Grass Courts Recap; Six Americans Qualify for Wimbledon; UK Leads US in Connolly Trophy; USTA Summer Team Announced
My weekly article for the Tennis Recruiting Network looks back on the ITF International Grass Courts tournament last week in Philadelphia. I will have the slideshow and videos from this event posted this weekend.
Wimbledon qualifying was completed today at Roehampton, with six U.S. players advancing to the main draw. Brendan Evans has qualified for the first time in his career, as has Jesse Witten, who has now qualified for three of the last four slams. Taylor Dent and Robert Kendrick are the other two U.S. men earning main draw spots; they have much more experience in competing at Wimbledon. Bethanie Mattek Sands and Shenay Perry are the U.S. women who earned their way into the main draw today.
Seventeen-year-old Bernard Tomic of Australia will be the youngest player in the men's draw. He advanced through the qualifying for the first time in a slam, although he has played in the main of the Australian twice and French once as a wild card recipient.
Guy McCrea spoke with Tomic after his second round win in the daily Wimbledon podcast. Today McCrea interviews Kendrick, Carsten Ball, Mirjana Lucic and Eleni Daniilidou. See wimbledon.org for the daily podcasts.
Teams of U.S. and British junior girls are competing for the Maureen Connolly Trophy in Eastbourne, with Sloane Stephens heading the American team and Laura Robson leading the British team. Other U.S. juniors on the team are Grace Min, Chanelle Van Nguyen and Ester Goldfeld, while Great Britain has Eleanor Dean, Lucy Brown and Tara Moore. After the first day of competition, Great Britain leads 4-2. For more, see the LTA site.
The USTA announced the members of its summer collegiate team in this release. They are:
MEN:
Sekou Bangoura, Florida
Chase Buchanan, Ohio State
Drew Courtney, Virginia
Jarmere Jenkins, Virginia
Steve Johnson, Southern California
Evan King, Michigan
Bradley Klahn, Stanford
Austin Krajicek, Texas A&M
Daniel Nguyen, Southern California
Eric Quigley, Kentucky
Tennys Sandgren, Tennessee
Bob van Overbeek, Florida
Rhyne Williams, Tennessee
WOMEN:
Hilary Barte, Stanford
Lindsay Burdette, Stanford
Mallory Burdette, Stanford
Aeriel Ellis, Texas
Lauren Embree, Florida
Irina Falconi, Georgia Tech
Kristy Frilling, Notre Dame
McCall Jones, BYU
Danielle Lao, Southern California
Maria Sanchez, Southern California
Caitlin Whoriskey, Tennessee
Allie Will, Florida
Not all the players asked to join the team accepted, whether because of summer classes or other obligations.
The women will be coached by Jamea Jackson of Oklahoma State and Julia Scaringe of Notre Dame. The men will be coached by Chris Brandi of Baylor and Bo Hodge of Alabama. There will be camps for each group in Boca Raton, with the men training on clay June 21-24 and the women on hard courts June 28-July 1.
3 comments:
I always cringe when anyone says our juniors "will be training on clay". Har-Tru does not play like true European red clay in any way, shape, or form.
Details of the Connolly Trophy teams (US team has actually 5 players)and the event itself can be found here
Jesse Levine & Ryan Sweeting also got into the Wimbledon main draw as lucky losers.
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