Escobedo Reaches Costa Mesa Futures Final; USTA Junior Boys Compete with College Players at Napa; Doubles Titles, Finals for Former Collegians

On Friday, 17-year-old Ernesto Escobedo defeated fellow teen Connor Farren 7-6(2), 6-2 to reach his first Futures semifinal, and today the unseeded teen surprised No. 7 seed Jeff Dadamo by exactly the same score to earn a place in the final of the $10,000 Costa Mesa Futures Sunday.

Escobedo will face unseeded Haythem Abid of Tunisia, who avenged his semifinal loss last week to Marcos Giron at the Claremont Futures. Abid a former UCLA Bruin, ended Claremont champion and current UCLA Bruin Giron's Futures winning streak today 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Giron did reach the doubles final, with UCLA freshman Mackenzie McDonald, and they will play the South African pair of Keith-Patrick Crowley and Matt Fawcett in Sunday's championship match.

It may be harvest season in Napa Valley, but some larger spherical objects are also getting attention there now, with the Audi Napa Valley Tennis Classic this weekend and the inaugural Napa Valley $50,000 Challenger next week. The Meadowood Resort has hosted the Tennis Classic, a men's collegiate tournament, for 13 years, but since 2010, junior boys have been invited to compete in the round robin event.  On Sunday, the tournament concludes with a match tiebreaker shootout to determine the overall winner from the eight players topping their round robin groups.  This year the USTA juniors competing are:  Taylor Fritz, Kalman Boyd, Martin Redlicki, Mitch Stewart, Lane Leschly, Sameer Kumar, Tom Fawcett and Jake DeVine. In Friday's round robin play, Fritz and Boyd were the only winners. The ITA has Friday's results and the schedule for today and Sunday on its website.  Ken Thomas of radiotennis.com is also providing free live streaming audio coverage.

The success of former collegians in professional doubles competition continued today. Dom Inglot, 2009 NCAA doubles champion at Virginia, is playing with Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan this week in the ATP event in St. Petersburg, Russia, with regular partner Treat Huey competing in Asia after playing the Philippines Davis Cup tie. (I spoke with Inglot and Huey at the US Open recently and that interview was published yesterday at the Tennis Recruiting Network). Unseeded, Inglot and Istomin beat No. 2 seeds Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Hori Tecau of Romania in the first round, and have reached Sunday's final against top seeds David Marrero and Fernando Verdasco of Spain.  In the other ATP tournament this week in Metz, France, former SMU star Johan Brunstrom of Sweden, playing with South Africa's Raven Klaasen, will play Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nicolas Mahut of France for the doubles championship.

In Challenger-level competition, British brothers Ken and Neal Skupski, both LSU alumni, claimed their fourth challenger title of the year today, winning the 106,500 Euro event in Poland. The No. 3 seeds defeated unseeded Italians Andrea Arnaboldi and Alessandro Giannessi 6-4, 1-6, 10-7 in the final.  At the $125,000 Challenger in Taiwan, 2008 NCAA doubles champion Robert Farah of USC and Juan Sebastian Cabal, both from Colombia, are in the doubles final as the top seeds after a close win over Huey and former Illinois standout Ruben Gonzales of the Philippines in the semifinals.   Austin Krajicek, who won the 2011 NCAA doubles title while at Texas A&M, and former Tennessee star Tennys Sandgren won the doubles championship at 64,000 Euro Challenger in Turkey. Krajicek and Sandgren, the No. 2 seeds, defeated No. 4 seeds Brydan Klein of Great Britain and Dane Propoggia of Australia 7-6(4), 6-4 in the final.  In the Quito, Ecuador $35,000 Challenger, former Georgia Tech stars Kevin King and Juan Spir have reached the doubles final unseeded.

In Futures doubles action, former Fresno State star Remi Boutillier of France won the doubles title in this week's $15,000 event in France, recent Michigan grad Evan King won his second straight Futures title, this time with former Florida Gator Sekou Bangoura, Jr. at a $15,000 tournament in Canada, and former Tennessee Volunteer Mateo Fago won the doubles title at this week's $10,000 tournament in his home country of Italy.

