Boys Team USA Set; Carle Heads Spring Signing Announcements; UCLA Men, Pepperdine Women Continue as No. 1 in USTA Division I Poll
The USTA's playoffs to decide the members of this summer's Team USA was completed today in Lake Nona, with the following boys earning spots on the team:
Jack Anthrop (14, Orlando, Fla.; Coach: John Roddick)
Alexander Bernard (14, Bonita Springs, Fla.; Coach: Rene Gomez)
Hunter Heck (15, New Brighton, Minn.; Coach: Viet Pham)
Toby Kodat (15, Bradenton, Fla.; Coach: Ales Kodat)
Alex Lee (16, Oak Brook, Ill.; Coach: Tom Lockhart)
Marcus McDaniel (15, Vacaville, Calif.; Coach: Phil Cello)
J.C. Roddick (15, Helotes, Texas; Coach: Mark Hilderbrand)
Niroop Vallabhaneni (15, Paradise Valley, Ariz.; Coach: Jeremy Coll)
USTA Player Development provides those on the team with training opportunities, coaching and travel assistance to select USTA National and ITF junior tournaments throughout the summer.
Complete round robin results can be found here. Those who finished in the top two in their group then played a tournament, with those results here.
Other women's signings:
Washington has signed Delara Zamani, Katie Hernandez and Zlata Uzdenova of Russia.
Southern Cal has signed Alyssa Mayo, Danielle Willson and Estella Jaeger of Germany.
North Carolina State has signed Natalia Nikolopoulou of Greece.
Southern Cal has signed Alyssa Mayo, Danielle Willson and Estella Jaeger of Germany.
North Carolina State has signed Natalia Nikolopoulou of Greece.
Miami has signed Lucia Marzal Martinez of Spain.
LSU has signed Anna Loughlan of Great Britain.
Florida State has signed Emmanuelle Salas of France.
Georgia Tech has signed Valeriya Deminova of Russia and Baijing Lin of Australia.
Men's signings:
Arizona has signed Conner Olsen.
Brigham Young has signed Mateo Vereau Melendez from Peru and Vinicius Feijao Nogueira from Brazil.
Tulsa has signed Kody Pearson of Australia, and Daniel Siddall and Tom Thelwall-Jones of Great Britain.
Louisville has signed Fabien Salle of Switzerland.
Florida has signed Grey and Harry Cacciatore.
In other men's Division I tennis news, Pepperdine has announced it will not be renewing the contract of head coach Marcelo Ferreira.
The USTA Division I weekly poll continues to have the UCLA men and Pepperdine women at No. 1. Pepperdine is way down at No. 10 in the ITA rankings, which are done by computer, and their relatively weak conference costs them in that algorithm. Stanford is also ranked much higher by the humans, coming in at No. 7 this week, with their ITA ranking at 20. The complete Top 25 poll is available at usta.com.
USTA Poll Division I Top 10, April 18, 2019 (previous April 11 rankings in parentheses):
Men:
1. UCLA (1)
2. Wake Forest (2)
3. Ohio State (3)
4. Stanford (4)
5. Texas A&M (5)
6. North Carolina (6)
7. TCU (7)
8. USC (9)
9. Illinois (8)
10. Florida State (11)
1. UCLA (1)
2. Wake Forest (2)
3. Ohio State (3)
4. Stanford (4)
5. Texas A&M (5)
6. North Carolina (6)
7. TCU (7)
8. USC (9)
9. Illinois (8)
10. Florida State (11)
Women:
1. Pepperdine (1)
2. North Carolina (2)
3. Vanderbilt (3)
4. Duke (4)
5. Texas (5)
6. Georgia Tech (6)
7. Stanford (10)
8. Georgia (11)
9. South Carolina (7)
10. Florida (T8)
3 comments:
Colette, I disagree. Stanford’s relatively weak conference is NOT what keeps their computer ranking low. Their decision to skip the Indoors has a much bigger impact. By choice, they miss 3 high profile matches against top ranked opponents. Plus, it means their ranking basically hinges on their matchup with Florida. Lose that match and the resume doesn’t at all reflect their talent level. It’s a shame they couldn’t make up the Pepperdine match that was rained out. While the conference does not help Stanford, they had the chance to play some strong out of conference teams, but unlike the Stanford men, they declined.
I was referring to Pepperdine's conference, not Stanford's
Regarding the USA Boys Team, when closely examined, the round robin groupings were fundamentally flawed, leading to an inequitable result.
While not singling him out, JC Roddick was selected to the team USA after winning only 1 match, yet other players who happened to be in complete and arguably much tougher groups also won 1 match but were not selected.
At that point, total number of sets won should have been the deciding factor. Of those who won 1 match per the round robin groupings, Spencer Brachman won 2 sets and lost 4 sets, Aidan Mayo won 3 sets and lost 5 sets, JJ Tracy also won 3 sets and lost 5 sets, and JC Roddick by comparison won 2 sets and lost 3 sets. A playoff between Aidan Mayo and JJ Tracy would probably have made the most sense.
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