Stanford Men Top Tennis Recruiting Network's 2020 Rankings; Seniors Blumberg, Lahey Among ITA Division I National Award Winners
The task of ranking recruiting classes can be a minefield, with top players changing their minds about attending college, or refocusing their efforts more to academics, or developing from a solid junior to an outstanding collegian with the right coach and better competition. So attempting to determine how a class of players will impact a team is always an exercise of subjective speculation. With this year's Covid-19 pandemic leading to the NCAA authorizing an extra year of competition, rosters are in an unprecedented state of flux, and because graduate transfers and fifth-year seniors don't figure into today's Tennis Recruiting Network men's rankings, they are probably even less reliable than usual. But with all that said, it's important that a non-revenue sport find a way to generate interest and content for a school's athletic department and casual fans. I've been ranking recruiting classes for more than a decade now, and while I've seen how little correlation there is between these rankings and eventual NCAA title contenders, it still strikes me as a useful exercise.
This year's No. 1 class is Stanford's, with Tristan Boyer, Alex Lee, Arthur Fery and Aryan Chaudhary coming in for 2020. Stanford is followed by Clemson, which has rarely been made the top rankings list in the past, and Virginia, Columbia, and Texas. Arizona, Harvard, Illinois, Arizona State and South Carolina round out the Top 10. The complete Top 25 list is here, along with a look at the history of the rankings and the names of the 20 voters who participated this year. The Division I women's list will be revealed next Monday, June 1.
The ITA's first in a series of virtual award ceremonies was launched today, with the National Division I 2019-2020 winners revealed. I've been to many of these actual events in the past, during the NCAA championships, and although a ceremony that brings all the top players together for one luncheon is obviously preferable, there wasn't much time to actually focus on the winners, with the team finals and the upcoming individual tournaments sucking up most of the oxygen in the room. That is not a problem this year. Below are the national winners; click here to see the Division I regional award winners from which the national winners were selected.
Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship: Meible Chi, Duke
ITA Cissie Leary Sportsmanship: Jordan Strickland, Western Carolina
ITA Rookie of the Year: Natasha Subhash, Virginia
ITA Player to Watch: Elysia Bolton, UCLA
ITA Most Improved Senior: Katarina Kozarov, Furman
ITA Senior Player of the Year: Ashley Lahey, Pepperdine
Arthur Ashe Leadership & Sportsmanship: Paul Jubb, South Carolina
ITA Rafael Osuna Sportsmanship Award: Vilhelm Fridell, Buffalo
ITA Rookie of the Year: Cannon Kingsley, Ohio State
ITA Player to Watch: Sam Riffice, Florida
ITA Most Improved Senior: Athell Bennett, Purdue
ITA Senior Player of the Year: William Blumberg, North Carolina
The athletic directors from Pepperdine and North Carolina provided comments on Lahey and Blumberg, and while Lahey has already announced she will return for a second senior year, UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham took the opportunity to invite Blumberg to do the same.
The entire video, available on YouTube, is less than 15 minutes long, with ITA CEO Tim Russell hosting and the ITA staff putting together an impressive production. Four more such shows are coming this week, with the schedule below.
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