The first day of the Division I NCAA Team Championships produced several minor upsets, with No. 3 seeds beating No. 2 seeds and a few 4-3 battles, but the host, the No. 1 seeds in their regionals cruised through their first round matches. The only exception was the San Diego men, who are hosting the consensus choice for the toughest field in the regionals. The No. 15 seeds defeated No. 4 seed
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Part II of the Tennis Recruiting Network's NCAA D-I Roundtable is now up, with play beginning across the country tomorrow with all 32 first round matches in the men's draw and 16 first round matches in the women's draw. Alongside Alex Gruskin of Cracked Racquets and Chris Halioris of CollegeTennisRanks.com, I give my list of dark horses and possible upsets and pick my champions. I got both right
Part I of Tennis Recruiting Network's annual NCAA Division I Roundtable went up today, with Cracked Racquets' Alex Gruskin, CollegeTennisRanks' Chris Halioris and me offering our thoughts on the storylines from the regular season and what Super Regionals matchups we're looking forward to. Part II, when we name our dark horses and predict the champions, will be out Thursday
The USTA released the latest rankings in its annual Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge, with Savannah Challenger champion Nishesh Basavareddy overtaking Emilio Nava and W100 Charlottesville semifinalist Akasha Urhobo maintaining her lead.I had thought Basavareddy would still be a few points short of catching Nava, but I had double counted his points from reaching the third round of Madrid.
The NCAA announced the fields for the 2026 Division I Team Championships this afternoon, with women's defending champion Georgia and men's defending champion Wake Forest the number one seeds.When the latest rankings come out Thursday however, neither will be No. 1, with Georgia at No. 2 moving ahead of Auburn, who has earned the No. 1 ranking. Wake Forest will be No. 4, so the NCAA committee's
Sixteen-year-old Welles Newman and 18-year-old Keaton Hance won their first USTA Pro Circuit singles titles in contrasting fashion today at the W15 and M15 events at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona Florida.Newman came back against 15-year-old Janae Preston, a fellow ITF Junior Reserved entry, winning a two-hour and 43-minute battle 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-0 for her first USTA Pro Circuit title.&
The M15 title Jack Kennedy won in Boca Raton early this month was just the start of his success the past three weeks, with a semifinal last week at the Tallahassee Challenger 75 and now an appearance in the final of the Challenger 75 in Savannah Georgia tomorrow.The 17-year-old from New York, who has committed to Virginia for this fall, defeated qualifier Kilian Feldbausch of Switzerland 7-6(2),
For the first time since 2020, a Power 4/5 conference school has cut a tennis program, and today the University of Arkansas exceeded this decade's cuts to the men's programs at Minnesota, Iowa and Connecticut by eliminating both the men's and women's programs at the end of this season.This is obviously terrible news for college tennis, which has regularly seen cuts to non-Power 4/5 Division I,
The NCAA announced today that the Division I singles and doubles championships would be permanently moved to the fall after a two-year pilot program in 2024 and 2025. The reasons cited by the Tennis Oversight Committee are majority support of the D-I coaches for the change and student-athlete well-being, which appears to mean too much tennis for them when both the team and the individual
After reporting on his run to the quarterfinals of the ITF San Diego J300 as a lucky loser, at the Easter Bowl I took the opportunity to talk with Yashwin Krishnakumar about his commitment to join the University of California-Irvine Anteaters this fall for today's article at the Tennis Recruiting Network. I don't write as many of these commitment articles as I used to, for a variety of reasons,
The Division I rankings released today by the ITA are the last ones before next Monday's draw is released for the NCAA tournament, although there is still a week of competition remaining. The rankings that will be released on April 30, the last ones before the NCAAs, will be available to the committee as they go through their calculations. To track what might change in the rankings and how the
With the two 15Ks in Orlando last week and two more this week, American juniors aren't as prevalent as usual on the ITF Junior Circuit, although the ITF's US junior clay swing is ramping up now. With a J30 in Raleigh serving as the kickoff of it two weeks ago, a J60 was played in Atlanta last week, with a J100 this week in Charleston South Carolina and two new J200s, on red clay in South Carolina
Nineteen-year-old Akasha Urhobo won her third W35 title of the year today in Zephyrhills Florida, with the No. 3, who received a wild card, beating No. 5 seed Angela Fita Boluda of Spain 7-5, 6-4 in the final.Urhobo, who won a USTA Pro Circuit tournament at Zephyrhills in 2024 when it was a W75, will add to her lead in the USTA's Roland Garros Wild Card race. When the 35 points are added she will
Below are the videos of the 18s finals at last month's Easter Bowl, which wraps up my YouTube content from my March trip out West. All those videos can be seen at the tenniskalamazoo YouTube Channel. The most popular of all those videos, with nearly 5000 views, is the boys final at the ITF J300 in San Diego, and I can understand why, with the quality of that match way above average for a
The videos of the finals of the 16s division are available below, with the videos of the 12s and 14s finals available at the tenniskalamazoo YouTube Channel.