My Q and A with Treat Huey and Dominic Inglot; TCU, Tulane Kick Off Tennis Channel's Inside College Tennis Program; ITF Grade 1 Yucatan Cup Switches to Clay, Grade A in Mexico Moves to Year-End

Earlier this month at the US Open in New York, I was able to sit down with former University of Virginia All-Americans Treat Huey and Dom Inglot to talk about their climb to the upper echelons of the ATP doubles rankings.  Huey and Inglot had earlier that day lost their quarterfinal doubles match to Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Marcelo Melo of Brazil, but showed few signs of disappointment in the interview, which was my first opportunity to talk to either of them at length since they graduated.

The Tennis Recruiting Network published the resulting Q and A today.

Below are two photos from Huey's and Inglot's college days; Huey with Somdev Devvarman and Inglot with Michael Shabaz.

Huey and Devvarman, champions of 2007 ITA All-American

Shabaz and Inglot, 2009 NCAA champions

This week has been full of conversation about college doubles and about college tennis on television, with the interview linked above addressing the former (Huey and Inglot are not, unsurprisingly, in favor of doubles last), and this bit of news about the latter.

The TCU and Tulane men's and women's tennis teams will be featured in a Tennis Channel program called "Inside College Tennis," hosted by former LSU women's head coach Tony Minnis.  This release from TCU describes the 30-minute program as a behind-the-scenes look at college tennis. Filming at the TCU campus in Fort Worth was just completed, with the program's premier airing in December.

The ITF announced a few days ago that its Grade 1 Yucatan Cup in Mexico, held the week preceding the Eddie Herr, will move to clay this year, from hard courts.  The junior circuit now has three weeks of major clay tournaments to end the year: Yucatan, Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl.

In addition, the Grade A Abierto Juvenil Mexicano, traditionally held over Christmas and New Year's, but counted as the first ITF tournament of the new calendar year, will move to the end of the year in 2014.

Several years ago, the Yucatan Cup was immediately after the Orange Bowl, but that caused scheduling difficulties, with limited flights to the Yucatan often causing travel problems for those still playing at the Orange Bowl, so that tournament was shifted. Having back-to-back Grade As could add some spice to the ITF world junior champion races, which haven't been too exciting recently, but I'm not sure why the move is taking place, unless it's just to have the calendar year coincide better with the actual dates of the tournament.  So in 2014, there will be an extra Grade A, with Abierto Juvenil held in both January and December, and in 2015, there will be one less Grade A than usual.  The release announcing the change says the ITF calendar for the first half of 2014 will be published next month.

USTA Announces Junior Davis and Fed Cup Teams; How Much Time Will ITA Experimental Format Actually Save?; Sean Karl Posts Two Wins at SEC Fall Classic

The USTA announced the six players--three boys and three girls--who will represent the United States at the Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup competitions in San Luis Potosi Mexico next week.

The girls team for the 16-and-under competition is Katerina Stewart, Kaitlyn McCarthy and Michaela Gordon.  Tornado Alicia Black, who is the highest ranked US girl age-eligible for the competition, said at the US Open that she was not invited to be on the team.

The boys team consists of Stefan Kozlov, who played for the US Junior Davis Cup team last year as a 14-year-old, Tommy Paul and Henrik Wiersholm.

The complete USTA release is available here.

The ITF website, which will provide daily coverage of the competition beginning next Tuesday, posted this preview today.

The format experiment controversy in Division I college tennis continues to rage, and although I know many of you don't read the comments to any given post, I encourage you to do so on this issue, as valuable perspectives and suggestions have been made.  Alex Mott provided a sample survey for student-athletes, who, as we know from last year's reaction to the NCAA committee's changes, are a significant stakeholder in these decisions, but once again seem to have been marginalized.

Jeff Sackmann at Heavy Topspin has again used his knowledge of professional tennis databases to provide an estimate of just how much time the ITA's alternative format will save, if you subscribe to the theory--still a contentious one--that Division I college tennis matches are uniformly too long and must be shortened to keep the sport viable. This kind of analysis is vital to the discussion, so please take a few minutes to study Jeff's conclusions on the time saved by going to 1-ad and to tiebreakers at 5-5 in a set.

