It's a travel day for us--to the ITA Indoor in Charlottesville, Virginia, but I wanted to post a link to my stories today for the Tennis Recruiting Network. In the morning, read about the One-Day Showdown at Michigan State; this afternoon, check back to hear Evan King on his decision to commit to the Michigan Wolverines.
Last week, TennisWeek provided an excellent look at the development of a junior player by Dr. Sophie Woorons-Johnston, who is now a club owner and pro in South Carolina. Woorons-Johnston describes her interaction with aspiring juniors and their parents, and provides advice on how to negotiate the stages of development. She uses her own junior career as illustration, and my only caveat is that she doesn't provide any cautions about trying a pro career as it relates to amateur status. Woorons-Johnson did play college tennis for Clemson, but that was before there was an NCAA amateur clearinghouse, and players now should be mindful of the point of no return when testing the professional level. But aside from that small objection, I found the article to be very sensible, practical and informative.
The New York Times Play magazine featured a great article on stretching that is definitely relevant to tennis players. I hope there aren't many juniors out there still doing pre-game static stretching that has been proven to be counterproductive, but even if this is old news to everyone, this feature still provides a valuable in-depth look at the science behind the preferred dynamic stretching. USTA High Performance Coach Mark Merklein is quoted in the story, and the exercises recommended are from the USTA. The USTA's Marc Kovacs explains the best exercises in the video, shot at the Boca Raton facility, that can be found in the lower left-hand side of the page.
This will be brief, with election coverage and Tennis Recruiting assignments taking priority over websurfing tonight, but the Eddie Herr acceptances have been published. I haven't had sufficient time to study them all--there are eight draws, plus qualifying, to review, but a few items caught my eye. Raymond Sarmiento is playing the 16s, while Christian Harrison is in qualifying in the 18s (with a probable wild card forthcoming, I'm guessing, given the Harrisons recent move to Bollettieri's.) You could have a pretty nice little tournament with just the "B"s and "K"s in the Boys 18s, and the U.S. girls 18s field doesn't include, at least not yet, anyway, Junior Fed Cup teammates Kristie Ahn and Christina McHale.
Les Petit As winner Daria Gavrilova of Russia, who is in the top 100 in the ITF world rankings, has opted for the 14s, while Edward Nguyen, who won the boys title in Tarbes, has entered the 16s. Sachia Vickery is in the 16s, and Madison Keys, who was initially entered in the 14s, has withdrawn. Since she is playing in Boca Raton this week, I know she's not injured, so I hope she will be seeking a wild card for the 16s or even 18s qualifying. Nike Junior Tour boys 12s winner Gianluigi Quinzi, who is 11, is entered in the 14s, and An-Sophie Mestach, the girls 14s Nike Junior Tour winner, is in the 18s main draw. And Carlos Boluda of Spain, who won the NJT three times and Les Petit As twice, is, unfortunately, nowhere to be found.
For acceptances, go to this page at tennisinformation.com.
I'm really late on this, but I received an email from Andy Meek notifying me that he had taken some videos at the Lawrenceville, Ga. Pro Circuit event last month. Please see Andy's YouTube page to watch them.
And I ran across this feature story from the Penn State Daily Collegian on Jason Lee, which helps explain why foreign players are interested in playing U.S. college tennis and why once one such player gets a foothold and comfort level at a school, other countrymen and women often follow.
The seeds for the ITA National Indoor, which begins Thursday in Charlottesville, Virginia have been announced and can found in this preview from the ITA's website. The top six men are the same as at the D'Novo All-American in Tulsa; despite his win there, Michael Venus of LSU is not seeded in this tournament. With Texas's Dimitar Kutrovsky, No. 7 in Tulsa, not qualifying for the Indoor, Ohio State's Justin Kronauge and Bryan Koniecko moved up one spot to secure the last two seeds. The women's All-American champion, Kelcy McKenna of Arizona State, is also not seeded, with the top three women seeds the same as at the Riviera. With Stanford's Hilary Barte, USC's Amanda Fink and Baylor's Lenka Broosova not playing the Indoor, Fani Chifchieva of Auburn, Georgia Rose of Northwestern and Melanie Gloria of Fresno State were given the last three seeds.
Recent William and Mary grad Megan Moulton-Levy, who won the 2006 Indoor women's doubles championship with Katarina Zoricic, is now on the road, pursuing a professional career in tennis. She's writing about the emotional, physical and strategic challenges she's encountering in her blog "Road to Success," which can be found at meganmoultonlevy.blogspot.com. Moulton-Levy recently reached a career-high WTA ranking of 451, but the head injury she suffered in her last event may have kept her out this week's Auburn, Ala. qualifying.
Since early this year, I have been providing a monthly captioned photo of a Florida junior for Play Tennis Florida magazine, which is mailed to every USTA Florida section member. USTA Florida recently announced that the magazine will be available in PDF form as well as print, and are providing a sample for downloading on the USTA Florida website. To see my captioned photo of Sloane Stephens, go to page 22.
