My Article on Coco Gauff; Long Day as ITA Women's Team Indoor Kicks Off in Seattle; Virginia Men Surprise Top-Ranked Wake Forest 5-2

I knew that I would probably not have too many more opportunities to talk with Coco Gauff, who announced after winning the Orange Bowl that she was moving on from junior tennis. So when I went to the Dow Tennis Classic last week in Midland, I spoke at length with her about how she was planning to negotiate the transition between junior and pro tennis, which is particularly fraught for her because she is just 14 years old. I wrote about how she and her father Corey, who remains her primary coach, have chosen to approach these challenges in this article for the Tennis Recruiting Network.

A winter storm forecast for the Seattle area caused a change in times and format for the first day of the ITA Women's Team Indoor Championships, with the University of Washington scheduled to close down this afternoon. Matches were moved up two hours and singles were played first to save time, but three of the first four matches were tied at 3-3, so doubles had to be played anyway, and two matches are still unfinished as of 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, including No. 1 Stanford's match with LSU and No. 8 Texas's match with Northwestern. The winners of those two matches will face off in the quarterfinals.

Although there were close calls for the other seeds, all advanced.

North Carolina[2] d. Oklahoma State 4-0
Duke[3] d. Ohio State 4-3
Vanderbilt[4] d. Washington 4-0
Georgia[5] d. NC State 4-2
Pepperdine[6] d. Syracuse 4-3
UCLA[7] d. South Carolina 4-3

If weather permits quarterfinals matches to be played Saturday, the matchups are as follows: (updated)

North Carolina[2] v. UCLA[7]
Duke[3] v.  Pepperdine[6]
Vanderbilt[4] v. Georgia[5]
Stanford[1] v. Texas[8]

For updated draws, see the Slam Tennis site, which also includes links to live scoring and live streaming (U of W site only).

The men's ITA Team Indoor Championships begin next week, but a big match took place tonight in Charlottesville, with NCAA champion and No. 1 ranked Wake Forest traveling to Virginia and getting knocked off 5-2.  Wake Forest won the doubles point with wins at 1 and 2, with 3 doubles going unfinished, but the Cavaliers took control in singles.  Freshmen Ryan Goetz and Brandon Nakashima picked up the first two Virginia points with wins at line 5 and line 3, with sophomore Gianni Ross making it 3-1 with another straight-sets win at line 4.  Wake Forest got its second point from NCAA champion Petros Chrysochos, playing at line 2 tonight, but Wake's Borna Gojo lost to Carl Soderlund at line 1 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-1 and Aswin Lizen defeated Julian Zlobinsky 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 nearly simultaneously to give Virginia the 5-2 victory.

Both teams are traveling to Chicago next week for the Team Indoor.