I will add that my husband, who was closely involved with the Division III NCAA championships held here in Kalamazoo last May, said their 16-team tournament (8 men's teams and 8 women's teams) stayed on schedule because they had access to 18 courts, meaning that the doubles(all three matches count for separate points) for the following matches could begin on schedule regardless of the status of the singles from the previous matches. That doesn't change the length of a match, of course, but it does keep the tournament's first day (two days in the 32-team Division I scenario we now have) from finishing after midnight, which is regularly the case now.

Indisputably the best news of the tennis week came today, when Sean Karl, the Tennessee recruit who was diagnosed with cancer last October, returned to competitive tennis as a freshman at the University of Tennessee last week, and this week won his first two singles matches at the SEC Fall Classic, hosted by Vanderbilt.  Amanda Pruitt from the Tennessee Sports Information department has more on Karl's day at UTSports.com.

ITA Proposes Format Experiment with One-Ad Scoring, 5-all Tiebreakers, and Doubles First

Intercollegiate Tennis Association Executive Director David Benjamin sent a letter to Division I college coaches last night, outlining an alternative format that will be experimented with in January and February of 2014. A copy of that letter, which also contains the format implemented for the USTA College Match Days, appears below.

I have already voiced my preference for no-ad in doubles on the basis of it being an accepted format in professional tennis, but I do not like the one-ad concept for doubles or singles. However, I do believe this format experiment is the result of a legitimate process by those with the most at stake in Division I college tennis, and although the shotgun nature of it is disturbing, I will keep an open mind about it.

Again, I believe it's necessary to examine the premise that these experiments will result in shorter match times (I'm hoping Jeff Sackmann will assist us here if he can) and that shorter match times will lead to increased fan support/television exposure. I imagine those claims were behind the no-ad format that Division I adopted in 1971. In 1989, with the format not adopted on any other level, traditional scoring was restored. I hope this change is a noble experiment with a much shorter lifespan.

Dear Coach:

Greetings!

I would like to update you concerning recent discussions about the Division I dual meet format, and the decision made last week by the ITA Division I Operating Committee.

As you know, the past academic year we dedicated a great deal of time to this issue, and the ITA Operating Committee decided at its spring meeting in Champaign to "tweak" the current format by mandating that (effective August 2013) the doubles pro-set will consist of a tiebreaker at 7-all rather than at 8-all (the NCAA tennis committee has agreed to use this same format in the 2014 NCAA Team Championships).

Late last spring, the USTA created an "Advisory Group" that included eight NCAA Division I Athletic Directors from a variety of conferences and regions, as well as NCAA staff. As explained in a letter that the USTA sent a week ago to Conference Commissioners and SWA's: "the {goal} was ... to help improve the college tennis product and experience - for players, for fans, for coaches, and for television... and to make the college tennis season and match more exciting and relevant."

This advisory group, after several conference calls in August, met in NYC during the US Open. It has recommended that a new dual meet format be experimented with during the USTA College Match Days in the spring of 2014. The format suggested by the Advisory Group is as follows:

Singles first. The singles matches will come first; numbers 1-6 singles will be played to start each team dual match. The integrity of singles will remain the same. They will be best-of-three sets, worth one point each toward the team result in the dual match. As is currently the case, four points are required to win the team match.

Doubles tiebreakers. In the case of a (3-3) tie after the singles results, then three doubles matches would be played using 10-point super tie-breakers to decide the outcome. This would create college tennis' version of "overtime." The team that wins at least two of the three doubles matches receives the decisive point and wins the match.

"Clinch" format. Once four points have been reached ("clinching" the match), the remaining matches shall not be completed.
Team warm-up. Players will be expected to warm-up with their own team prior to the scheduled match time and will not warm-up against their opponent before the first point is played.

The ITA was not involved in the discussions of the Advisory Group, but it is our understanding, based on a number of meetings with USTA staff during the Open, that the primary goal of this format change would be to make the dual meet time sensitive (ideally less than three hours in length), and in doing so, create a team event that would be more TV friendly and more attractive to the tennis fan.

