Burdette and Hoh Win ITA Summer Circuit Titles; Bodo on Confidence; McEnroe Family on Player Development

Mallory Burdette of Stanford and Stephen Hoh of Illinois won singles titles at the ITA National Collegiate Summer Championships in Bloomington, Ind. today. Burdette, the top seed, beat incoming Michigan freshman Emina Bektas, a No. 5 seed, 6-4, 7-6, and Hoh, a No. 9 seed, beat No. 2 seed Daniel Whitehead of Texas 5-7, 6-1, 10-8. Courtney McLane and Taylor Lindsey of Alabama, a No. 5 seed, won the doubles title, beating Georgia Tech's Alexandra Anghelescu and Caroline Lilley 9-8(3). The men's doubles title went to Ohio State's Peter Kobelt and Connor Smith, the top seeds, who defeated No. 2 seeds Ricky Doverspike and Carlos Taborga of Alabama 8-2. Anghelescu has transferred from Georgia to Georgia Tech, and Smith has transferred from Florida State to Ohio State since the end of the 2010-11 school year.



With their wins today, Burdette and Hoh have received wild cards into the main draw of October's ITA All-American championships, as have McLane and Lindsey and Kobelt and Smith. Bektas and Whitehead will receive qualifying draw wild cards, as will the doubles finalists.

Complete draws can be found at the University of Indiana's iuhoosiers website.

The ITA has also recently announced the departure of Jason and Allie Berney, with Josh Rey, one of my freelance writing colleagues, joining the organization, along with former Alabama media relations employee Nick Snow. Ellah Nze, who concluded her playing career at Duke in May, will be joining the ITA as an intern. For more on the staff changes, see the ITA website.

I'm still catching up on all the usual tennis reading I miss when I'm covering a tournament, but here and a couple of interesting links.

Peter Bodo at tennis.com has some very interesting things to say about the nature of confidence and ambition. He is writing about the extraordinary year that Novak Djokovic is having, but it is relevant to any player who is on a notable winning streak, which right now would include both Catherine Bellis and Peggy Porter, who each won the Clay Courts and followed that win with a championship at the National Hard Courts three weeks later.

Confidence is both an appetite booster and suppressor; winning begets the desire for more winning, but it also consistently reminds a player that winning is not just possible, it's probable—at maximum flow, confidence might even make winning appear. . . pre-ordained. Confidence makes a player less greedy, because he knows he can eat all he wants.

Richard Evans discussed the state of player development in the United States with all three McEnroe brothers in this piece for FoxSports.com. HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel is also looking into the decline of tennis in the US tonight at 10 pm. The preview of that show can be found here.