My Thoughts on the Division I NCAA Team Championships Return to Athens

As promised here are a few random thoughts and observations, big and small, about returning to Athens for the NCAA championships this month. I covered the 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2014 championships held there, all of which were 16-team events, along with the individual championships that followed. I was not there in 2017, and with any bids for hosting not considered by the committee until a six-court indoor facility was available, Georgia was on the outside looking in, as subsequent championship bids went to Wake Forest, UCF (Lake Nona), Illinois, Oklahoma State and Baylor.

With perfect weather(save for a lightning delay during the women's final) and Georgia with a team in the mix, the crowds, especially for Friday evening's match between the Georgia women and NC State, were impressive, in number and in enthusiasm. Given that atmosphere, and the renovations to the venue since 2017, it's no mystery why the upcoming 10-year commitment to the USTA National Campus (beginning in 2028) has begun to look like a less attractive alternative.

I have not covered the NCAA team event in Lake Nona in the three years it has been held there, so I am not in a position to make a true comparison. But here are a few of the things I love about covering an NCAA in Athens, with some new, and others similar to what I remember from my previous trips.

The Community Support

The reduction to eight teams for the final site left the Georgia men out. In past years they would have had a round of 16 match at home, but a loss to Mississippi State in the Starkville Super Regional meant the top-seeded Georgia women were responsible for turning out the crowds. Their unexpected loss to Texas A&M in the semifinals obviously hurt attendance for the final, but that loss to the Aggies was in no way attributable to an indifferent crowd. I can still hear the bleacher-stomping spectators loudly exulting in every key point or game the Bulldogs won as the sun set on a perfect spring evening on the Georgia campus.

Because the Dan Magill Tennis Complex capacity is different than it was in my earlier visits, and because no official attendance numbers are released now, I don't know how the numbers compare. I remember the biggest crowds of my four trips being in 2007, when a dominant Georgia men's team, featuring senior John Isner, won the title, with the weather also rain-free that year. But there's no question that crowds in Athens are bigger and more engaged than any other venue that has served as host.

The History

The generations of fans with connections to Georgia tennis provide a baseline of support, and like The Ojai, like Kalamazoo, the history made in Athens is a large part of its charm. Georgia hosted the men's tournament 23 times from 1979 through 2023 and the women's tournament three times from 1982 to 2005. (Both men and women began playing at the same site in 2006, with six now having been held in Athens). David Roditi of TCU and Virginia's Andres Pedroso spoke of their memories in Athens as players, with Tony Bresky of Wake Forest recalling his days coaching there, as an assistant at Virginia and in his early days as head coach at Wake. It takes decades to accumulate those kinds of reminiscences, and none of the rotating sites can supply anything close to that core component of the soul of an event.

Add that the men's ITA Collegiate Hall of Fame is on site, below the VIP seating, and the consequential status of competing in Athens is undeniable.

The Know-how

Although football is obviously king, tennis matters as a sport at the University of Georgia, with the athletic department providing a dedicated staff to handle information, communications and media relations. After so many years of waiting for up to an hour for players to come to press at junior slams, in Athens I was often late to the press conferences set up in the men's trophy room just off the court, because they were, with few exceptions, immediate.

Aside from the three main courts at Stowe Stadium in Kalamazoo, there is no better place to watch tennis than the press box in Athens. Its recent expansion, with an elevator, upgraded chairs, convenient outlets and additional TV and radio cubicles added to the wow factor this year. When one 14-hour day follows another, people can get understandably cranky, but the staff was always courteous and helpful, and it was great fun to share insights, gossip and predictions with the much greater number of reporters covering the event, which I attribute to the lure of seeing what the Athens mystique is all about.

The Future

Georgia will host the Division I individual tournament this November and the 2027 Team Championships next spring, and would obviously like an opportunity to host again.

A shock wave spread around the press box when Georgia's Athletic Director Josh Brooks posted this on X:

I respectfully ask the NCAA tennis oversight committee to reevaluate the 10 year commitment that was made to Orlando. A decision that was essentially made behind closed doors without giving any campus sites an opportunity to bid on any of those years. I haven't met one athlete,… pic.twitter.com/1dTuPjU7vg

— Josh Brooks (@Brooks_UGA) May 17, 2026

John Parsons of the No-ad No-problem podcast has been trying to track down the why and the how of the NCAA's 10-year agreement to host the tournament at the USTA's National Campus, in a notable departure from the usual three-year bid cycle, but he has not been able to uncover any answers. Brooks echos that frustration, and while there is a good chance nothing comes of his request to reconsider that contract, his willingness to put the sentiment on the record does matter.