Over the past several weeks we have had extensive format discussions with a number of ITA Coaches who were in town during the Open, as well as many phone calls with coaches not able to make it to NYC. While many of the ITA coaches agreed with the goal of the USTA and the Advisory Group of finding a dual meet team format that might prove more time sensitive (and as such more viable for TV and more fan friendly), most of the coaches were very concerned that an inevitable consequence of the proposed format would be to reduce very significantly, if not entirely, the amount of doubles played in team competition.  In fact, when Mike and Bob Bryan were asked about this during the Open, they stated that if this proposed format had been used during their Stanford career, for at least one full year they would have never played a doubles match in any of the team matches (and this was confirmed by their coach, Dick Gould).

In follow up to these wide-ranging conversations, the ITA Division I Operating Committee held a highly-focused conference call. After a great deal of vigorous discussion, the committee voted to mandate experimentation in the winter of 2014 (January/February) with a new dual meet format that will represent a dynamic change from the current team format. The new ITA format will be time sensitive (under three hours), but still emphasize the importance of doubles in the college team match. The following is the ITA dual meet format for experimentation:

The dual meet will consist of three doubles matches played first (worth a total of one point), followed by six singles matches, each individual match worth a point. Four points are required to win the team match.

The three doubles matches will each consist of one set to 6, with one-ad scoring and a tie-breaker at 5-all.  Once a team has won two doubles matches, the remaining doubles match will stop (NB. this "clinch" policy is the current rule in the ITA National Indoor Team Championships and the NCAA Team Championships).

Six singles matches will follow the doubles, each singles match two out of three sets, with each set using one-ad scoring, and a tie-breaker at 5 all.

Once four points have been reached ("clinching" the team match), the remaining matches shall not be completed (as in the doubles point, this "clinch" policy is the current rule in the ITA Indoor Team Championships and the NCAA Team Championships). 

There will be no warm-up against opponent before the first point is played in doubles and singles: players will be expected to warm-up with their own team prior to the scheduled match time (it should be noted that this "no warm-up against opponent" rule is tentative: a final decision about this will be made by the ITA Operating Committee at its annual meeting this December).

It should be understood that the ITA Operating Committee is fully supportive of the USTA College Match Day concept as a promising initiative to create greater exposure on TV, increase the local fan base for college tennis and provide a valuable opportunity to experiment with format.

At the same time, the ITA Operating Committee strongly supports a dual meet format that keeps doubles as an integral part of the team match. As already explained, we are mandating extensive experimentation with the ITA format in the first two months of 2014, and we are recommending to the USTA that it also experiment with the ITA format during some of the College Match Days.

In closing, I would like to thank the members of the ITA Division I Operating Committee, as well as other key coaches, for all of the time and energy that they have devoted to these very important discussions. And I would also like to make it clear that the long-standing partnership between the ITA and the USTA remains very important, and we will continue to work together in our shared mission of growing and promoting college tennis at all levels.

Always, 

David A Benjamin
Executive Director
Intercollegiate Tennis
Association (ITA)

Kozlov, Makarova Head ITF B1 Pan American Closed Fields; Clocking College Tennis Matches; Tornado Black Feature; Cincinnati Bids for NCAA Team Tournaments

The acceptances have been posted for next month's ITF Grade B1 Pan American Closed in Tulsa, one of the biggest ITF junior events in held in the United States. I will again be providing live coverage of the event, which begins on October 7th at the beautiful Michael D. Case Tennis Center on the campus of the University of Tulsa.

At the time of acceptance (last week, I believe) only four Top 100 boys, all from the US are in the field: Stefan Kozlov, Spencer Papa, Michael Mmoh and Francis Tiafoe.  The girls field has eight Top 100 players: Christina Makarova, Katrine Steffensen, Michaela Gordon, Renata Zarazua, Usue Arconada, Madison Bourguignon, Rianna Valdes and Dasha Ivanova. All but Zarazua are from the US.

The acceptance list and tournament fact sheet are now available at the ITF Junior website.

I will be providing more on the Division I college tennis format changes later this week, when I receive the final ITA (counter)proposals, but Jeff Sackmann at the Heavy Topspin website provides some hard numbers on match length (on the professional level) and tries to quantify how much time will be saved by the no-ad option, rather than the no-doubles option that the USTA advisory committee has approved for the College Match Days. He also attempts to figure out why college matches take so long, and if it's a statistical problem or a data problem.  We're fortunate Jeff has taken an interest in this, because there's a dearth of true statistical analysis in these discussions.

