, the following yearly awards were announced:

ITA Coach of the Year:
Men: Ty Tucker, Ohio State
Women: Jeff Wallace, Georgia

ITA Senior Player of the Year:
Arnau Brugues, Tulsa
Kelcy Tefft, Notre Dame

ITA Rookie of the Year:
Bradley Klahn, Stanford
Chelsey Gullickson, Georgia

ITA Player to Watch:
Oleksandr Nedovyesov, Oklahoma State
Kristy Frilling, Notre Dame

ITA Assistant Coach of the Year:
Kyle Spencer, Baylor
Oliver Foreman, Florida State, and Damon Coupe, Washington

ITA Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship:
Kerstin Pahl, Western Michigan

ITA Osuna Award for Sportsmanship:
Clancy Shields, Boise State

John Van Nostrand Award:
Conor Pollock, Texas A & M

Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship Award:
Dunja Antunovic, DePaul
Blake Strode, Arkansas

11 comments:

Austin said...

Am I the only one who has never understood the Player to Watch award?

Hope said...

Chase Buchanan lost easily to Nguyen in the NCAA final. The USTA gave a lot of money to Chase. They gave him full training, housing, traveling, coaching etc. and he is not doing well even in college. This just show that the method the USTA was using did not worked. I hope that now with Higeras and McEnroe the structure of the USTA development changes. Definitely the federation is staying behind compare to the world. For example, in the Italy GA ITF, Argentina has four players of the 92 with great records and incredible results. USA has only two in boys and the lost in the first round. We hope everything changes with the new USTA high performance administration.

trojanparent said...

Congratulations USC !

NCAA 2009 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS !!!

Peter Smith, Brett Masi , Eric Amend - Best Coaches of the year !

TennisFan said...

I'm surprised Steven Johnson didn't get Rookie of the year, especially after his matches this week.

GO USA said...

Klahn got it because he did better at 2 this year, including beating johnson a few times this year, including in the NCAA's.

and chase buchanan also won a futures tournament. he was injured going into college. chase is very good but is still recovering and isnt playing too well. if he is playing well he would be playing top 3 easily on ohia state.

only 2 players decided to play italy just so you know. kudla, sandgren, vanoverbeek, frank, and king (and britton if he wasnt in college) couldve played if they wanted to play the tournament. also, argentinas BEST SURFACE BY FAR IS CLAY. collarini basically only has a ranking because he won south american clay court tournaments.

stop being so negative of us tennis, especially on clay.
we could have i bvelieve 8 players in the italy tournament if they all signed up and at least 7 in the French.

redclayfacts said...

To Hope,

As for the US juniors in Milan give them a break. Yes others US players could have played it true, but not sure how much better they would have fared if it was their first tournament on red clay. None of these kids are red clay players. How many red clay courts are there in the US. Lets see how these kids do by the time they have a few tournaments under their belt. In Brazil Sandgren crashed out in the first rd at the banana bowl (also red clay) then got the finals at Gerdau. Also FYI cox and fowler knocked out the #3 seed in Milan in dubs in the first rd. AS for singles if you looked at the draw 11 of the top seeds lost in the first round. Some of the kids have been playing the red clay circuit for weeks, others just starting. Do some research before you make judgements. This has nothing to do with high performance. The US does not even have ONE red clay tournament in this country.

Hope said...

I am not judging the players at all. I think that right now the US tennis players are in a great position. It's incredible that that the US has seven players (Kudla, Sandgree, King, Domijan, Britton, Fowler and Frank)in the top 50 ITF ranking. Also, the results of Ryan Harrison in the pro level are astonishing. It's something to be proud. Nevertheless, all of this players, except King, do not train in Boca.

It has been shown that all of the best players in the world have been developed in red clay. I really think that the training in Spain was a very good idea and a very big step towards the future. But, I also think the USTA should have made a group of players to play the Red Clay ITF tournaments prior to the French Open. The USTA should star globalizing their players, start getting as much as possible of European tennis. It is the only way to nourish our top players via to the pro level.

redclayfacts said...

Hope

Agree with you that US players need more experience on clay. As for the US showing in Milan was surprised more boys who are signed up for the French did not go over to get as many matches on red clay as possible before the French. Red clay is a much different surface than the green stuff. That's why our kids dont do as well on red clay because they dont have any exposure. As for your comment "Argentina has four players of the 92 with great records and incredible results" ... look at those results and the surface. The US players would not be inthe top 50 if they didnt have great results but except for Sandgren they results are all on hard. As for the USTA direction, I dont see things changing much , its stuil the same small group of kids. BUt that is OK, what the USTA needs to do is support top players $$$$ outside its inner circle which they dont really do.

tennis said...

start criticizing the us tennis players when we stop winning on hard court since most of the years tournaments are on hard court, junior or pro.

in juiors i cant remember the last hard court big junior tournament that at least one american didnt go relatively deep in.

Knowledge is all thats needes said...

There is way to much emphasis being put on the need to train on red caly and having to go to Eourope to do it. When Agassi and Courier and Chang were winning French titles they were not going to Europe to train. It is about the knowledge and patience and conditioning needed to play on the surface properly. You do not need to go to Europe to learn and do these things. We do have some juniors coming up that are very capable on the clay. Alex Domijan, Bob Van Overbeek and Ryan Harrison have had solid results on clay so far. Harrisons 2 biggest wins to date as a professional are over Pablo Cuevas and Taylor Dent. Both were on clay and Cuevas is a clay court specialist. The Cuevas win was also on red clay. Teach them the right way to constuct points and how to move on it and they will be fine. No need to go to Europe.

redclayfacts said...

to knowledge

Red clay is completely different than our green clay, which plays more like a hard court. Curious, have you even played on that surface. The only way for our players to get that exposure and experience is to go to Europe or S. America as there are very few real red clay courts in the US to train on and no tournamnets on real red clay. Don't see your comparison at all except with Harrison who has actually won rounds at the Challenger adn ATP level but Harrison has always been ahead with results at the next level anyway on all surfaces. Winning a few rounds at a $10K green clay court tournament is not the same at all. As to your references to Agassi and Courier and Chang , the men's game is different today, different era. There is a reason why US top pros typically lose early at the French today, no comfort level on that surface.