ITA National Awards Announced; D-I Individual Draws Released; Day Opens Roland Garros Qualifying with Win; Sridhar Ousts Second Seed in Milan Grade A

With the NCAA Division I team championships delayed once again by rain, I've decided to put up an early post on the news from today's play in Europe and the list of the ITA Division I National Award winners, which were announced today at the annual pre-finals luncheon. The complete release with full descriptions of the award recipients' accomplishments is here.

Note that the ITA men's coach of the year is announced after the championships are complete.

WOMEN:Wilson/ITA Coach of the Year: Melissa Schaub, Ohio State
ITA Assistant Coach of the Year: Courtney Nagle, North Carolina
ITA Most Improved Player (Senior): Blair Shankle, Baylor
ITA Senior Player of the Year: Hayley Carter, North Carolina
ITA Rookie of the Year: Ena Shibahara, UCLA
ITA Player to Watch: Astra Sharma, Vanderbilt
ITA/Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship Award: Monica Robinson, Notre Dame
ITA/Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship: Aslina Chua, Michigan State
ITA Community Service Award (tie): Tennessee & East Carolina

MEN:
ITA Assistant Coach of the Year (tie): Justin Kronauge, Ohio State & Dustin Taylor, Virginia
ITA Most Improved Player (Senior): Jose Salazar, Arkansas
ITA Senior Player of the Year: Ronnie Schneider, North Carolina
ITA Rookie of the Year: William Blumberg, North Carolina
ITA Player to Watch: Alfredo Perez, Florida
ITA/Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship Award: Christopher Eubanks, Georgia Tech
ITA Community Service Award: Boise State

The draws for the Division I individual tournaments are posted, with several withdrawals from the men's singles, including two of the Top 3: TCU's Cameron Norrie and Illinois' Aleks Vukic. Ohio State's Mikael Torpegaard is the top seed. Georgia's Robert Loeb and Jan Zielinski are the top seeds in doubles, which will start Thursday.

As of today, all the women's initial entries in singles are still in the draw, with Francesca Di Lorenzo of Ohio State and Hayley Carter of North Carolina the top two seeds. Astra Sharma and Emily Smith of Vanderbilt are the top seeds in doubles.

Complete draws, with singles times for Wednesday, can be found under the Tournament Brackets section on this page.

The second day of qualifying is complete at Roland Garros, with three US players posting victories.  Dennis Novikov had a good win in his first round match, taking out No. 7 seed Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland 6-2, 6-3.  Rajeev Ram lost his first round qualifying match, meaning US men went 8-3 overall. There is guaranteed to be one less after the second round with Bjorn Fratangelo facing Bradley Klahn.

The US women had a decidedly less successful day, with only Nicole Gibbs[20] and Kayla Day advancing to the second round. Gibbs defeated Slovenia's Tamara Zidansek 6-3, 7-5 and Day beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-1, 6-3.  Jamie Loeb, Grace Min, Irina Falconi and Alexa Glatch lost their openers.  Five US women are scheduled to play their first round qualifying matches on Wednesday.

The second day of main draw action at the ITF Grade A Trofeo Bonfiglio in Milan is complete, with seven US boys advancing to the second round: Alexsandre Rotsaert, Sebastian Korda, qualifier Lukas Greif, Patrick Kypson, Oliver Crawford[13] and qualifier Sangeet Sridhar. No. 4 seed Trent Bryde had advanced on Monday.  A day after top seed Yibing Wu of China went out, Sridhar upset No. 2 seed Yu Hsiou Hsu of Taiwan 1-6, 6-3, 7-5.  Sam Riffice, who reached the final last week at a $15,000 Futures in Romania, dropped his first round match to No. 7 seed Jurij Rodionov of Austria 0-6, 7-6(6), 6-3.

The only US girl playing a first round match today was qualifier Elli Mandlik and she lost to wild card Federica Bilardo of Italy 7-6(1), 6-3. Three US girls advanced to the round of 16 with wins today: Whitney Osuigwe[6], Natasha Subhash and Ann Li.  Elysia Bolton and Taylor Johnson[4] play their second round matches on Wednesday.