US Open girls finalist Tornado Alicia Black is featured in this article at ESPN W.

The Lindner Family Tennis Center, home of the Western and Southern Open

And finally, the Cincinnati Business Courier reports that the city is bidding on 12 NCAA championships, including the Division I men's and women's tournaments in 2015, 2017 and 2018. They would be held at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, where the ATP/WTA Western and Southern Open is played every August.  With all the new Division I tennis facilities planned or completed recently, I know there will be plenty of competition for Cincinnati.

Another Stab at College Tennis Format Change: USTA's College Match Days Move Doubles Last and Only if Match Tied

Below is the letter sent to schools who have agreed to host the 20 College Match Days being marketed by the USTA in the 2014 dual match season.

I heard about this USTA Advisory Group for the first time at the US Open, talking about it with many Division I men's college coaches. Until I received a copy of this letter, I was not sure what the motives or actual changes would be, but this letter explains them, although it is careful to talk about the format changes in terms of "experiments" and "testing." There are several reasons I was taken aback by this initiative, including, in no particular order:

• Bypassing the Intercollegiate Tennis Association for a "fresh perspective" is patronizing and arrogant
• Doubles, an exceptional product at the NCAA Division I level, is completely marginalized by this format
• Doubles provides the most likely pathway to professional tennis for college players, yet it is being de-emphasized. The Bryan brothers would never have played doubles in a dual match at Stanford under this format
• A belief in the importance of television in raising the profile of college tennis is outdated in the live streaming culture we now inhabit
• I'm skeptical of selling out a sport's format in a search for casual fans

I know we are all suffering from "change fatigue" at both the junior and collegiate levels after the past two years of upheaval. I sincerely hope I don't come across as anti-experiment or anti-change--I think I can be against these specific changes, and not against change. I can see the argument for no-ad scoring in doubles, since that is the format in ITF and ATP/WTA play, and I would like to see if that (and the elimination of warmups) would change the 3 hour and 20 minute average match time cited.

I'm annoyed by the survey, which mentions the 100,000 surveys sent (I didn't get one; I don't fit the 20-mile radius criteria), but not the number returned. If I were asked the ideal length of a college football game, I would surely say three hours or less, but I don't expect my desires in that regard would or should lead to a change in the way the game is structured. Football games are routinely 3 hours and 30 minutes long, and yet who is doing surveys or calling for change there?

College tennis contains some of the brightest, most innovative people I know. They love the sport, teach it well and appreciate its best qualities. Let those people, not "Advisory Groups," diagnose and treat the problems they detect. They know best.

September 10, 2013

In January 2013, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) created a Youth & Collegiate Tennis Division. This was a bold step for the national governing body for tennis, and includes a significant investment in resources toward junior and collegiate varsity play.  The USTA believes that collegiate varsity tennis has a tremendous impact – from an aspirational perspective – on youth tennis and on the sport as a whole.

The NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Tennis Committee report of July 2012 referenced “the fragile state of college tennis.”  A contributing factor to this “fragile state” is the staggering number (138) of college tennis programs that have been dropped since 2003.  The USTA is especially concerned with the viability, sustainability, and growth of the sport at the varsity collegiate level.

As part of the investment in youth and collegiate tennis, the USTA piloted the College MatchDay concept in 2013 with four matches in an effort to improve and shine a spotlight on men’s and women’s college tennis across the United States.  Each of the four matches benefited from considerable marketing and exposure, and the attendance was also positively impacted.  The USTA is willing to financially support another 20 College MatchDays (10 men’s and 10 women’s) during the 2014 spring season, and will work with a broadcast partner to televise these matches nationally.  The USTA hopes that College MatchDay can be used as a vehicle to try new formats that may improve the collegiate dual match experience for student-athletes, fans, and television viewers.    

The USTA created an Advisory Group in May 2013.  This group includes NCAA Division I Athletic Directors (see Appendix A) from a variety of conferences and regions across the country, as well as representatives from the NCAA. 

Historically the USTA has worked closely with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).  However, due to the fact that the ITA has been actively engaged in these debates on format changes for a number of years, the USTA chose to not have the ITA at these initial Advisory Group meetings in order to assure a fresh perspective.  The USTA fully intends to continue to work in partnership with the ITA moving forward. 

