British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Another day, another win for Luca Pow. He just doesn't know how to lose. No 1 Wake Forest defeats No 4 Texas 4-2, although for once Wake Forest dropped the doubles point. Texas have now lost to the current No 1 and No 2 teams at home in the past week.

Pos 3: #15 Luca Pow (WFU) defeated Abel Forger (Texas) 6-4, 6-3
Pos 5: Charlie Robertson (WFU) defeated Jonah Braswell (Texas) 6-3, 6-3

Wake Forest are not as dominant as last year, and Suresh is struggling at No 1 with 2 defeats from 2 so far. It won't be long before Shah moves up to No 1 I think.

Charlie Swaine (South Carolina) playing at No 6 singles won his match but couldn't stop the Game****s from being upset at home against Clemson in the qualification for the National Indoors. South Carolina lost 2-4, in a match brought forward from Saturday due to the impending severe winter storm that will sweep the US

Pos 6: Charlie Swaine (South Carolina) defeated Cherie Ligniere (Clemson) [WR1362] 6-4 6-3

Charlie is now 7-6 since September and 3-1 in team matches.


The winter storm is causing chaos for college tennis's ceremonial opening weekend with many matches brought forward or cancelled. Georgia women's team automatically qualifies for the National Indoor Team Championships after all 3 teams they were due to host withdrew because of the impending weather.

Day 2 of kick-off weekend lasted a couple of minutes short of 14 hours, starting at 9am local time in Virginia and ending at 10.58pm in Virginia with USC womens team clinching their spot in the group championship match with a 4-3 thriller but without, curiously, Immi in singles.

From a British POV Talia Nielsen-Gatenby stole the headlines as she clinched the 4-3 upset for Clemson over #13 Pepperdine with a 6-2 5-7 6-4 win. She would have had relief as well as joy as she had served for a straight sets win at *5-3 in the second. Clemson will now face who were meant to be their original opponents in the opening round, hosts Tennessee for a place in the Indoor Nationals.

Elsewhere not much to shout about

Ollie Tarvet got a 6-0 3-0 ret win for San Diego but that was USDs only singles win as they disappointingly lost 2-4 at home.

Wake Forest got through their play-off match as expected but Luca and Charlie were unfinished. Lucca was a set up and Charlie was a game away from a straight sets win. Both were moved up a position to 2 and 4 respectively as WF dropped Suresh from singles. Shah was moved to the No 1 position and was on course to lose his match and it's looking like they might have a No 1 problem.

Ohio State also progressed as expected. Okonkwo only played doubles with an easy 6-0 win. He's partnered with Bernard and it's quite funny seeing the tallest player on the team playing alongside the smallest player.

Florida men upset Kentucky but Henry Jefferson lost his doubles and singles.

OIi Bonding came from behind to win the first set 7-5 against fellow Brit Finbar McGarvey ( UT Arlington ) by which time TCU had won the match on other courts. Oli has been moved down to No 4 singles for this weekend but played at No 3 with TCU pulling their No 2.

Will Jansen and Derrick Chen won their doubles and singles for Georgia. They will now play TCU in the group championship match. I hope the TCU indoor facility has heating with it forecast to be -8C outside.

For the women South Carolina progressed against Miami as expected. But neither Piani for SC or Ogunwale for Miami played. I'm assuming they are injured as they were missing from their last matches too and I don't see how either don't get into their singles line ups.

Isabelle Lacy was unfinished at 7-6 4-4 as Virginia had a fight for their 4-0 home win over Rice. They will now face USC for a place in the Indoor Nationals. That will be interesting as both have strong doubles pedigrees, both are weak at the top 2 positions, and both rely on the bottom of their order. Virginia will be favorite if only because they are at home and USC have only 13 hours rest after a marathon match.

Ohio State (Hep, Flora) got a bye to the group championship match as Georgia Tech (Roach) withdrew.

-- Edited by Lambda on Saturday 24th of January 2026 05:27:48 AM

Vanderbilt women did cause an upset at Michigan to qualify for the National Indoors.
Erin Pearce+ swept aside half of a junior grand slam champion pairing (Sartz-Lunde) in doubles 6-1 but lost her singles - her first singles loss this month from 7 matches. She's also unbeaten in doubles this month with 6 wins and 1 unfinished.

LSU qualified as expected. Ella has now played 3 college singles matches without dropping a set, today beating Kate Fakih 2 & 3.

Also as expected, Florida State women lost easily.

TCU men and Ohio State women's matches were postponed and they'll try again tomorrow.

Ranking points are determined by the ranking of the opponent you win or lose against. Playing at No 3 she will not be playing the highest ranked players so will not get the biggest ranking points for wins and losses will have a slightly bigger impact on her ranking points than playing higher ranked players - although I can't see her losing many with her being one of the strongest No 3s in any team. Whether she gets much higher than the 40s in the rankings this season will depend on how often Cadence and Kayla are off playing ITFs and she gets to play at 1 or 2.

As an aside, according to a table published by UTR Sports last week, she has the 14th highest UTR in women's college tennis.

TCU men and Ohio State women comfortable qualified for the National Indoors.

TCU defeated Georgia 4-1
In No 1 doubles, Oli Bonding+ (TCU) defeated Will Jansen+ (Georgia) 6-3
No 2 singles: Will Jansen lost to Cosme Rolland De Ravel 6-7(5) 2-6
No 4 singles: Oli Bonding defeated Noah Johnston 6-4 7-6(4)
No 5 singles: Derrick Chen (Georgia) vs Roger Pascaul 6-7(5) 2-2 unfinished.

Ohio State defeated Iowa 4-0
No 1 doubles: Hep Oluwadare+ (Ohio State) won 6-3
No 6 singles: Flora Johnson (Ohio State) defeated "Sally" Shuqian Xu 6-0 6-3

I was surprised Hep wasn't selected for singles and Flora was. Flora justified the selection clinching the 4th team point to send Ohio State to the National Indoors.

Its Jasmine Conway and NC State that will go to the National Indoor Team Championships.
NC State win 4-3 in a comeback win after Florida were a game away from the upset at 1-3.

Doubles 2: Jasmine Conway+ (NC State) lost 3-6
Doubles 3: Brooke Black+ (Florida) won 6-3

Singles 4: #11 Gabia Paskauskas (Florida) lost to #38 Lavinia Tanasie (NC State) [WR674] 5-7 6-3 1-6
Singles 5: Brooke Black (Florida) [WR724] lost to Victoria Osuigwe (NC State) [WR563] 6(4)-7 6-4 5-7
Singles 6: Jasmine Conway (NC State) [WR1239] defeated Lucia Pawlak (Florida) [WR983] 6-4 6-2

The momentum in Gabia's match ebbed back and forth. Gabia was quickly down *0-4, cameback to lead 5-4* before losing the next 3 games to lose the 1st set and then got an early break to go 4-1 in the 2nd. In the final set she appeared to have run out of physical or mental energy being very quiet in contrast to the first 2 sets. But a very good effort nonetheless.
Once Gabia had finished Jasmine took to the same court and raced to a 5-0 lead over the French woman of Florida, had a bit of a wobble before taking the set and was always in command in the 2nd to level the team score at 3-3. Jasmine is making the most of getting some singles action while NC State have their injury and eligibility problems.
That left Brooke and Osuigwe to battle the last set out for the team win. It was a tightly contested and high quality match throughout - it isn't very often you get a top 750 matchup at No 5 singles - but it was Osuigwe that comes out the victor.

NC State go to the team championships in a couple of weeks but first have a neutral site derby match against their nearest rivals UNC on Friday. Florida don't have a scheduled match again until Feb 13.