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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Cako Profile; So Cal Wins Fifth Straight Team Title; Junior Parent/Coach Focus Group at Nats

While I was in Memphis for the Girls 18s Clay Court, I spoke to rising senior Jacqueline Cako about her accelerating junior career and her upcoming college choice. My profile for The Tennis Recruiting Network is here. My Kalamazoo preview will be posted on Thursday.

The Southern California section beat Florida yesterday in the finals of the Boys Team Championships in Champaign-Urbana. It was as close as it could be and came down to a third set tiebreaker in No. 6 singles. Marcia Frost provides an account of the final day's matches here. Erik Boal of the Los Angeles Daily News followed the SoCal team throughout the event, and filed this story after Tuesday's final.

John Isner, who will be returning to Kalamazoo for the Professional Exhibition that opens the Nationals every year, set an astounding record in his win yesterday over qualifier Andrea Stoppini of Italy when he won EVERY point on his first serve in the match, 39 of 39. The Greensboro News-Record has the details.

And any parents or coaches who are going to be in Kalamazoo tomorrow are invited to a USTA Focus Group on the structure of junior competitive tennis. Former Nationals Tournament Director Timon Corwin, now Senior Director of Junior and Collegiate Competition for the USTA, will be moderating the discussion. Those who have expressed disappointment with the points-per-round system on this site should voice those comments and any others you may have at this forum. Specifics below:

Over the course of the next several months, the USTA will be undertaking a comprehensive review of the current national junior competitive system. To that end the USTA has selected the USTA Boys' 18 & 16 National Championships as one of the sites for conducting a parent/coach focus group. Timon Corwin, USTA Senior Director of Junior and Collegiate Competition, will be at the tournament to host a one-hour informative interactive session - from 2:30 to 3:30 pm on Thursday, July 31. The meeting will take place at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in the same room as the College Coach Expo. The USTA would like to receive input and ideas from parents of junior players regarding this important topic. Following the discussion, parents will be invited to fill out a survey. The data from the surveys will be studied and ideas will be incorporated into a new and improved junior competitive structure.

1 comments:

Mary said...

Several parents from our local training program in Tennessee have been discussing the PPR system and the way that doubles are factored in. The consensus is, instead of 15% of the points for the best 8 doubles, it would be preferable to either return to the old method of doubles and singles standings or take the best 4 doubles matches and add those to the standings. If the goal is to have juniors play more doubles, not only does it need to really matter but more tournaments need to offer doubles.