In preparation for these Advisory Group meetings, a survey was sent to approximately 100,000 USTA members who live within a 20-mile radius of a top-50 ranked men’s and/or women’s Division I tennis program in July 2013. The vast majority (91.1%) of respondents indicated that the ideal length of a dual-match should be three hours or less – far shorter than the current average match length of 3 hours and 40 minutes[1]. Furthermore, 62.8% indicated that matches should last less than 2.5 hours. The ITA also studied approximately 1,500 Division I men’s and women’s matches from the 2013 spring season and the average match length was approximately 3 hours and 20 minutes.  Executives from digital and broadcast media outlets indicated that the ideal match length should fall between 2.5 and 3 hours.

Having met multiple times over the course of the summer, the Advisory Group carefully reviewed each aspect of college tennis and suggested three primary areas of focus while keeping the student-athlete experience as the main priority:

1)     Increasing the number of fans attending college tennis matches;

2)     Increasing local and national media coverage of college tennis;

3)     Highlighting singles competition in the dual match format.

For many years, the ITA and NCAA have been looking at ways to address both time and length challenges facing both college dual matches and the NCAA tennis championships.  With this as a guiding principle, the Advisory Group unanimously recommended (the margin was unanimous; neither the USTA nor the NCAA voted) that the following be piloted during the 2014 College MatchDays. 

·       Singles first. The singles matches will come first; numbers 1-6 singles will be played to start each team dual match.  The integrity of singles will remain the same.  They will be best-of-three sets, worth one point each toward the team result in the dual match.  As is currently the case, four points are required to win the team match.

·       Doubles tie-breakers. In the case of a (3-3) tie after the singles results, then three doubles matches would be played using 10-point super tie-breakers to decide the outcome.  This would create college tennis’ version of “overtime.” The team that wins at least two of the three doubles matches receives the decisive point and wins the match.

·       “Clinch” format. Once four points have been reached (“clinching” the match), the remaining matches shall not be completed.

·       Team warm-up. Players will be expected to warm-up with their own team prior to the scheduled match time and will not warm-up against their opponent before the first point is played.

Furthermore, the consensus of the Advisory Group was that the possibility of a “split season” should also be explored.  This is independent from the College MatchDay recommendations.  Specifically, a split season might entail:

·       Establishing NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships at the end of the fall season

·       Modifying the year-end NCAA Championships to include team competition only

·       Adjusting the NCAA Team Championship schedule to allow for a weekend (and/or Monday) final

Any format changes require testing and experimentation.  The USTA and the College Tennis Advisory Group suggest that these proposed changes to the dual match be “piloted” during the College MatchDay events scheduled for 2014 and look forward to receiving meaningful feedback from all stakeholders.  Further exploration of the “split season” idea is also recommended. 

Subsequent to the Advisory Group meetings, the ITA met with several key Division I men’s and women’s college coaches who were attending the 2013 US Open and USTA semi-annual meetings to also discuss some potential match formats that are time-sensitive.  The ITA and this group of coaches suggested that the 2013 fall season and first several months of the 2014 season be used to experiment with an alternative time-sensitive match format.  The specific format that the ITA – and this group of coaches – recommends will be widely communicated in short order. 

Appendix A

Athletic Directory Advisory Group Roster

Name	Title	School	Conference
Jon Oliver	Executive Associate AD	University of Virginia	ACC
Marcy Girton	Chief of Staff for Athletics	Texas A&M University	SEC
Ian McCaw	Director of Athletics	Baylor University	Big 12
Greg McGarity	Director of Athletics	University of Georgia	SEC
Mike Thomas	Director of Athletics	University of Illinois	Big Ten
Cary Groth	(Former) Director of Athletics	University of Nevada, Reno	Mountain West
Tim Cass	Deputy Athletic Director	University of New Mexico	Mountain West
Thomas Beckett	September 10, 2013

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[1] As reported at the 2013 NCAA Team Championships.  These matches were “clinch / clinch” format, so as soon as doubles was decided, play paused; as soon as the fourth point was won during singles, the match ended.