USTA Pro Circuit Returns This Week in Rancho Santa Fe and Columbus; USC Men, UNC Women Stay No. 1; Former Texas Coach Michael Center Sentenced to Six Months in Jail

After a rare winter week without any USTA Pro Circuit tournaments scheduled last week, two tournaments are underway this week, with the women at a $25,000 tournament in Rancho Santa Fe California and the men at an Oracle Pro Series ATP 80 Challenger in Columbus Ohio.

The women's field is a strong one for that level, with WTA 154 Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium the top seed and the cutoff for the main draw at 308, which is close to the same cutoff as the $100K earlier this month in Midland. American qualifiers are Hanna Chang, Kayla Day and Megan Manasse. Wild cards were awarded to Lorraine Guillermo(Pepperdine), Jamie Loeb(North Carolina), Megan McCray(Oklahoma State) and local 19-year-old Haley Giavara, a freshman at Cal. Giavara played her first round match on Monday and defeated No. 4 seed Danielle Lao(USC) 6-1, 6-3.  Fred Sidhu, press aide for the tournament, talked to Giavara about her win yesterday in this recap.

Two Australians are the top seeds in Columbus, with Christopher O'Connell at the top of the draw and Marc Polmans at the bottom. Wild cards were awarded to Illinois junior Alex Brown, Ohio State junior John McNally and Buckeye freshmen Justin Boulais and Cannon Kingsley. All four lost their first round matches. Former Ohio State teammates JJ Wolf, the No. 6 seed, and Mikael Torpegaard of Denmark, the No. 8 seed, had first round byes, with Wolf winning his second round match today. Torpegaard is on the schedule for Wednesday. Former Northwestern standout Strong Kirchheimer, who got in as an alternate, has now advanced to the round of 16 in a Challenger for the first time after his 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(5) win over No. 10 seed Peter Polansky of Canada today. It's also Kirchheimer's first win over a player in the ATP Top 200.

The ATP also has a Challenger 90 in Calgary this week, and that has drawn quite a few Americans as well. The wild cards all went to Canadians playing Division I college tennis: Taha Baadi(Wake Forest), Alex Galarneau(NC State), Joshua Peck(North Carolina), Gabriel Diallo(Kentucky) and Cleeve Harper(Texas). Vasek Pospisil is the top seed, with Thai Kwiatkowski(Virginia) the No. 6 seed, Drummondville champion Maxime Cressy(UCLA) the No. 10 seed, and JC Aragone(Virginia) the No. 13 seed.  Americans Felix Corwin(Minnesota) and Alex Rybakov(TCU) qualified, and both won their first round matches today. Corwin will play Aragone Wednesday, with Rybakov taking on No. 2 seed Go Soeda of Japan.

This week's Division I team rankings find both National Indoor Champions retaining their places at the top. The North Carolina women had to win the final two singles matches in third sets in their conference opener at No. 2 Florida State, with Cameron Morra and Elizabeth Scotty coming through at lines 2 and 3 with the Tar Heels trailing 3-2. Sara Daavettila did not play for North Carolina, which is now 13-0 on the year.

Stanford defeated Texas 4-3 in Austin over the weekend, and that helped the Cardinal climb back into the Top 10 after falling to No. 12 in last week's first computerized rankings. The full rankings are here.

Women's ITA Division I Team Rankings
February 25, 2020
(previous ranking in parentheses)
1. North Carolina(1)
2. Florida State(2)
3. NC State(4)
4. Texas(3)
5. Ohio State(6)
6. Stanford(12)
7. Duke(10)
8. UCLA(7)
9. Georgia(8)
10. Georgia Tech(11)

There were no new teams in the Top 10 in the men's rankings this week, but North Carolina moved up to No. 2, replacing Ohio State, and Michigan dropped one spot after being blanked by Oklahoma State.
The complete ranking list is here.

Men's ITA Division I Team Rankings
February 25, 2020
1. USC(1)
2. North Carolina(3)
3. Ohio State(2)
4. Texas(5)
5. Michigan(4)
6. Florida(6)
7. Columbia(7)
8. Stanford(8)
9. NC State(9)
10. Tennessee(10)

In a Boston courtroom yesterday, former University of Texas men's head coach Michael Center was sentenced to six months in jail for his role in the wide-ranging Varsity Blues scandal. Center had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services wire fraud last April. Center is only the second coach to be sentenced; the first, Stanford sailing coach John Vandemoer, was only in jail for one day and did not receive additional time. USA Today had a reporter in the courtroom at Center's sentencing and his article provides many more details than I had seen previously about the source and distribution of the $100,000 Center received from Rick Singer, the man behind the college admissions payment scheme.

Also in the article, the judge and federal prosecutor explain why they think jail time is warranted; Center's attorney explains why he believes the sentence is "harsh".