Jack Kennedy, who won the M15 title in Boca Raton last week, has extended his USTA Pro Circuit winning streak to eight matches by getting his second career ATP Top 200 win today in the quarterfinals of the ATP Challenger 75 in
The videos of the finals of the 14s division at last month's Easter Bowl are below; the 12s videos, which went up yesterday, can be found at my tenniskalamazoo YouTube channel.
Seventeen-year-old Jack Kennedy has advanced to his first ATP Challenger quarterfinal, with the ITF Junior No. 5 defeating Oliver Crawford(Florida) of Great Britain 7-6(4), 4-6, 7-5 this afternoon in Tallahassee.
After finishing the Tucson ITF J300 and San Diego J300 finals the last few days, I've processed the first two videos from last month's USTA Level 1 Easter Bowl, with the 12s finals available below. To view the other videos from my recent trip out west, see the tenniskalamazoo YouTube Channel.
The NCAA announced today that its D-I Cabinet has adopted changes to pre-enrollment
Two more sets of rankings are due before the NCAA tournament, but the regular season is over for three of the four Power 4 conferences, so ranking movement for those SEC, ACC and B12 teams will be based on this weekend's conference tournaments. The Georgia women, who are the No. 4 seed in the SEC tournament, stay at No. 1 in this week's ITA Division I team rankings, while the Texas men, who are
Barnes Tennis Center is one of my favorite junior tennis venues, and for the past two years, the finals of the ITF J300 there in March have been back-to-back, rather than simultaneous, with the latter being the norm at many junior events. The stadium court at Barnes allows videos to be taken from behind the court, which makes it much easier for me and gives viewers a better feel for the points.
Jack Kennedy won his first pro tournament today at the USTA Pro Circuit M15 in Boca Raton Florida, with the 17-year-old New Yorker, seeded No. 6, defeating No. 7 seed Andreja Petrovic(North Dakota, Florida State, Duke) 6-3, 6-4 in the final. Kennedy, who had reached the semifinals at four other USTA Pro Circuit tournaments since last May, is the fifth player born in 2008, and first American,
Since last spring, Jack Kennedy had made four USTA men's Pro Circuit semifinals, but had not made an appearance in a final at those three M15s and one M25 tournament. That streak ended today at the Boca Raton M15, with the University of Virginia recruit, seeded sixth, beating fellow 17-year-old Yannik Alvarez of Puerto Rico, who was competing in his first pro event this week, 7-6(5), 6-7(4), 6-3.
Americans have advanced to the semifinals of all four USTA Pro Circuit tournaments this week, with an all-USA final guaranteed in one event and a possibility in the other three.The sure thing is at the W35 in Boca Raton, where all four semifinalists are Americans. Top seed Kayla Day had to complete her second round match and play her quarterfinal today after rain the previous two days; she
Iva Jovic will make her Billie Jean King Cup debut tomorrow in the qualifying tie with Belgium, but the 18-year-old from Southern California is a veteran of ITF team competitions, having helped the USA win the Junior Billie Jean King Cup titles in 2022 and 2023.Alanis Hamilton, Tyra Grant, Iva Jovic, Captain Tom Gutteridge (photo courtesy ITF)Jovic was on the 2022 team as its youngest player and
The videos from last month's finals at the ITF J300 in Tucson are below, with more to come in the next few weeks from the ITF in San Diego and the Easter Bowl. For many more videos from major junior events in the United States going back more than a decade, see the tenniskalamazoo YouTube channel.
Rain has again been a problem in Boca Raton, with some first round matches
For the fourth week in succession, a different team has taken over the top spot in the ITA Division I men's rankings, with Texas reaching No. 1 for the first time this season, despite their National Team Indoor title in February. The Longhorns, who have lost seven six matches this year including two in SEC play, have one more conference match left, at home against Florida this Friday. The