ITF J300 Indian Wells Finals Videos; Teens Ekstrand and Crossley Reach Quarterfinals at W35 in Mississippi; Sarasota ATP Challenger Changes Venues; Features on Georgia, Pepperdine Coaches

Three weeks ago, the ITF J300 FILA International Championships at Indian Wells were drawing to close, with Julieta Pareja and Jagger Leach on their way to the titles. With Pareja into Friday's quarterfinals at the WTA 250 in Colombia, it occurred to me that the videos of her from the final would be especially timely, so I processed both the boys and girls videos from the finals today.

The quarterfinals of the women's USTA Pro Circuit W35 in Jackson Mississippi are set, with two top college recruits advancing to face each other for a place in the semifinals.

Seventeen-year-old Monika Ekstrand, who has committed to Stanford, had no letdown after beating top seed Cadence Brace(LSU) of Canada yesterday, securing a 6-2, 6-4 win over wild card Alexis Nguyen, Pareja's opponent in the above video.

Eighteen-year-old Mayu Crossley of Japan, who has committed to UCLA, has now made four quarterfinals at the W35 level and above after the No. 6 seed beat Alexis Blokhina(Stanford) 6-1, 6-3. Ekstrand reached her first ITF women's World Tennis Tour quarterfinal in February at a W15 in Mallorca. 

The ATP Challenger swing on the green clay begins next week in Sarasota Florida, the first of three 75s in the South. This article from Yahoo Sports vis the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has the details on the move from its location the past three years, Payne Park, to Sarasota Sports Club, where a 10-year agreement has been signed. The most significant news is that the new facility does not have ATP-quality lights, so all matches will be played during the day.  According to this entry update from dartsrankings.com, Wake Forest freshman Charlie Robertson will be using one of his ITF Junior Accelerator entries to compete in the main draw.

With Division I college tennis entering its final few weeks of regular season competition, I've run across two articles about women's coaches. Georgia's Drake Bernstein, who is in his second year after the retirement of Jeff Wallace, has had a dream start as head coach, with two NCAA individual titles (2024 spring doubles, 2024 fall singles), an appearance in the 2024 team final, an ITA Team Indoor title in February, and, since then, the top ranking in country. The Red & Black tracks Bernstein's Georgia roots back to his years playing for the Bulldogs and his tenure as the associate head coach under Wallace here.

Pepperdine's Tassilo Schmid has had a dramatically different path to his position. An assistant for the men's team for seven years, Schmid was named interim head coach for the women when Pere Nilsson left last fall for the University of Florida's women's head coaching job.  Graphic provides this review of Schmid's coaching career and a look at his coaching philosophy.