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| USTA National Campus Hosts NCAAs next week |
The seeds for next week's NCAA Division I individual championships were announced today, and although there are often a notable omission or two, this is at another level in the men's field.
Defending champion Michael Zheng of Columbia, currently 185 in the ATP rankings, is not seeded. Nor is Trevor Svjada of SMU, ATP 387 and Edward Winter of Pepperdine ATP 462, both of whom have made a Challenger final this fall. Also missing from the seeds are 2024 semifinalist DK Suresh of Wake Forest, currently ATP 523 and Luis Alvarez of Oklahoma, currently ATP 545. Both won M15 tournaments this fall.
The ITA/NCAA refuses to accept any non-college results in their rankings algorithm and as a result there is no chance to have the best players seeded. In the history of the NCAA men's singles event the only time two unseeded players have met for the title was in May of 2024, when Filip Planinsek of Alabama beat Zheng. Given the quantity and quality of the unseeded players, it's certainly possible this happens again, less than two years later.
Seeding is difficult when players are not all competing in the same tennis ecosystem. But the USTA has a sensible exception to its seeding policy for the 18s Nationals, where a US Open wild card is guaranteed to the winner: "Players with ATP, WTA or ITF rankings shall also be considered (for seeding)." The point of seeding is to build the tournament to a conclusion that provides the best match in the final. Certainly many tournaments do not end up with the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the final, but if that is not the goal, and it obviously isn't for the NCAA, there is really no point in seeding at all.
The draws will be released at 6 p.m. Saturday, November 15th.
NCAA Division I Seeds:
Men:1. Jay Friend, Arizona
2. Duncan Chan, TCU
3. Aidan Kim, Ohio State
4. Matthew Forbes, Michigan State
5. Devin Badenhorst, Baylor
6. Kenta Miyoshi, Illinois
7. Dylan Dietrich, Virginia
8. Ozan Baris, Michigan State
9. Jack Anthrop, Ohio State
9. Martin Borisiouk, NC State
9. Paul Inchauspe, Princeton
9. Jeremy Jin, Florida
9. Petar Jovanovic, Mississippi State
9. Eli Stephenson, Kentucky
9. Connor Henry Van Schalkwyk, Baylor
9. Jakub Vrba, Arkansas
Doubles:
1. Benito Sanchez Martinez and Petar Jovanovic, Mississippi State
2. DK Suresh and Andrew Delgado, Wake Forest
3. Isac Stromberg and Kai Milburn, Mississippi
4. Max Dahlin and Bjorn Swenson, Michigan
5. Aidan Kim and Bryce Nakashima, Ohio State
5. Paul Inchauspe and Landon Ardila, Princeton
5. Aleksa Krivokapic and Maj Premzl, Purdue
5. Coseme Rolland De Ravel and Albert Pedrico, TCU
Singles:
1. Valerie Glozman, Stanford
2. Carmen Herea, Texas
3. Piper Charney, Michigan
4. Savannah Dada-Mascoll, Appalachian State
5. Aysegul Mert, Georgia
6. Anastasiia Grechkina, Pepperdine
7. Teah Chavez, Ohio State
8. Ashton Bowers, Auburn
9. Reese Brantmeier, North Carolina
9. Tatum Evans, North Carolina
9. Anastasiia Gureva, Georgia
9. Gabia Paskauskas, Florida
9. Luciana Perry, Ohio State
9. Annabelle Xu, Virginia
9. Vivian Yang, Virginia
9. Mia Yamakita, Vanderbilt
Doubles:
1. Maria Sholokhova and Lucie Urbanova, Wisconsin
2. Roisin Gilheany and Gloriana Nahum, Oklahoma
3. Ange Oby Kajuru and Susanna Maltby, North Carolina
4. Sophia Webster and Celia-Belle Mohr, Vanderbilt
5. Bojana Pozder and Bianca Molnar, Notre Dame
5. Jo-Yee Chan and Vessa Turley, San Diego State
5. Annabelle Xu and Martina Genis Salas, Virginia
5. Melodie Collard and Vivian Yang, Virginia
Four Americans won singles titles last week on the ITF Junior Circuit, with 14-year-old Daniella Sales and 15-year-old Eli Kaminiski capturing their first titles on the circuit at the
J60 in Mount Pleasant South Carolina.
The fourth-seeded Sales, the reigning USTA 14s National Champion, defeated top seed Julia Seversen 6-7(1), 6-4, 6-4 in the semifinals and No. 6 seed Alina Vysochenko of Ukraine 6-2, 6-2. Sales and Vysochenko then joined forces for the doubles title, which the No. 3 seeds won with a 4-6, 6-4, 14-12 decision over top seeds Seversen and Ella Olofson.
The unseeded Kaminiski defeated unseeded Robert McAdoo 6-3, 6-3 in the singles final. In the doubles final, No. 3 seeds Kayden Colombo and Anthony Dry took the title with a 6-1, 6-4 win over unseeded Aayush Vartak and Costa Rica's Miroslav Jarolim.
The other two singles titles came in J30s. In
Senegal, 15-year-old Sydney Wright swept the titles, with the fourth seed earning her first singles title with a 6-0, 4-6, 7-6(5) win over unseeded Kano Imai of Japan. Wright partnered with Emilia Deuschi of Sweden in doubles, with the top seeds defeating No. 2 seeds Lea Crosetti of France and Ona Marcinkeviciute of Lithuania 7-6(6), 6-3 in the final.
