December's Aces; Welcome to New Advertisers IMG Academies and Tecnifibre

The 2011 tennis season is officially complete for me now that I've filed my monthly Aces column for the Tennis Recruiting Network, featuring all 14 winners of last month's major junior tournaments in Florida (Dominic Thiem and Artem Dubrivny won tournaments during the month). With so many aces in that one month, I couldn't feature everyone (Australia's Ashleigh Barty comes to mind), but I had to find room for Jesse Levine and Madison Keys, who won the USTA's wild card playoff for the Australian Open.

I'm pleased to welcome my two new direct advertisers for 2012, Tecnifibre and IMG Academies, and I hope you're noticed (and clicked on) their advertisements. Although I do use google's Adsense program, I much prefer to know who my advertisers will be on a daily basis, and am always delighted when a product that directly relates to tennis and my readership inquires about placing ads on my site. IMG Academies has a strong internet presence, and their tennis website features a wealth of information about their program and tennis in general. Please click on the ad above for more on the IMG Bollettieri Tennis Academy, as they have coded the ad so they know it comes from my site.

Tecnifibre began advertising back in November, and, as you can tell from the banner to the left, Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia is the company's top ATP endorser. Tecnifibre has made a push for young American men recently, with Denis Kudla, Devin Britton, Bjorn Fratangelo and Mitchell Krueger among those using their racquets. I have known Josh Hausmann, Tecnifibre USA's College Sales Manager and Player Development Director, since his days as an assistant to Kenny Thorne at Georgia Tech, so I was excited to team with his company in its marketing push in the United States.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank OTZ Sports for continuing its sponsorship of zootennis.com. They have been a loyal advertiser for several years now, and if you are in the market for vibration dampeners or sunglasses, please check out their website.