NCAA Individual Championship Wrap; Men's Recruiting Class Rankings; French Jr. Qualifying Underway
My entry this week for the Tennis Recruiting Network is a review of Monday's NCAA Division I Individual Championships. Although men's champion Devin Britton is in Paris preparing for the French Juniors, women's champion Mallory Cecil is back in Bradenton, taking some time off. The Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, where she has trained for many years, now has an official blog, and they did this Q and A session with Cecil. Whether she'll return to Duke next year is obviously still an open question.
On Monday, the Tennis Recruiting Network released its spring men's recruiting class rankings, and I was a bit surprised to see that Stanford retained its top spot. I had thought Virginia would move past them with the three spring signings they announced recently, and they did get the most first place votes (including mine), but must not have gotten as many second or third place votes as Stanford. It's interesting to note that the NCAA Champion USC Trojans finished second in last year's spring rankings, behind Stanford. The women's spring recruiting class rankings will be revealed on Monday; last year's top ranking went to Princeton.
Although the French Junior championships don't start until Sunday, qualifying began today. The ITF Junior website does have the qualifying draws up, but no results have been entered. Message boards are reporting that Sloane Stephens, who is the top seed in girls' qualifying, and Mallory Burdette, who is No. 4, won, but I don't have any other information. Results from the Grade 1 Astrid Bowl in Belgium are updated on the tournament's website, with Evan King having advanced to the semifinals. Mitchell Frank's score from his quarterfinal match has not been updated.
Many of the junior girls who did not go to Paris are in the $50,000 Carson Challenger this week. Nicole Gibbs, Kristie Ahn and Stacey Tan, all unseeded, have reached the quarterfinals. Julia Cohen of Miami, who lost in the semifinals of the NCAAs on Sunday, must have gone straight to California from College Station. She too has reached the quarterfinals. See the Pro Circuit results page at usta.com for complete draws.
3 comments:
colette, great coverage of the NCAA tournaments. i especially appreciated the twitter updates. i heard sloane and mallory both won today and qualied, but no news on the boys. there seems to be some sort of information black hole for qualies at the junior slams. i recall the same difficulty at the USOJr last year. thanks again.
@ the old pro:
Thanks. I share your frustration re: Jr. Slam qualifying. The reason is a simple one--they are always held in other venues--but in this era of Twitter, it isn't that difficult to provide information if you have a cell phone.
Biggest thing I just saw in the recruiting rankings is that Tulane is back! Finally getting the program going again after four years without it. Good to see them again, they were always a solid program. Guarantee they'll be back in the Top30 within a few years.
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