Zootennis


Schedule a training visit to the prestigious Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, MD by clicking on the banner above

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Easter Bowl Photo Gallery; TennisONE App Begins Coverage of NCAAs with Road to Champaign Show Wednesday; Qualifying Complete at Three USTA Pro Circuit Tournaments

The Zootennis.com Easter Bowl photo gallery is up at Tennis Recruiting Network, with 99 photos of participants from the 12s, 14s, 16s and ITF tournaments. It can't be beat for putting a name and a face together. Thanks to Paul Ballard for his dedication in taking all the photos for Zootennis (not unusual) and for the Easter Bowl site (unusual). 

TennisONE has signed an agreement with the NCAA as "the official app and exclusive live streaming partner" for the 2022 Championships. According to today's release, the app's streaming coverage will include:

- May 6 - 14: Team Championships first round, second round, and Super Regional matches

- May 19 - 22: All 12 courts from Team Championships quarterfinals, semifinals and finals

- May 23 - 28: All 12 courts from Individual Singles/Doubles Championships, first round to finals

In addition, TennisONE will be producing "The Road to Champaign," five live 30-minute shows, with coach Mark Bey and Madison Golden. The first show, set for Wednesday, April 20th at 8 p.m. Eastern, will focus on the upcoming conference championships. Florida's Bryan Shelton, head coach of the 2021 NCAA men's champions, is expected as a guest.

The "Road to Champaign" dates, times and subjects:
1. Wednesday 4/20/22- Conference tourney preview 8pm ET
2. Wednesday 4/27/22- Teams on the bubble 8pm ET
3. Monday 05/02/22- Selection show recap, bracketology 8pm ET
4. Monday 05/09/22- Recap round of 64, 6pm ET
5. Monday 05/16/22: Recap super regionals 8pm ET

There will also be interviews with coaches and a bracket challenge, with more details on that in the release.

The TennisONE app is optimized for mobile and iPad and can be found here. It can be viewed on a computer here.

There are four USTA Pro Circuit tournaments this week, all on clay, with the men playing an ATP Challenger 80 in Tallahassee Florida and a $15,000 tournament in Orange Park Florida. The women's events are a $60,000 tournament in Charlottesville Virginia and a $25,000 tournament in Orlando Florida

The first round of the Tallahassee Challenger will conclude tonight; Americans advancing to the second round include Michael Mmoh, wild card Aleks Kovacevic(Illinois), Mitchell Krueger[7], Christian Harrison and JJ Wolf[6](Ohio State). No. 2 seed Steve Johnson(USC) lost in the first round today to Zhizhen Zheng of China.

Qualifying finished today at the other three events. In Orange Park, Americans qualifying today are Isaiah Strode, Matthew Segura, Dennis Novikov(UCLA) and Michael Zheng. Zheng will face fellow 18-year-old Victor Lilov, who received entry via the ITF's Junior Reserved program, in Wednesday's first round. Two 16-year-olds will meet Wednesday, with wild card Learner Tien playing Cooper Williams, who also is a Junior Reserved entry. In addition to Tien, wild cards were given to Kyle Kang, a semifinalist last week in Sunrise, Fnu Nidunjianzan of China and top seed Govind Nanda(UCLA). Kang plays Novikov in the first round. Yu Wibing of China, who won the 2017 US Open boys title but has been out with injuries for the past three years, is playing his second event since March of 2019 in Orange Park. Two former Kalamazoo champions, Martin Damm and Collin Altamirano, will face off in the first round.


In Orlando, four Americans qualified for the main draw: Rachel Gailis, Kennedy Shaffer(Georgia), Katie Codd and Makenna Jones(UNC). Codd, who has signed with Duke for this fall, is playing in just her fourth USTA Women's Pro Circuit tournament and the first outside Southern California. The Carlsbad California resident reached the semifinals of the San Diego J1, losing to Liv Hovde; she did not play Easter Bowl the following week.

Wild cards were given to Madison Sieg, Gabriella Price, Easter Bowl champion Alexis Blokhina and Qavia Lopez. Easter Bowl finalist Reese Brantmeier made the main draw on her ranking; Katrina Scott will play her first match since last November against Gailis Wednesday. 

The top two seeds are Mirjam Bjorklund of Sweden and Alexandra Ignatik of Romania, both of whom are in the WTA Top 200.

In Charlottesville, Kayla Day, Ellie Douglas(TCU) and Rasheeda McAdoo(Georgia Tech) qualified, as did 17-year-old Cadence Brace of Canada. Wild cards were given to Taylor Townsend, Elli Mandlik, Sachia Vickery and Whitney Osuigwe. 

The top two seeds are Irina Bara of Romania and Tatjana Maria of Germany, both inside the WTA Top 115. University of Virginia sophomore Emma Navarro, who would normally play an event in Charlottesville, is not competing there due to this week's ACC conference tournament.

0 comments: