Loring Wins 800th Match at Indiana; Other College, Davis Cup Notes; Zukas, Fridman Take Titles in Ecuador

Indiana's women's coach Lin Loring collected his 800th victory yesterday here in Kalamazoo, when his Hoosiers beat the Western Michigan Broncos 5-2. Loring, in his 37th season with Indiana, is the only coach in women's tennis to reach that milestone.  For more on the match and Loring's thoughts on that astounding number, see this article from the Indiana website.

Blue chip Katrine Steffensen, who is No. 44 in the current ITF junior rankings,  has committed to Princeton for this coming fall. For more on Steffensen's decision, see this article at the Tennis Recruiting Network.

Blue chip and reigning Winter National 18s champion Logan Staggs will be attending Northwestern this fall, and he is the subject of this feature in the Stockton, California Record.

At the Pac-12/SEC men's tennis challenge in Los Angeles, the Southern California schools went 2-0, with No. 2 UCLA defeating No. 11 Florida 4-1 and No. 4 USC beating No. 3 Georgia 4-0.  UCLA will play Georgia and USC faces Florida on Sunday.

The No. 2 Florida women were in Waco to play No. 19 Baylor, and the Gators swept the Bears 7-0.  I didn't realize, until I looked at the box score, that all six of Florida's starters are ranked in the Top 40 nationally.  I also stumbled across the news today that Lauren Embree had hip surgery last month, and will be out for several months, so she has accepted a position as volunteer assistant for her former team.  For more on Lauren's surgery and recovery, see her blog for Athletic DNA.

In Davis Cup action today, current Ole Miss No. 1 Nik Scholtz defeated ATP No. 276 Benjamin Balleret of Monaco 7-5, 7-6(4), 3-6, 3-6, 6-3 , to help South Africa take a 2-1 lead in their World Group II tie.  Rain and darkness saw the match, which was to have been completed on Friday, resumed on Saturday, and Scholtz's win pulled South Africa even. Australian Open men's doubles finalist Raven Klaasen and former University of Illinois player Ruan Roelofse then won the doubles point to give South Africa the 2-1 advantage.  For more on Scholtz's win, see the Ole Miss website.

There were three NCAA doubles champions on the court today in San Diego for the Great Britain - USA doubles match.  Mike and Bob Bryan, who won the NCAAs for Stanford back in 1998, got the USA on the board, beating Colin Fleming and Dom Inglot, who won the NCAAs with Michael Shabaz for Virginia in 2009, 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Inglot was playing in his first Davis Cup tie, having been substituted in for Andy Murray, who was rested for his singles match with Sam Querrey Sunday. For more on today's match, see this article from the BBC.

At the ITF Grade I in Ecuador, No. 4 seed Olga Fridman of Ukraine won her third straight title at that level and her 16th straight match, beating No. 9 seed Usue Arconada of the US 6-4, 6-1.  It was Arconada's first Grade 1 final in singles.  Matias Zukas of Argentina, the No. 2 seed, won the boys title, defeating top seed and doubles partner Nicolas Alvarez of Peru 6-7(2), 6-2, 1-3, retired. Zukas and Alvarez won the doubles title, with the top seeds defeating unseeded Marcelo Barrios Vera of Chile and Juan Jose Rosas of Peru 6-2, 6-2.
The girls doubles title went to Luisa Stefani of Brazil and Renata Zarazua of Mexico, the No. 4 seeds, who beat top seeds Rafaella Baquerizo and Domenica Gonzalez of Ecuador 6-1, 3-6, 10-7.