Rain Expected as NCAA Division I Team Championships Begin Thursday with Women's Round of 16; How Julie Wrege Changed Tennis; Roland Garros Wild Cards Announced; Kingsley into Grade 1 Santa Croce Quarterfinals

The NCAA Division I Team Championships begin on Thursday in Winston-Salem North Carolina, with the women's round of 16 on the schedule. With a good chance of rain throughout the day, an indoor schedule has been posted, with the lower seeded teams being sent to North Carolina's indoor facility in Chapel Hill an hour and a half from Wake Forest.  The day's popcorn match is No. 2 North Carolina vs No. 15 Stanford and today's Tennis Recruiting Network article on UNC's No. 1 Makenna Jones has some comments about the match from head coach Brian Kalbas.  Slam Tennis gives North Carolina the edge, but it could be a classic.

Bobby Knight has a preview of all eight of Thursday's matches, including his predictions, at College Tennis Today.

The Wake Forest NCAA tournament page has the schedule if rain does not send the matches indoors, as well as links to live streaming and scoring.  Below is the schedule if it does rain. From my previous experience, it's not likely that the match times will remain as shown if teams are playing offsite.

Wake Forest Indoor Tennis Center

9 am - Duke[3] vs. Northwestern[14]

Noon - North Carolina[2] vs. Stanford[15]

4 pm - Vanderbilt[1] vs. Miami[16]

7 pm - Georgia Tech[4] vs. Pepperdine [13]

Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center (UNC)

9 am - Texas[6] vs. Texas Tech [11]

Noon - Georgia[7] vs. South Carolina[10]

4 pm - Tulsa vs. Florida State

7 pm - Ole Miss[5] vs. UCLA [12]

One of the founders of Tennis Recruiting Network, Julie Wrege, has a lengthy resume in the sport, starting with playing, then moving to coaching and then establishing the first system to administer tournaments online. After that came TRN, which has had a huge impact on junior and college tennis (and me personally).  For the 13 years that I've worked with Julie and her family, I've always admired her dedication and competence, not to mention her willingness to be a pioneer.  In this article from The White and Gold, a Georgia Tech sports publication, I learned that character trait extends all the way back to her years as a student at Georgia Tech, and later, her years as a coach there.  Wrege is being inducted into the Georgia Tennis Hall of Fame this summer, and after reading the article, you have to wonder why it's taken this long for her induction.

Roland Garros announced its wild card entries today, with six French men and six French women getting main draw wild cards, along with the reciprocal wild cards for Australia and the United States.

Main draw men:

1 - BARRERE Grégoire (FRA)
2 - BENCHETRIT Elliot (FRA)
3 - HEMERY Calvin (FRA)
4 - JANVIER Maxime (FRA)
5 - MAHUT Nicolas (FRA)
6 - MOUTET Corentin (FRA)
7 - RUBIN Noah (USA) (reciprocal)

8-  Tennis Australia (reciprocal)

Main draw women:

1 - FERRO Fiona (FRA)
2 - GEORGES Myrtille (FRA)
3 - HESSE Amandine (FRA)
4 - PAQUET Chloé (FRA)
5 - PARMENTIER Pauline (FRA)
6 - PONCHET Jessika (FRA)
7 - TOWNSEND Taylor (USA) (reciprocal)

8 – Tennis Australia (reciprocal)

The qualifying wild cards do not include either 2017 junior champion: Whitney Osuigwe and Alexei Popyrin of Australia.  Osuigwe has now withdrawn from this year's French Open Junior Championships.

Qualifying draw men:

1 - ANGELE Jaimée-Floyd (FRA)
2 - BLANCANEAUX Geoffrey (FRA)
3 - DENOLLY Corentin (FRA)
4 - FURNESS Evan (FRA)
5 - GASTON Hugo (FRA)
6 - GRENIER Hugo (FRA)
7 - HUMBERT Ugo (FRA)
8 - MULLER Alexandre (FRA)
9 - TATLOT Johan-Sébastien (FRA)

Qualifying draw women:

1 - ALBIE Audrey (FRA)
2 - ANDRIANJAFITRIMO Tessah (FRA)
3 - ARCANGIOLI Manon (FRA)
4 - BUREL Clara (FRA)
5 - CAKAREVIC Sara (FRA)
6 - PARRY Diane (FRA)
7 - TAN Harmony (FRA)
8 - YEROLYMOS Margot (FRA)

At the ITF Grade 1 in Santa Croce Italy, unseeded Cannon Kingsley has reached the quarterfinals, the only American remaining in either the girls or boys singles draws. Top seed Nicolas Mejia of Colombia was beaten today by No. 13 seed Harold Mayot of France, who is the only seed remaining in Kingsley's top half of the draw.

At the ITF Grade 2 in Austria, Zane Khan and Elli Mandlik[3] have advanced to the quarterfinals. 

The ITF Grade 4 in Plantation has been plagued by rain this week, with today's second round matches using a match tiebreaker in lieu of a full third set.