Those not enamored of Athens--primarily, as has been the case for decades, those who might have to play against a Georgia team there--aren't dismayed by the prospect of being in Lake Nona for ten years. Head coaches Jordan Szabo of Auburn and Mark Weaver of Texas A&M don't agree on much these days, but they both are fans of the National Campus and the Orlando area as a host site.

I hope the USTA can begin building a tennis community with a sense of history and an enthusiasm for the college sport at Lake Nona; the fact that two USTA employees were in Athens to cover the team championships is certainly encouraging. Incoming CEO Craig Tiley started as a college coach, so he is expected to have a greater affinity for the commitment the USTA needs to make, yet he is a not a genie who can grant unlimited wishes to every tennis player, fan, coach or employee with a pet project. But the time for press releases with rosy announcements about the USTA's support for college tennis is over; action is required now if the NCAAs in Lake Nona are to begin creating what Athens already has.

I started with the big, but here are some other observations I didn't have a chance to voice in my daily coverage.

The Ball Crews and ELC

The ballrunners from the nearby Beck Academy were outstanding. They were so good I didn't even notice they were there until midway through the first match on Thursday. Stationed only at the net, they rivaled slam ballrunners in their understanding of the role and their commitment to it; crews were there well after 11 p.m. every night with no discernible decline in their performance. I won't bore you with ballrunner horror stories from other tournaments, but untrained ones are worse than none at all.

Having competent ballrunners is a huge but often overlooked component of a world class event that can't be praised enough.

Nor should the benefits of using a reliable Electronic Line Calling system be taken for granted. I saw several instances of calls that were corrected via a challenge: if the original call had stood, it certainly would have changed the complexion, if not the result, of the match. Although we are all awaiting the day when challenges are not necessary, when the system, not the players, is calling all the lines, the lack of emotional confrontation allows players, coaches and fans to concentrate on the tennis, not on the perceived inadequacies of chair umpires or the character of opponents.

All The 4-3s

For the first time ever, which means since four points were required to win a men's dual match(1994), both men's semifinals were decided by 4-3 scores. Virginia is the only team in those 32 years to win both the semifinal and final by that last-match-decides-it score, so suffice it to say that the 2026 men's tournament is now at the top of the list of the most exciting in final site history.

And the Texas A&M women's grueling late-night/early morning 4-3 wins over North Carolina and Georgia, with the latter's crowd providing a formidable home field advantage, also stamped their unexpected run as among the tournament's most memorable ever.

The Schedule

There's no question that the Aggies did it the hard way, playing three consecutive matches that finished near or after midnight with mere hours of rest in-between.

With all its talk of student-athlete welfare, the NCAA looks insincere by continuing to schedule championship-deciding matches without any rest built into the schedule.

After moving the individual tournament to the fall, with student-athlete welfare as a justification, the NCAA has no plausible reason to keep the team championships a four-day event.

In D-II and D-III, the start of the men's and women's team tournaments are staggered, with a day a rest before the semifinals(D-II) or finals(D-III), with the finals on separate days. A D-I schedule of Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday and Wednesday-Friday-Sunday that alternates between men and women every year would be even better.

Kevin Anderson, Steve Johnson, John Frierson,
Manny Diaz, John Isner

The ITA Men's Hall of Fame induction

I was grateful to be invited this pre-final event, which featured the induction of John Isner, Steve Johnson and Kevin Anderson, all of whom I covered in juniors and throughout their illustrious collegiate careers. With Georgia's Manny Diaz also going into the Hall of Fame as a coach, and John Frierson, the curator of the Hall of Fame, going in as a contributor, the huge turnout was probably not a surprise.

I have been to several of these induction ceremonies, which have honored many greats of college tennis, but they regularly ran more than two hours and featured speech after speech, first by someone introducing the inductee and then the inductee himself. Thanks to the structure of five-minute videos and brief introductions by Cracked Racquets' Alex Gruskin, this was a much livelier and shorter ceremony, while still highlighting the inductees' emotional attachment to and reverence for college tennis.

Future Hall of Fame classes, accomplished as they might be, will not have the same connections to Athens, so it's safe to say this one won't be topped.