Hayley Carter, Mikael Torpegaard Top ITA Preseason Rankings; ACC Moves Conference Championships from Cary NC; Q and A with Martin Blackman, More

The ITA announced its preseason rankings yesterday, with Hayley Carter of North Carolina and Mikael Torpegaard of Ohio State starting the fall tournament season at the No. 1 positions.  I had hoped that another set of national rankings would be run after the All-American tournaments and Regionals, but the ITA's ranking page says the next edition of the rankings will be on January 5th, when the first team rankings also come out.   These early rankings also include a one-time set of Newcomer rankings, with North Carolina's Sara Daavettila and Virginia's Carl Soderlund No. 1 on those lists.

The women's top 10:

1. Hayley Carter, North Carolina

2. Luisa Stefani, Pepperdine

3. Francesca Di Lorenzo, Ohio State

4. Ellen Perez, Georgia

5. Sinead Lohan, Miami

6. Brooke Austin, Florida

7. Maegan Manasse, Cal

8. Jasmine Lee, Mississippi State

9. Belinda Woolcock, Florida

10. Katarina Adomvic, Oklahoma State

The women's top freshmen/newcomers:
1. Sara Daavettila, North Carolina
2. Ena Shibahara, UCLA
3. Aliona Bolsova, Oklahoma State
4. Bianca Turtati, Texas
5. Ashley Lahey, Pepperdine
6. Meible Chi, Duke
7. Emily Arbuthnott, Stanford
8. Rosie Johanson, Virginia
9. Emma Higuchi, Stanford
T-10. Madison Battaglia, Yale
T-10. Marie Leduc, Clemson

The complete women's singles rankings are here.

The women's top 5 doubles teams:
1. Mami Adachi and Aldila Sutjiadi, Kentucky
2. Brooke Austin and Kourtney Keegan, Florida
3. Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr, Cal
4. Mira Ruder-Hook and Brienne Minor, Michigan
5. Miho Kowase and Anna Sanford, Ohio State

The complete women's doubles rankings are here.

The men's top 10:

1. Mikael Torpegaard, Ohio State
2. Cameron Norrie, TCU
3. Aleks Vukic, Illinois
4. Thai Kwiatkowski, Virginia
5. Christopher Eubanks, Georgia Tech
6. Tom Fawcett, Stanford
7. Skander Mansouri, Wake Forest
8. Petros Chrysochos, Wake Forest
9. Arthur Rinderknech, Texas A&M
10. Ronnie Schneider, North Carolina

The men's top freshmen/newcomers:
1. Carl Soderlund, Virginia
2. Ronit Bisht, Texas Tech
3. Yuya Ito, Texas
4. Leonardo Telles, Texas
5. Thibault Cancel, Alabama
6. Brandon Holt, USC
7. Lucas Poullain, Florida State
8. Simon Soendergaard, North Carolina
9. Robert Levine, Duke
10. Nathan Ponwith, Georgia

The complete men's singles rankings are here.

The men's Top 5 doubles teams:

1. Julian Cash and Arjun Kadhe, Oklahoma State

2. Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat, Cal

3. Skander Mansouri and Christian Seraphim, Wake Forest

4. Mikael Torpegaard and Herkko Pollanen, Ohio State

5. Luis Valero and Jack Schipanski, Tennessee

The complete men's doubles rankings are here.

In more news on sporting events in North Carolina, the ACC has decided to move its neutral site championships out of the state, which includes the conference championships for men's and women's tennis, also held in Cary, North Carolina.  The release announcing this decision does not provide any information on where these ten championships may go.

There's so much tennis reporting that I miss when I'm covering the US Open juniors and the American Collegiate Invitational, and here's several I've run across as I've tried to catch up on what others are writing.

Karen Pestaina at Tennis Panorama spoke with USTA General Manager of Player Development Martin Blackman about his background in tennis, the USTA's increased emphasis on the college pathway, the newly structured support for young professionals, the recent partnership with Adidas and other topics in this question and answer session.

The New York Times talked with players about no-ad scoring for this article. It's mostly professional doubles players who are quoted, but also Ronit Yurovsky, who played most of her last two seasons at Michigan using no-ad scoring for singles and doubles.

And ESPNW looked at the impressive number of US junior girls on the horizon in this article, which features quotes from Kayla Day, Carson Branstine, Ashley Lahey and USTA head of women's tennis Ola Malmqvist.