Stewart, Ouellet-Pizer Top 18s Seeds as Winter Nationals Begin; Looking Forward to 2014 for Sports Illustrated; Nainkin to Coach Querrey Full-Time

I'm back to work (in Kalamazoo) just in time to follow the Winter Nationals, which begin today in Tucson and Scottsdale Arizona.  The top 8 seeds in each division:

Boys 18s:
1. Mitch Stewart
2. Tom Fawcett
3. Billy Griffith
4. Trevor Johnson
5. Logan Staggs
6. Trey Yates
7. Aron Hiltzik
8. John Mee

Girls 18s:
1. Chloe Ouellet-Pizer
2. Alexandra Letzt
3. Brooke Broda
4. Terri Fleming
5. Gabby Smith
6. Megan McCray
7. Caroline Dolehide
8. Kennedy Shaffer

Boys 16s:
1. Chase Colton
2. Zeke Clark
3. Connor Hance
4. Jacob Hansen
5. Grayson Broadus
6. Matthew Gamble
7. Victor Pham
8. Nathan Perrone

Girls 16s:
1. Rebecca Weissmann
2. Samantha Martinelli
3. Jada Hart
4. Sabrina Xiong
5. Nadia Gizdova
6. Elene Tsokilauri
7. Abigail Chiu
8. Alexandra Sanford

For the 16s and 18s draws, see this TennisLink site.


Boys 14s:
1. Patrick Kypson
2. Trent Bryde
3. Alexandre Rotsaert
4. Sebastian Mermersky
5. Kabir Sarita
6. Kento Perera
7. Robert Maciag
8. Alex Gee

Girls 14s:
1. Hannah Lairmore
2. Grace Joyce
3. Riley McQuaid
4. Elysia Bolton
5. Anna Brylin
6. Danielle Quevedo
7. Somer Henry
8. Taylor Johnson

Boys 12s:
1. Thomas Yu
2. Cannon Kingsley
3. Ronan Jachuck
4. Zane Kahn
5. Faris Kahn
6. Casey Markulike
7. Nathan Arimilli
8. Alexey Lunin

Girls 12s:
1. Caty McNally
2. Zoe Hitt
3. Alexa Noel
4. Ashley Yeah
5. Tia Mukherjee
6. Sedona Gallagher
7. Sanyukta Guwande
8. Carmen Corley

The draws for the 12s and 14s can be found at this TennisLink site.

Courtney Nguyen, Sports Illustrated's tennis blogger, asked several prominent tennis writers and commentators what they were most looking forward to in 2014.  I was flattered to be invited to contribute to the article, which is available here.  As regular readers know, I will be writing my annual "Intriguing Questions" post for the Tennis Recruiting Network next month, so consider this a sneak preview. The progress of the 1998 birth year boys can't help but be included there too.

In this USAToday article on Sam Querrey by Doug Robson, there's a reference to David Nainkin being hired away from the USTA to coach Sam Querrey full time.  I hadn't heard that Nainkin was leaving Player Development, and as one of the longest tenured coaches there, his loss is a significant one. Freddy Rodriquez, who has recently left to start the ZMG Academy Tour Team in Boca Pointe, and Troy Hahn, who will be traveling with WTA veteran Lucie Safarova, have also left the USTA in the past three months.