The selections for the NCAA championships have "been announced". Well, we knew what they were. But of more interest are the alternates and seedings.

For the men's championships
https://www.ncaa.com/news/tennis-men/article/2024-11-11/2024-25-ncaa-division-i-mens-tennis-singles-and-doubles-championships-selections

Will Jansen is 10th alternate for singles
Freddy Blaydes+ is 1st alternate for doubles

Singles seeds
1. Sebastian Gorzny (Junior, Texas) [Pre-season rank 30]
2. Michael Zheng (Junior, Columbia) [P-S rank #2]
3. Colton Smith (Senior, Arizona) [P-S rank #5]
4. Carl Emil Overbeck (Senior, California) [P-S rank #56]
5. Jay Friend (Senior, Arizona) [P-S rank #15]
6. Lui Maxted (Senior, TCU) [P-S rank #39]
7. Oliver Tarvet (Junior, San Diego) [P-S rank #3]
8. Aidan Kim (Sophomore, Ohio State) [P-S rank #71]

I'm not surprised that Ollie is only 7th seed. It reflects that in winning the All-American Championships he didn't play any of the higher ranked players, not helped by Gorzny withdrawing from the final, and he hasn't played any college tennis since. I am a bit surprised at Lui's seeding though. But he has played 12 matches during the fall season, including playing 4 of the top 5 seeds but only he won 1 of those 4 matches. The men's draw is really wide open.

According to noadnoproblem 3 pre-season top 25 players did not compete for qualification and 18 qualified.

Doubles seeds
Seeds 1-4:
1. Oliver Tarvet & Stian Klaassen (San Diego)
2. Marko Miladinovic & Oskar Brostrom Poulsen (Baylor)
3. Petar Jovanovic & Benito Sanchez Martinez (Mississippi State)
4. Luciano Tacchi & Luca Pow (Wake Forest)

Pedro Vives & Lui Maxted (TCU) are one of the 5-8 seeds

As the first year of the NCAA Individual championships being in the fall comes to an end, a few thoughts.

Although this is a 2 year pilot, the championships being in the fall is here to stay whatever anyone thinks of it being at this stage of the year so we should look at what can be done to make it better.

Before I come on to what can be improved, the one thing I really liked about this format, and I might be being controversial here, is that everyone gets a chance to qualify which isn't the case with a rankings selection format. I won't necessarily say equal chance as some have a more equal chance than others to misquote the Animal Farm quote. The problem with a rankings entry is that it automatically rules the majority out. With the rankings unless they are at a "Power conference" school and at the 1 or 2 spots in their team line-up then it is very difficult to get a high enough ranking to get in, but as Oli Tarvet proves not impossible to get a decent ranking if they're in another conference. They'll be some strong players in mid-major conferences that don't have a chance to get a high enough ranking, or any top 125 ranking, and miss out but they may be better than those that get in around the 40 or 50 ranking mark just because they are at a Power conference school and play high enough in their team order.

Take Sofia Johnson for example, she got into last year's championships by being the highest ranked in her conference at 116 and only just getting into the top 125 at the end of the regular season. Had she not scraped into the top 125 she wouldn't now be able to say she is a 1 time All-American. She is, and was then, better than 116 in women's college tennis. Through post-season results her ranking went from 116 to 69.

You could also look at May's women's finalist Lopata who only got in the Championships as an alternate because she played lower in the order for Georgia she was only ranked 70, if memory serves I think she was something like 10th alternate. So the rankings, or rather the rankings algorithm, doesn't necessarily choose the right players that should qualify for the championships. It's got a lot of bias in it. With this format, everyone has a chance based on ability. And I don't mind if we get a few unexpected players through. The best stories in the FA Cup come from lower leagues teams who giantkill or have a good cup run.

Moving on to what could be improved.
The All-Americans are well established. 10 qualified, 8 from the main draw and 2 from the backdraw which was changed from a R1 losers draw to a feed in draw of all losers up to the R16. I don't think I'd change anything here, although I'm not too keen that the 1 and 2 women's seeds (and ultimately the women's NCAA champion) got a 2nd chance after being upset in the opening round of the main draw, effectively taking away the opportunity for qualification from the other players in the backdraw. Maybe the backdraw should be limited to R16 losers.

The biggest change that needs to be made is the regionals. I think everyone is in agreement that the inbalance in strengths between regions isn't fair and doesn't work. There seems to be a belief among coaches that there will be changes here, but the inbalance was known beforehand so why would it be addressed now when it could have been before. What changes could be made? The regionals are there to minimise costs for the athletic programmes so any solution would need to keep travel costs to a minimum. They could revisit the boundaries between regions, but I don't think that would solve the problem. They could be more flexible on regions so every school could be placed in their current region or an adjacent region. But that still wouldn't balance things out very well, so I would suggest that the top schools can afford to travel, so seed those schools and place them in the regions so no school in the top tier of seedings is in a region with another and no school in the 2nd tier of seedings would be in a region with another school in the 2nd tier of seedings. I would also reduce the number of regions by 2 or 3. Some have suggested that schools should choose which "region" to play in, similar to the kick-off weekend selection process.

The sectionals could follow the same structure as they were inbalanced a little too, although not to the same extent as the regionals.

