USTA Launches College MatchDay; Virginia Men, North Carolina Women Remain at No. 1; Dennis Novikov in College Spotlight; Q and A with Notre Dame's Bobby Bayliss
In an effort to market college tennis more effectively, the USTA is introducing a College MatchDay, which in 2014 will spotlight an important college dual match every week of the team season.
Based on the popular ESPN College Football GameDay, the College MatchDay will get a trial run this season with two matches, the Stanford women at Florida this Sunday, February 24th, and the Duke men at Virginia March 22nd. According to the release I received from the USTA, College MatchDay will feature "activities and local outreach surrounding the host team’s campus. Additionally, Ken Thomas will broadcast each College MatchDay on RadioTennis.com."
As part of the USTA's repositioning of the Junior and Collegiate Competition area from Player Development to Community Tennis, there are now more resources available to college tennis, and Virgil Christian is now in the position of USTA Director, Collegiate Tennis and Market Development. Let's hope this provides increased exposure for the sport on the collegiate level, where the tension and excitement of a team format is waiting to be discovered by students and local tennis fans. For the release, see usta.com.
The new ITA team rankings were released Tuesday, with Men's Indoor champion Virginia obviously retaining the top spot and North Carolina holding on to No. 1 in the women's rankings despite their loss to Florida. Florida's loss to Duke cost them the No. 2 spot, with UCLA moving to that position, followed by Duke, with Florida now No. 4. Stanford's loss to St. Mary's dropped it from 7 to 13. The Top 10:
Women:
1. North Carolina
2. UCLA
3. Duke
4. Florida
5. Georgia
6. USC
7. Cal
8. Alabama
9. Northwestern
10. Texas A&M
Men:
1. Virginia
2. USC
3. UCLA
4. Ohio State
5. Duke
6. Kentucky
7. Pepperdine
8. Georgia
9. Oklahoma
10. Ole Miss
This is the last week of polling for the team rankings. The computer takes over with next week's rankings, which will also feature new singles and doubles rankings. For the complete lists, see the ITA website.
Dennis Novikov, the 2012 Kalamazoo 18s champion and a sophomore at UCLA, is the subject of usta.com's College Spotlight. Novikov reveals what he's gained from college tennis and UCLA coach Billy Martin assesses what Novikov has that many college players lack. One correction: the body and the caption both say that Novikov was the first Kalamazoo champion since Gimelstob to win a round at the US Open when he beat Jerzy Janowicz last year in New York, but Jack Sock had a first round win over Marc Gicquel of France as the Kalamazoo champion in 2011.
And finally, the Tennis Recruiting Network published a question and answer piece today with retiring Notre Dame men's head coach Bobby Bayliss. Harry Cicma asks Bayliss about the highlights of his career at Notre Dame, and Bayliss answers in his own inimitable way. Here's hoping he finds time to write that book, "Cross Court Reflections," while staying involved as Director of Tennis Facilities at Notre Dame.
4 comments:
Huge win for Sock over Raonic in Memphis. By far his biggest career victory. The young Americans could use some breakthrough victories. Hope he can build off of this.
While it is certainly a great win for Sock, it is well known that the player who just won the previous tournament (Raonic just won SAP practically the day before) is easy pickings for the next tournament because of physical, mental and motivational fatigue.
Pro Tennis, that is ridiculous. Raonic won on Sunday and got a favorable draw to not have to play his first round match until Weds night. That is a copout. It is a breakthrough win for Sock - not sure why you would be trying to minimize it with strained logic.
Brent- I stand corrected. I thought that Raonic had a lot less time to recover. The stats do show that the winner of the previous tournament often loses first round in the next (unless he's a top 4 player) but I do agree that this is not much of an excuse if he had almost 3 days to recover.
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