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Thursday, October 12, 2006

Merklein to work with Blake; final word on Tulsa



In the course of tracking down official confirmation that Ryan Sweeting has decided to leave the University of Florida for a pro career (still waiting to hear from the Sports Information Dept. in Gainesville), I discovered that USTA High Performance coach Mark Merklein is going to be working with James Blake, rather than continue to be the traveling coach for the 1990 birth year boys, a position he took in February of this year.

I spoke with Mark this afternoon, and he assured me that he was not leaving the USTA, unlike David DiLucia, who became Lindsay Davenport's personal coach early this year. (Davenport has recently reunited with Adam Peterson, while DiLucia may be returning to USTA High Performance to work with the 90's, whom he traveled with prior to leaving the USTA). Merklein will remain with High Performance, but will concentrate on keeping Blake at the top of the game, and perhaps work with Robby Ginepri too. On Friday, Merklein is leaving for the Tennis Masters Series in Madrid; in the next few weeks, he'll travel with Blake to Basel and Paris and, if he qualifies, to Shanghai for the Tennis Masters Series Cup, where the top eight players on the ATP tour participate in the season-ending championships.

Mark sounded excited about the opportunity which apparently has been in the works for several months. He reminisced about the days when he was on the tour and a teenaged Blake served as a hitting partner for him, crashing on his couch. Now the roles are reversed, and although Merklein's extensive experience and success at all levels of the game--1988 Kalamazoo 16s winner; 1994 NCAA singles champion; 12 years on the pro tour; four ATP doubles titles; coaching on tour and in college-- will be an undoubted asset, he assured me he will in no way replace Brian Barker, Blake's longtime coach.

Merklein and the USTA are committing to this arrangement for 20-25 weeks in 2007 and Mark told me he hopes to continue to help coach his former juniors and work at other USTA camps from his base in Boca Raton, although he won't travel with them as he has been doing. He expects to be back in Florida for the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl this year, and I'm relieved that he's still planning on staying involved with the juniors.

For those interested in tennis news from Tulsa, Friday's quarterfinals are set for the ITF B1 in Tulsa. Several upsets on the girls' side, with top seed Julia Cohen, third seed Kim Couts and fifth seed Chelsey Gullickson losing today. For full draws, see usta.com.

The short version of my four days of coverage of the ITA Polo Ralph Lauren All-American in Tulsa appears today on The Tennis Recruiting Network.

And one housekeeping note: the Kalamazoo website, ustaboys.com has a new look and a new server home. Please reset your bookmarks, and bear with us as we make the migration.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice guy. Good luck to him.
He is the only USTA high performance coach who is not arrogant and has talked to my son in last 3 years while in the ITF junior circuit.

Anonymous said...

David Roditi is not arrogant, neither is Mike Sell, c'mon!! These guys are as nice as the day is long...Good luck to Merklein, it's a great opportunity for him.

Anonymous said...

rodditi and sell are two of the nicest people ive ever met!

Anonymous said...

Mike Sell and David Roditi are both class acts....nice people and they both love tennis. Mark is a nice guy as well