Seventh seed Jacqueline Cako and third seed Denis Kudla claimed the ITF Grade 2 titles in Lexington, South Carolina today. Cako defeated unseeded Alexandra Cercone 6-1, 6-4 today and didn't lose more than four games in any set throughout the tournament. Kudla downed No. 2 seed Tennys Sandgren 6-3, 6-3 in the final, but had a much tougher week than Cako. In a rematch of the Pan-American semifinal, he met top seed Ryan Lipman again in the semifinals, and lost the first set 6-4. Kudla was leading 5-3 in the second set when Lipman retired due to injury. Lipman didn't play in the doubles semifinals later that day. Kudla and JT Sundling, seeded seveth, took the doubles title, scraping past No. 3 seeds Evan King and Raymond Sarmiento 7-6 in the third. The girls championship was also decided in a third set tiebreaker, with top seeds Hanna Orlik of Belarus and Karina Pimkina of Russia getting the win over No. 5 seeds and Pan-American champions Jessica Alexander and Lauren Embree of the U.S. For complete draws, see the TennisLink site.
It is in keeping with the ITF rules to play out all doubles matches in Grades 2-5, but Grade 1s are supposed to be no-ad with match tiebreakers. In the Asian-Oceania Closed in Indonesia, a Grade B1, they did not use the format mandated by the ITF, and in the girls doubles it could have made a difference. Jessy Rompies and Beatrice Gumulya of Indonesia defeated Miyabi Inoue of Japan and Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand 7-6 in the third. In singles, Lertcheewakarn, the Wimbledon finalist and the No. 1 seed in the tournament, defeated Rompies, the No. 2 seed, 6-4, 6-2. Boys top seed Yuki Bhambri of India won his second straight ITF event, defeating No. 3 seed Liang-Chi Huang of Chinese Taipei 3-6, 6-1, 7-5. For complete draws, see the ITF junior site.
The acceptances for the Orange Bowl are out, and the girls field looks very strong. Three of the four junior slam winners are entered with Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands (Australian Open), Laura Robson of Great Britain (Wimbledon) and CoCo Vandeweghe of the U.S. (U.S. Open) heading the competitors. Only Simona Halep of Romania, the French Open girls champion, will not be there. On the boys side, the French Junior boys champion Tsung-Hua Yang of Chinese Taipei is the only slam winner entered, with neither Grigor Dimitrov (Wimbledon & U.S. Open) nor Bernard Tomic (Australian Open) appearing in Key Biscayne this year. For the acceptance list as of October 30, please see the Dunlop Orange Bowl page at usta.com.
It's a busy week coming up on the Pro Circuit, with a Men's $15,000 Futures in Hawaii, a Men's $75,000 Challenger in Nashville and a Women's $50,000 Challenger in Auburn, Ala. Qualifying is underway at all three events. For results, see the usta.com Pro Circuit page.
The ITF tournament this week is a Grade 4 at the Evert Academy in Boca Raton. The TennisLink site is here.
I spent the day at the College Showdown at Michigan State, which I'll be writing more about for the Tennis Recruiting Network next week, making our installment of Coaches Q and A from Andy Brandi and Harold Solomon of the Harold Solomon Tennis Institute in Fort Lauderdale, Florida an appropriate one. Former University of Florida women's coach Andy Brandi is uniquely qualified to address this question, naming seven adjustments that college tennis requires.
Q. Should I start my college career in the Fall or in the Spring?
A. One of the most difficult things I dealt with as a college coach was a player coming into our program in January. Of course we welcomed the addition to our team and the strengthening of our line up. What concerned us was all the things that had to go right for the situation to pay off for us and the player.
There were a lot of adjustments a player has to get through with flying colors:
1. Living away from home and having to deal with a roommate and all the things that were taken care of by their parents, like laundry, meals and money. Also having to deal with balancing their school, athletics and social life.
2. Team chemistry is a big if. Remember that the other players have been together since August. They know each other. They have bonded as a team. How are they going to respond to this new player? Will it create tension or problems?
3. Dealing with a new coach. They have to adjust to new ideas and philosophies. Will they embrace this new system? Will they be coachable? Will they be open to new coaching ideas?
4. Having to adjust to a daily routine. Having to go to class and then go to practice, then to fitness and then studying. They may have been taking online courses. Now they have to go to class! They have responsibilities, they have to stay on pace. It is a grind and it wears you out!
5. Adjusting to a new environment. They must familiarize themselves with a new town, the campus and all the landmarks. In a short period of time, they have to know how to get around.
6. The grind of college tennis. It is a long, hectic season. With all the travel, they must juggle studies, getting papers done and even taking tests on the road. Getting home on Sunday at midnight and being at an 8:00 am class ready to take a test.
7. Playing as part of a team. Being responsible to players and coaches. Dealing with the new pressures. Playing to new rules--for example, in men’s tennis, playing net cords.
All in all, before we brought someone in at midyear we evaluated whether the person could successfully make all these adjustments. When they arrived, we helped them along for the first few weeks until we felt they had gotten into the swing of things.
If you are considering going at midyear, be ready to conquer all these obstacles. Best of luck!
Do you have a question for Andy or Harold? If so, please send it to clewis[at]zootennis[dot]com with the phrase Coaches Q and A in the subject line.