Everybody seems to like the Conference Masters but me. I know what it's purpose is but I just don't see why its needed. It's purpose is to give 1 player and doubles team from every conference a chance to qualify, but they have that on all the other routes. It was quite weak as a qualifying tournament for the NCAAs, which showed when the singles semi-finalists in both draws were 3 of the top 4 seeds plus a lower seed. I'd get rid of it.

While I said earlier that I like the new format gives everyone a chance and I'm not adverse to some unexpected players qualifying from out of nowhere, I want them to be deserving of the place and not just to have lucked into it. With that in mind, I'm not so keen on players playing so few matches to qualify or them qualifying and then withdrawing from the remainder of the qualifying competition or not playing the rest of the fall. I'd like some form of qualification system that encourages players to finish the qualifying competition they've qualified in and prove themselves worthy of qualification over multiple competitions.

Finally, for the championships themselves the NCAA and ITA need to decide if its an event for the student-athletes or if they are serious about promoting college tennis and increasing revenue opportunities. As far as I could see the organisation of the event is still wholly arranged around the student-athlete experience and not as a spectator event. The attendance was abysmal once again, not helped by nearly all matches being scheduled during class/work time, not helped by scheduling all quarter-finals to take place at the same time and 12 of the 16 R16 matches at the same time. I understand there was no other activity or events outside of the matches. If they want more fans attending and increased broadcaster interest then they should make it a festival of tennis, schedule matches throughout the day with some night matches when attendance improved. I appreciate the players need to get back to class when they are knocked out, but more interaction between players and fans. Jake was there, and although he was there supporting TCU, there could easily have been pre-arranged opportunities to get him and others to do a pro-am event or a session with local kids or something. It was lovely weather all week, a great way to spend the weekend so it's very sad, dejecting to see the semi-finals and finals played in front of hundreds of empty seats. And don't remove the links to the streams once we're down to a position when all the matches can be covered by Cracked Racquets on ESPN+. Not everyone interested and wanting to watch lives in America.


-- Edited by Lambda on Monday 25th of November 2024 04:34:37 PM

For the women. Excellent news that Sofia is ranked 7. Her seeding at the NCAAs suggested she was top 10 going into the NCAAs, but I expected with results there that she would just drop out so this is better than I was thinking. Gabia's excellent 1st semester is rewarded with a ranking of No 55 - the only NC State woman to be in the top 125. And Hannah Read in her 1st semester has gone under the radar and gets ranked at 105. Also pleased to see Imogen ranked. Other than those highlights it's pretty disappointing in singles. I hope that Kylie, Alicia and Millie B have good spring seasons as I don't expect many of these ranked to be so as the season progresses.
Better in doubles with lots more being ranked and 2 in the top 10 teams.

Singles
7. Sofia Johnson - Old Dominion
37. Grace Piper - Southern California
55. Gabia Paskauskas - NC State
57. Imogen Haddad - Southern California
105. Hannah Read - San Diego

Doubles
3. Alicia Dudeney (& Rachel Gailis) - Florida
7. Grace Piper (& Lily Fairclough) - Southern California
23. Savannah Dada-Mascoll (& Isabella Romanichen) - Appalachian State
25. Millie Bissett (& Maria Juliana Parra Romero) - Florida State
26. Lily Hutchings (& Maria Berlanga) - Tulsa
54. Given Roach (& Alejandra Cruz) - Georgia Tech
60. Kristina Paskauskas & Jasmine Conway - NC State
65. Hannah Rylatt (& Olivia Lincer) - Central Florida
72. Danielle Hack (& Kallista Liu) - Maryland
=75. Jojo Bach (& Meg Mccarty) - Montana State
=75. Millie Skelton (& June Bjork) - Southern Methodist
116. Lucy Webber (& Lainey O'Neil) - Richmond

Here is a link to the LTA page on the Support for GB NCAA players - I just happened to be reading it when CD posted.

https://www.lta.org.uk/compete/performance/player-pathway/ncaa-support/

Not tennis but for sure college chat!

North Carolina have got the 6 time superbowl winning coach from the New England Patriots at an amazing $30m over years!

US college sport is on a different scale!

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/american-football/articles/cwy37496vgxo

The guy is a legend but hes 72. Nice little retirement package !

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Thursday 12th of December 2024 09:55:55 AM

It's confirmed. Jack Pinnington Jones will be returning to TCU for the spring season. Spending some time around the guys during the fall together with the recruiting TCU have done have convinced him to do another semester. Although yet to speak to the coach, he still hopes to play some pro-tournaments during the spring to get his ranking to a number he's been given that will put him in consideration for a Wimbledon WC.

Set aside an hour to listen to his Cracked Racquets interview.

He talks about his decision to return, Jake, Lui, that someone at the LTA called him fat, that the LTA is shipping off everyone to college who isn't already elite but in Spain playing collegiate tennis is still seen as a failure, his entry to college tennis and how on applying for eligibility the NCAA made him decline Wimbledon WCs and challenger entries and made a mistake over his eligibility, the TCU team comradery and how he got Luke Swan into the team, that he is telling anyone who will listen to go to college (in particular Charlie Robertson), and his thoughts on the move of the NCAAs to the fall among many other topics.