British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

It doesn't directly affect UK players, obviously, but it's interesting that this year, for the first time, the US federation are running a College player wildcard quali event. Details from Colette Lewis:


USTA's inaugural US Open Collegiate Wild Card Playoffs. Today's release from the USTA is here:

ORLANDO, Fla., May 28, 2025 The United States Tennis Association (USTA) today announced the participants that will be competing in the US Open Wild Card Playoffs, set to be held at the USTA National Campus, June 16-18.

The new event featuring the top American collegiate players, which was announced earlier this month, will more than double the average number of American collegiate players that earn US Open wild cards this year, with six guaranteed US Open wild card entries up for grabs. The winners of the singles and doubles competitions will earn US Open main draw singles and doubles wild cards, respectively, while the mens and womens singles finalists will earn US Open qualifying wild cards.

The mens singles field is headlined by Columbias Michael Zheng, who won the NCAA mens singles title last November, and Michigan States Ozan Baris, who lost to Zheng in the NCAA mens singles final. The womens singles field will feature Auburns DJ Bennett, who was the NCAA womens singles runner-up in November. All three players automatically qualified for the event based upon their NCAA performance, while the remainder of the field is made up of players selected by a committee of USTA staff, college coaches and an ITA representative.

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Thursday 29th of May 2025 07:44:39 AM

LordBrownof wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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Elegant Point wrote:

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Lambda wrote:

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Var wrote:

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AnnaM wrote:

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It is chaos out there!

People are also having their already booked appointments cancelled.

This could damage the college system and the exchange program beyond repair.

If the big baby was not hated before, which he was, he is now despised on an even greater scale.

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 Does this impact those already in the college system? Or just new applicants? Must be so worrying.

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Not unless you go to Harvard who the government cancelled their right to register international students last week, and current international students their must transfer to maintain the visa status (part of the govt spat with Harvard) but there is an injunction preventing the govt from implementing the ban. Immigration lawyers advise it doesn't impact on students that have completed their course requirements to graduate.

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 My son knows an international student (visa all in order) who has been forced to leave the US  after being caught speeding (60 in a 40) 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/07/trump-student-visas-deportation

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 You live in New York, right, EP? Do you see anything changing on the ground day to day in terms of changing attitudes to foreigners? 

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You might be thinking of me. 

It's obviously a very dumb idea, not least because of how much it impacts the economy in both the short and long term. Most experts predicting at least an $9b drop in spending from overseas tourists. 

I heard a rumour (a rumour for sure, although it came from a former WH staffer) that they've gone after Harvard after declining Baron's application. 

 

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Sorry, Lordbrownof, it is you, of course. More widely, do you find any general non American sentiment there - anti foreigners- or are the general public largely non plussed by what is going on? 

LordBrownof wrote:

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[...]I heard a rumour (a rumour for sure, although it came from a former WH staffer) that they've gone after Harvard after declining Baron's application. [...]

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 Incredible and unbelievable - if it were anyone else but Trump! 

See Hep is off to Ohio State.

Lambda wrote:

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The House v NCAA settlement was approved by the judge overnight, effective from 1July. From then colleges can pay players directly. Each college will be allowed to share revenue with players up to a total of 22% of the average revenue from ticket sales, media rights and sponsorships by power conference schools, expected to be $20.5 million in the first year. The vast majority of that will go to football, followed by basketball. Tennis will be in the pool of other sports that are collectively expected to get less than 5% of the fund at each school. There will be no limits on scholarships but rosters will be limited, and for tennis it is 10 player limit. As roster limits would have resulted in several students being cut, the judge agreed on a compromise where players being cut would be allowed to stay on the team or go to a new college and not count towards roster limits at the college's discretion. With most colleges expected to follow a model that revenue sharing will initially be allocated to each sport according to how much revenue that programme generates, a lot of colleges have been reassessing their athletic programmes ahead of the agreement being approved and I read at least 18 tennis programmes having been dropped so far this summer, with women's tennis at Central Arkansas being the latest yesterday.

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 Are any of the Brits impacted or could be impacted by this lambda?

Are we seeing the first effects of the settlement agreement? Yesterday was the women's draft for the kick-off weekend in January, which acts as the qualifiers for the ITA National indoor team championships. The top 14 teams in the end of season rankings are hosts and then from the 15th team onwards in ranking order, teams select which of those 14 groups they want to play in, in groups of 4. For some teams the decision will be where do they have the best chance to qualify, others where can they get a 1st round win and a high ranking team 2nd round opponent that won't hurt there ranking should they lose, and others which will be the cheapest travel option. Some may look at the board when it's their pick and decide there are no good places for them either in terms of opposition or in travel costs and choose to pass on the opportunity. In the women's draft, there were a huge 15 teams that passed on the opportunity to participate in the weekend. To put that in context, last year there were 3. Is it because teams are more restricted on budget or do they genuinely think doing their own thing that weekend is better than the opportunities that were available to them at their pick? It'll be interesting to see if the same plays out in the men's today.

In the draft itself, it was interesting to see that NC State were one of the sites that teams were avoiding picking even though they are only the 12th seeded host out of 14. Usually you see the lower seeded hosts picked first. It wasn't until the 19th pick and 4th last host without a pick that a team picked to go there. Do coaches think NC State are going to be strong next year or are they just avoiding the 4 court indoor set up at NC State? It was looking like NC State were going to have an easy weekend until sleeper team Florida picked them. It will be an early return to NC State for Gabia. That will be a really interesting match if it happens, perhaps one of the matches of the weekend, but first Florida will have to get past Ole Miss.