My Article on Michaela Gordon's College Decision; More Early Signings; ITA Women's Hall of Fame Induction Saturday; Kozlov vs Mmoh in Knoxville Semis; Fritz Named ATP Star of Tomorrow

I spoke with blue chip Michaela Gordon last week about her decision to attend Stanford with that article up today at the Tennis Recruiting Network. At tournaments, when I'm talking to players about their matches, I rarely have time to discuss their background, other interests, their relationship with the sport, so I'm always happy to have a reason for a more in-depth conversation, as this one certainly was.

As I mentioned yesterday, the latest NLI signings are below.  Also check out the Tennis Recruiting Network announcements for Sam Turchetta, Abigail Chiu, Timothy Sah and Connor Lee and Luke Ross.

In the announcements below, the links go to the school's website, which gives more information about each recruit.  For a quick overview, with Universal Tennis Ratings, see Bobby Knight's College Tennis Today.

WOMEN:

TCU has signed Stevie Kennedy and Meredith Roberts.

Georgia has signed Annette Goulak and Morgan Coppoc.

Auburn has signed Madeline Meredith.

Texas Tech has signed Alex Angyalosy

Ole Miss has signed Alexa Bortles and Sabina Machalova of the Czech Republic.

Washington has signed Vanessa Wong of Canada.

Michigan has signed Isabella Lorenzini.

Florida has signed Victoria Emma.

Alabama has signed Kylie Moulin and Kimberley Gintrand of France.

Oklahoma has signed Camila Romero of Ecuador.

Utah has signed Whitney Turley.

Wisconsin has signed Lexi Keberle and Maryann Rompf.

MEN:

Oklahoma State has hired former Wisconsin star Marek Michalika as assistant coach.

Florida State has signed Chase Wood.

Georgia Tech has signed Zummy Bauer and Carlos Divar of Spain.

LSU has signed Shane Monroe(transfer from BYU) and Eric Samuelsson.

Notre Dame has signed Richard Ciamarra, William Howells and Tristan McCormick

Oklahoma has signed Jake Van Emburgh, Stefano Tsorotiotis, Ferran Calvo of Spain (transfer from Tyler JC) and James Davis of Great Britain. Also included in the release is information about Jochen Bertsch of Germany and Arnaud Restifo of France, who will be starting in January.

UCLA has signed Keegan Smith, Bryce Pereira, Connor Hance and Lucas Bellamy.

Mississippi has signed Cotter Wilson.

In other college news, the  ITA's Women's College Tennis Hall of Fame at William and Mary College will induct four new members on Saturday, with Alycia Moulton, Gretchen Rush, Jane Goodman and Virginia Brown the honorees.  See this release for more on each woman's contribution to college tennis.

And Granger Huntress of Texas College Tennis has experimented with another method of ranking for Division I men during the fall.  See his alternative here.

The semifinals of the $50,000 Knoxville Challenger are set, with two 18-year-old Americans facing off in the bottom half.  Reigning Kalamazoo champion Michael Mmoh defeated 2008 Kalamazoo champion Austin Krajicek 6-4, 6-4 and will play Stefan Kozlov, the No. 8 seed, who defeated Ed Corrie of Great Britain 6-4, 6-3.  Mmoh and Kozlov have met twice this year, once back in January at a Futures and then in September, when Mmoh was making his run to the Tiburon Challenger final. Mmoh won both matches 7-5, 6-4.

No. 3 seed Jared Donaldson will play Peter Polansky in the top half semifinal, with Donaldson defeating Charlottesville Challenger finalist Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 and Polansky taking out Mackenzie McDonald 6-7(8), 6-4, 5-1, retired. Reports say McDonald served underhand for most of the match due to an ab injury.

The link to the live stream for Saturday's semifinal matches can be found here.

At the $10,000 Futures in Costa Rica, 16-year-old qualifier Danny Thomas lost to No. 5 seed Evan Song 6-4, 6-0 in the semifinals. The doubles title went to No. 3 seeds Cameron Silverman(Elon) and Farris Gosea(Illinois), who defeated Raleigh Smith(Northwestern) and Juan Pablo Varillas of Peru 3-6, 6-4, 10-4.

The $10,000 Niceville Florida Futures will have no Americans in the semifinals, with qualifier Sam Riffice and No. 4 seed Wil Spencer both falling today.  Tulane junior Constantin Schmitz of Germany, a qualifier, defeated top seed Maxime Chazal of France 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 to advance to Saturday's semifinals. Former South Florida All-American Roberto Cid, the No. 5 seed beat Spencer 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 to reach the semifinals. In the doubles final, 16-year-old Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime and 17-year-old Patrick Kypson defeated Patrick Daciek and Dane Webb 7-5, 6-1 to earn their first Pro Circuit doubles titles.

At the $50,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit event, top seed and defending champion Samantha Crawford defeated wild card Danielle Collins 6-4, 6-2 to eliminate Collins from contention for the USTA's Australian Open wild card.  No. 6 seed Grace Min did move into the semifinals however, defeating Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria 6-0, 2-6, 7-5 and she still has an opportunity to catch Kayla Day for the wild card. First she must beat Robin Anderson, who took out No. 7 seed Sachia Vickery 6-1, 7-5, in Saturday's semifinals. Then Min must defeat either Crawford or last week's champion in Scottsdale, Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil, in Sunday's final.

The live stream for the women's semifinals is here.

Congratulations to Taylor Fritz, the 2015 ITF World Junior Champion, who has been named Star of Tomorrow in the ATP's annual year-end awards. This title is given to the youngest player with the highest ranking in the ATP Top 100.