Men's ITA All-American Championships Selections Include Wild Card for Quinn; New College Tennis Podcast; ITF JB1 Pan American Closed Acceptances; US Beats Great Britain 2-1 in Davis Cup Opener

The selections for the ITA Men's All-American Championships are out, with the tournament scheduled to take place from October 1-9 at the Michael Case Tennis Center in Tulsa. The women's selections, which I discussed on Monday, have never been friendly to freshmen but the men have been more receptive to newcomers, with all ten of those on the list, released last week, getting into qualifying. Ozan Baris (Michigan State) and Alex Bernard(Ohio State) received wild cards into qualifying.

The only exception to that is Georgia's Ethan Quinn, who was given a main draw singles wild card and also a main draw doubles wild card, with Trent Bryde. (The women's wild cards have not yet been announced). Freshmen Sebastian Gorzny(TCU) (with Pedro Vives) and Pedro Rodenas(Duke) (with Garrett Johns) received doubles qualifying wild cards.  

Among those in the preseason top 10, Gabriel Diallo of Kentucky and Nikola Slavic of Mississippi are not entered. 

The full selection list is here.

John Parsons, who was alongside Alex Gruskin on the Deciding Point podcast covering Division I women's college tennis last season, now has his own podcast, which has the same name as his blog, No-ad No Problem. His recent episodes have covered the preseason rankings, the significant transfers in men's Division I, and the Todd Petty resignation at Texas Tech. I encourage everyone to listen to that (short) episode in particular, with John providing context and clarity to the conduct that led to Petty's departure. Last month's USA Today article is behind a paywall, but John provides a synopsis on the podcast, and there is more at everythinglubbock.com.

The acceptances for next month's ITF JB1 Pan American Closed were posted today, and I'll be in Nicholasville Kentucky to cover it October 3-8.   

The surprise is that ITF No. 15 Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez of Mexico, who did not play the US Open Juniors, has entered. While the tournament is open to all players from North, Central and South America, few of the latter make the trip, with the United States and Canada always dominating the draws.

The ITF Top 100 boys in the initial acceptances are Pacheco Mendez, Leanid Boika, Nicholas Godsick, Cooper Williams, Aidan Kim, Yannik Rahman, Luis Carlos Alvarez Valdes(MEX), Kaylan Bigun and Meecah Bigun.

The ITF Top 100 girls on the initial acceptance list are Kaitlin Quevedo, Mia Slama, Ava Krug, Tatum Evans, Valeria Ray and Iva Jovic.

It's a great opportunity to get serious ITF points not only for next year's junior slams, but to move into the ITF Junior Top 100, which helps in getting main draw junior reserved spots in Pro Circuit $15Ks.

The United States' Davis Cup team played its first match in the Group Stage in Glasgow Scotland, defeating Great Britain 2-1, with the match coming down to the doubles. US Open champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury were on opposite side of the net this time, with Ram and partner Jack Sock defeating Salisbury and Andy Murray 5-7, 6-4, 7-5 in a match that finished at nearly 1 a.m. local time. Tommy Paul had beaten Dan Evans 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 to start the day's action, while Cam Norrie brought Great Britain even with a 2-6, 7-6(2), 7-5 win over Taylor Fritz.

In the second match in group play tomorrow, the US takes on Kazakhstan, and will play the Netherlands on Saturday. The top two finishers in each of the fours groups playing this week advance to the quarterfinals in November.