Easter Bowl Recap; Smyczek and Falconi Win French Open Wild Cards; College Recruiting Overseas and In-state; Stanford vs. USTA Girls Team

My recap of the ITF B1 portion of the Easter Bowl can be found today at the Tennis Recruiting Network. Part two, which looks back on the 16s and 14s, will be posted on Monday, by which time I hope I will have had an opportunity to complete the slideshow and videos.

The videos of the finalists at the International Spring Championships in Carson are up now:
Marie Norris
Nikko Madregallejo
Madison Keys
Bjorn Fratangelo



Irina Falconi and Tim Smyczek earned wild cards into the main draw of the French Open today in Boca Raton, Florida. The top-seeded Falconi defeated No. 3 seed Julia Boserup 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-3, saving two match points in the second set tiebreaker, according to this article from Harvey Fialkov of the Sun-Sentinel, who was on site. (I don't think he's correct in presuming the French hold an identical tournament for the wild card they receive from the USTA for the US Open in exchange for this one). No. 2 seed Smyczek battled back to defeat No. 1 seed Donald Young 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. Smyczek, who won the playoff the USTA held for one of the US Open wild cards last year, has never played the French.

Young set off a firestorm immediately after his loss when he posted a profane rant on twitter, which has since been deleted, along with his account. For details on that situation, see TennisNow.com, parental discretion advised.

The ACC and SEC conference tournaments are taking place this weekend, with the men and women both in Cary, NC. They've had rain there today, so the matches are behind schedule. Women's semifinalists are Duke, UNC, Florida State and Miami. The men's semifinalists are Virginia, Georgia Tech, UNC and Duke.

The SEC men and women are at two different sites, with the men in Gainesville and the women in Knoxville. The men's semifinalists are Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, and the winner of tonight's match between Tennessee and Ole Miss. The SEC women's semifinalists are Florida, Vanderbilt, Georgia, and the winner of tonight's match between Tennessee and Kentucky.

Yesterday, Florida's gatorzone athletic website posted this story on Andy Jackson's recruiting focus on in-state players, which includes numbers on international and in-state players on the other men's programs in the SEC.

The Knoxville News Sentinel published this detailed story on the recruiting travels of the Tennessee men's coaches, It also includes the interesting tidbit that neither Rhyne Williams nor JP Smith is on a full scholarship, as the Volunteers split their allotment of 4.5 scholarships.

A new tennis blog on college tennis also crunches some numbers to find the percentage of Americans in the Top 20 men's programs.

This afternoon in Palo Alto, the USTA Girls National Team, fresh from an impressive win over No. 8 Cal-Berkeley yesterday, was very competitive with top-ranked Stanford Cardinal today. The USTA girls won at No. 1 and No. 2 singles, but lost at positions 3 through 6. I believe the USTA won at 7 and 8 singles, but the scoreboard was not functioning properly, so I am only including the results from the first six courts. (UPDATE: I just received the scores from courts 7 and 8 and the doubles, which were played after singles.). Stanford's Nicole Gibbs did not play.

SINGLES:
1. Krista Hardebeck(USTA) def. Hilary Barte 6-4, 7-5
2. Gabby Andrews(USTA) def. Mallory Burdette 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(9)
3. Kristie Ahn(Stan) def. Taylor Townsend 6-3, 6-2
4. Stacey Tan(Stan) def. Caroline Doyle 6-2, 5-7, 6-4
5. Veronica Li(Stan) def. Jennifer Brady 6-4, 6-2
6. Carolyn McVeigh(Stan) def. Alyssa Smith 6-3, 3-6, 6-3
7. Yuki Chiang(USTA) def. Amelia Herring 6-4, 6-3
8. Mia King(USTA) def. Natalie Dillon 6-2, 6-2

DOUBLES:
1. Barte/Burdette def. Andrews/Townsend 8-4
2. Tan/McVeigh def. Hardebeck/Brady 8-6
3. Li/Herring def. King/Smith 8-2
4. Dillon/Jennifer Yen def. Chiang/Doyle 9-7