Charlie Cooper Named ITF Junior Wheelchair Player of the Year; Joint Decides Against College After All; United Cup Kicks Off 2025 ATP/WTA Season

A quick post today, with the draws not yet up for the USTA Winter Nationals, which begin Saturday in Orlando Florida and San Antonio Texas. I'll post the seeds and links to the draws Friday.

Charlie Cooper was named ITF boys Junior Wheelchair Player of the Year last week; the 17-year-old, who has been a part of the junior wheelchair competition held in conjunction with the USTA Boys 18s and 16s championships in Kalamazoo, and at the US Open Junior Wheelchair event the past three years, won the US Open junior title in September of this year. Ksenia Chasteau of France was named the ITF girls Junior Wheelchair player of the year. For more on these awards, see this article at the ITF website.

Parsa Nemati broke the news that Maya Joint, the University of Texas freshman, will not be competing for the Longhorns this spring, as she had originally planned. I am not sure what changed in the weeks since I spoke to her in Midland for this Tennis Recruiting Network article; I sensed no ambivalence or lack of commitment on her part when I interviewed her for the article, although she did admit that she had spent very little time in Austin during the fall, when she was playing pro events and then the Master'U BNP Paribas international collegiate competition to close out November.

This article from Forbes, with Nemati's tweet as its source, provides a synopsis of her enrollment and the pro or college dilemma. There is an error in it; Joint grew up in Grosse Pointe Michigan, not Australia. 

The very short off season for professional tennis is even shorter than usual this year, with the United Cup, a dual-gender team competition, getting underway Friday in Australia. The United States is the top seed in the event, with Taylor Fritz, Denis Kudla, Robert Galloway(Wofford), Coco Gauff, Danielle Collins(Virginia), Desirae Krawczyk(Arizona State). For the list of players competing for all 18 teams, see this list.