US College Signings 2018 (and general college chat)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

US College Signings 2018 (and general college chat)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

As telstar says on the Baja thread, worth giving a shoutout to Soumeya, and Alicia, and Tiffany.
All of them having a great week, with wins, and titles, and career bests.
And all of them excellent examples of the benefits of us college tennis.

Talking of which, we should also mention Joe Salisbury and his amazing break through into the world top 50 in dubs.

And Lloyd, another, college boy who is also having a very good week.....

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I see that Alice Thane has signed up for college at St Mary's in Texas.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Paul Jubb our power conference player playing on the men's side this week is ticking on nicely in the Lithuanian 15K.

Andrew Watson has just unfortunately gone out in the QF in Belgium, Ewan Moore in Germany. Both play in the next tier of conferences in their case the American Athletic Conference.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Samm Butler at SMU has also got a couple of handy points this week.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I see that as part of the move to accommodating the new transition tour, the US have decided to get rid of the Collegiate Invitational at the US Open and say that they are now looking at more ways to help US college players assimilate into pro tennis, "including more wildcard linkages for American college players into Transition Tour events based on their performances in major collegiate tournaments".

Guess that only applies to US college players though....

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I would be suprised if it is just limited as it creates a division in what is for the most part a team sport at collegiate level, many of the colleges actually host the futures events and perhaps will pick up the transitional tour events too? The good US collegiate players need competition which comes from the foreign players recruited without whom collegiate Tennis would have much less depth.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Oakland2002 wrote:
I would be suprised if it is just limited as it creates a division in what is for the most part a team sport at collegiate level, many of the colleges actually host the futures events and perhaps will pick up the transitional tour events too? The good US collegiate players need competition which comes from the foreign players recruited without whom collegiate Tennis would have much less depth.

Good. Hope so.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Mention has already been made of the list of British US college lad names that have made watching ITF events a lot more fun this summer, namely Paul Jubb, Ewan Moore, Samm Butler, Andy Watson, and others....

Just to add a shout out for Barnaby Smith, age 19, ATP 1912, whose come through qualis, made the QFs, beating the top seed along the way....He's at Texas A&M, I believe.....

Elegant Point · Satellite level

What happens to college players once they finish uni?

An interesting look at what British players placed by Tennis Smart from 2005 on wards have gone on to do...... NCAA rules prevent details of players currently in college being shown

tennissmart.net/where-they-are-now/

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Updated the list of those starting this autumn. I've included the names others have kindly pointed out during the thread whilst I have been too busy to take much part in the forum, plus a whole stack of others.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Rickty Hernandez Tonge is capataining the University of New Mexico and ranked #104 but I would expect Dominic West to push him hard for the number 1 slot! I can see The Lobbos making the NCAA finals again, more depth and a tougher out of conference schedule as British Coaches Ben Dunbar and (assistant) Robbie Goodman build the programme. They are in action at the Midland Invitational this weekend

Oakland2002 · All-time great

A solid start for Lana! In Lubbock

On a more general point there were concerns that the loss of 15K might impact our college players in the states. Not wanting to cause confusion but I feel the way the 25 k in Lubbock is run (and has always been) is reassuring as to how things will progress if the colleges run transition tour events. Texas Tech the host college taking the opportunity to develop their better players before the fall term really kicks off, with no discrimination between US and overseas college athletes. Their focus is on their students (generic) and developing the better players capable of competing at this level with the success of their whole team in mind.

Hopefully this is how things will evolve next year with the introduction of the transition tour and abolition of 15K's, it may be mutually beneficial in that more good players choose college tennis with that in turn becoming deeper in terms of talent level. It also means fewer players floundering around in futures as teenagers and in their early twenties really cash strapped and for nought in the long term (bar an experience). A good choice for Nell and Olivia whose talent level compares well with some of our girls in that situation at present and indeed even in the case of Harriet who is doing rather well (not something I had anticipated) it is quite exciting that they have been picked out by the coach who had tried to recruit her in one of this years US college tennis most highly ranked recruiting classes (As are LSU who have recruited Anna Loughlan)

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Oakland2002 wrote:
Rickty Hernandez Tonge is capataining the University of New Mexico and ranked #104 but I would expect Dominic West to push him hard for the number 1 slot! I can see The Lobbos making the NCAA finals again, more depth and a tougher out of conference schedule as British Coaches Ben Dunbar and (assistant) Robbie Goodman build the programme. They are in action at the Midland Invitational this weekend

A great start for Dominic who has won through to the final of the Midland invitational, hopefully like Jack Molloy last year he will get an opportunity to play at national level in the fall as a freshman.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Emily Arbuthnot has a tough game today in the ITA regionals, she was a finalist last year but unfortunately meets her doubles partner a round earlier in the semis this year.

It is a 128 player draw up until the QF she had won all games in straight sets conceding only 10 games but since things have got a bit tougher as she battled her team mates, beating Janice Shin who had a great freshman year in three sets conceding 13 games and is now up against Micheala Gordon in the semis another Stanford girl in the other semi although surprisingly the no 2 player Senior Melissa Lord has lost out to Cals Olivia Hauger in straight sets.

As NCAA champions they are an exceptionally deep team, I am sure Emily would be playing no 1 at most programmes but at Stanford she is likely to be playing 3 or 4 again this year, but being in such a good squad will mean no practice session is wasted.