At the
J30 in Barbados, 16-year-old Peter Nistad won his first ITF Junior Circuit title, with the No. 6 seed beating fellow wild card and No. 2 seed Julian Garnier of Costa Rica 6-4, 6-4 in the final.
In the girls doubles, Sophia Filip partnered with Isabella Wang of Canada for the title. The No. 3 seeds defeated No. 4 seeds Jiarui Li of China and Paula Velazquez Osornio of Mexico 6-4, 4-6, 10-3 in the final.
At the
J100 in Mexico, 14-year-olds Emery Combs and Olivia De Los Reyes won their fourth straight doubles title and their third at the J100 level in as many weeks. After winning the J100 in Rome Georgia three weeks ago, they won two weeks ago in Queretaro Mexico and last week in Guadalajara. The No. 6 seeds did not drop a set last week, beating No. 4 seeds Ana Avramovic and Alexandra Sasha Miroshnichenko 6-2, 6-1 in the final for their 12th straight win.
Combs lost to Avery Alexander of Canada 6-4, 6-2 in the singles semifinals, while De Los Reyes lost to Alexander 6-3, 6-2 in the final.
At the
J30 in Nigeria, 16-year-old David Beckles won his third ITF Junior Circuit doubles title, partnering with Joseph Franklin Jimoh of Nigeria. The No. 4 seeds defeated Abhik Khatry of Australia and Seyi Ebenezer Ogunsakin of Nigeria 6-3, 4-6, 10-1 in the final.
This week's ITF Junior Circuit tournament in the United States is a
J30 in San Diego. Nicholas Carneiro of Brazil and Shaya Jovanovic are the top seeds.
The
W35 in Orlando concluded today, after rain washed out the scheduled final on Sunday, with No. 2 seed Eva Vedder of the Netherlands defeating top seed Viktoria Hruncakova of Slovakia 6-3, 7-6(6).
I'll have more on the six USTA Pro Circuit events in tomorrow's posts, but two junior notes. At the
ATP Challenger 75 in Champaign Illinois, 2025 Kalamazoo 16s champion Marcel Latak earned his first ATP points yesterday with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win over No. 8 seed Noah Schachter(Texas A&M) in the first round of qualifying. The wild card, who lives in the Chicago area, lost to qualifying top seed Lui Maxted(TCU) of Great Britain 7-5, 6-2 in today's final round of qualifying.
Just two days after claiming the Junior Davis Cup title as teammates in Santiago Chile, Michael Antonius and Andrew Johnson will play in the first round of the
M15 in Orlando Tuesday. The two wild cards, both of whom have already earned ATP points, will be playing for the third time since the end of September. Johnson won their semifinal 7-6(3) 6-2 at the J200 in Corpus Christi Texas, with Antonius getting immediate revenge the following week, beating Johnson 6-4, 6-3 in the J300 final in Spring Texas. Tomorrow will be their first meeting on clay.
The third member of the Junior Davis Cup championship team, 15-year-old Jordan Lee, also received a wild card. He will play Matthew Thomson(Wake Forest) in the first round, looking to earn his first ATP point.
3 comments:
The NCAA really needs a more coherent stance on players who play as pros during the academic year. I don't have comprehensive knowledge of all college sports, but I can't think of another college sport that allows players to do this. But the issues just keep piling up: excellent players who choose to play pro during the semester are then allowed to play NCAA events but are not seeded. We get situations like Carson Branstine and Vito Tonejc, skipping most of the year and then showing up in April for the postseason. We get 22-23 year old Europeans who have been pros for years showing up as "freshmen". We get long delays for a player like Learner Tien while the NCAA takes forever to decide on eligibility. We get the NCAA challenging Reese Brantmeier over half the cost of a hotel room that she shared with her mother. We routinely get Fall announcements of pro players as spring season recruits.
The NCAA has been trying to have things every which way, as have players who want the benefits of being pros but also want to the benefits of being college players, and coaches who want to preach the values of a team sport while affording certain players the luxury of prioritizing their individual goals over team practices and team play.
Maybe it's time for the NCAA to ask itself: what does it want college tennis to be?
I suppose the only possible justification for the arcane approach to NCAA seeding is to incent players to participate in more ITA events beyond just the national championship. But, at this point, the incentive isn't working, so continuing to insist on this approach is stupid and leads to incredibly imbalanced draws. So dumb.
Colette, correct me but wasn’t the point of moving the NCAA Singles/Doubles to the fall, so that all the top players could participate? If the ITA/NCAA is only going to consider a few months of play for seeding, shouldn’t they include potential WCs? Say for the defending champion or say the #1 ranked returning player or potentially all college guys with ATP rankings better than 250 (or pick a number). I don’t understand why Columbia’s Zheng had to play TWO events in order to qualify. Why force him to decide between playing a Challenger(s) especially when he is rolling and the All Americans? Then to not even seed him seems like sticking one’s head in the sand to avoid the obvious.
And UVa’s Jodar who may qualify for the Next Gen Finals. Is the NCAA event really better off without him?
Why not have the algorithm account for the last 12 months?
Is the tournament truly better off in the fall? Doesn’t seem so.
At least in the spring, the computer has a year’s worth of results and the best players could earn their way in without having entry depend on one or two isolated events.
Thank goodness Zheng took the high road even though the NCAA did him no favors.
Could you imagine the attention of a Zheng/Jodar final? That would likely be the two highest combined ATP rankings ever meeting?
A frustrating missed opportunity.
Just move the event back to the spring.
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