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Thursday, February 5, 2015

Women's Team Indoor Begins Friday; Stanford Women Top Recruiting Class Rankings; Osaka Beats Gibbs in Midland; Sewing and Sanford Reach Inka Bowl Semifinals

The ITA Women's Team Indoor Championships begins on Friday at the Boars Head Club in Charlottesville, Virginia, and for the first time in four years, I won't be covering it, due to the scoring change. I went last year when the format included a match tiebreaker in lieu of a third set and was dismayed by that experiment, and I'm not interested in repeating that experience this year with no-ad.  I'll still provide updates, but I'm the first to admit there's nothing like being there, and I won't have photos and quotes.

There is a new blog out there however, called College Tennis Today, which is a great source for all you need to know about the big matches in Division I college tennis.  Although it says it is about men's tennis, there has been coverage of some women's matches, and the page on the Women's Team Indoor has all the information you'll need, with links to the live scoring, live streaming and the lineups.  The schedule for the first round Friday:

9 am:
North Carolina(3) v Oklahoma State
Alabama(6) v Miami

noon:
Duke(4) v TCU
Cal(5) v Vanderbilt

3:30 pm:
UCLA(1) v Kentucky
Georgia(8) v Michigan

6:30 pm:
Virginia(7) v Southern Cal
Florida(2) v Clemson

While I was covering the Pro Circuit tournament in Midland, the Tennis Recruiting Network published its women's recruiting class winter rankings, and it was Stanford barely edging Duke for the No. 1 class. Following those two were Michigan, North Carolina and Southern Cal. The complete list is here.


I've returned from Midland after two days, but I'm obviously following the tournament closely, watching the live streaming whenever I can. Tonight, from the comfort of my den, I watched 17-year-old Naomi Osaka of Japan defeat top seed Nicole Gibbs 1-6, 6-2, 6-4.  Osaka could have gone away after the first set, or after losing her 2-0 lead in the third set, but she kept swinging, going for the lines and keeping Gibbs from dictating points. (It should be said that Gibbs appeared to be having wrist issues, which she mentioned in passing when I spoke to her about her first round win on Wednesday).  At 3-3 in the third set, Osaka was down a break point, but saved it with an ace, and held at love in her next service game to go up 5-4.  Gibbs made two unforced errors to fall behind 0-30 and Osaka took advantage of that situation, going for the line with a forehand on the next point and making it, giving her three match points. She only needed one, taking a big cut at a Gibbs second serve and watching as Gibbs attempt to get it back went wide.

Osaka will now play No. 8 seed Louisa Chirico, who had a routine 6-1, 6-2 win over qualifier Naomi Cavaday of Great Britain. No. 3 seed Jovana Jaksic of Serbia lost to Bernarda Pera 7-5, 6-0, and Pera will play unseeded Katerina Vankova of the Czech Republic in the quarterifnals. Vankova defeated No. 7 seed Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria 1-6, 6-1, 7-6(7).  Czech qualifier Nicole Vaidisova won her fifth match in five days, ousting No. 5 seed Anna Tatishvili 1-6, 6-4, 6-3, and she will play Caitlin Whoriskey, who downed Quirine Lemoine of the Netherlands 7-6(5), 7-6(6). No. 6 seed Tatjana Maria of Germany beat Asia Muhammad 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(5) to advance to a quarterfinal contest with Sachia Vickery, who beat Jessica Pegula 4-6, 6-0, 6-2. Maria and Chirico are the only seeds remaining.

Friday's schedule and a link to the live stream is available at the tournament website.

At the $100,000 men's challenger in Dallas, world No. 1 junior Andrey Rublev, who qualified for the event and beat No. 3 seed Blaz Rola in the first round and Agustin Velotti in the second round, fell in the quarterfinals today to No. 7 seed Rajeev Ram 3-6, 6-2, 7-5.  The 17-year-old Russian has also advanced to the doubles semifinals.

The ITF Grade 2 Inka Bowl in Peru is down to the semifinals in singles and finals in doubles, with two US girls still alive.  No. 4 seed Alexandra Sanford defeated No. 5 seed Maria Paula Torres of Peru 6-2, 6-4 and wild card Sofia Sewing upset No. 2 seed Fernanda Astete of Chile 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.    Sanford and her partner Dominique Schaefer of Peru, who are unseeded,  reached the girls doubles final with a 4-6, 7-5, 10-8 win over No. 2 seed Julieta Estable of Argentina and Rafaela Gomez of Ecuador.

6 comments:

Eeyore said...

Colette,

Since you are being a hard ass and not covering the ITA National Indoors, why even mention it in your posts? Maybe you should just stick to junior tennis from now on. Just sayin'

fan said...

Hey eeyore, have you ever donated to this site? If not, please STFU. She has payed personally for all those flights, as far as I know. Just be thankful that you enjoyed all those coverages.
And blame the stupid ITA for ruining Div. I. Classic example of barking at the wrong tree, lol!

Brian said...

Eeyore,

If you don't like her blog... Uh. Don't read it.

Talk about misdirected anger said...

I am truly amazed at the animosity that is being aimed at the owner of a FREE BLOG.

Does Colette take any money out of your pockets? Dp your USTA dues go to her? Does she collect $250 million from the US Open every year?

Why not instead write a letter or email to the USTA/ITA committee and ask why they are involved in changing the scoring of college tennis and how this will help players turn pro.

I think that would make more sense as last I checked the USTA Board members are making millions in salary from a not for profit and Colette pays for everything herself.

Abandonment issues said...

I think it is frustration with the entire system including Colette bailing on college tennis. This has always been the only place where you could go and from a big picture perspective, keep up with your college player or the other players you have watched since juniors. It is great to know other tennis fans have a place to read about your player. It would be the same with juniors, if Colette stopped covering junior tennis because of USTA antics, people would be frustrated and angry. Yes, she does a lot for the sport for free, and I suppose the problem is, we all came to rely on it too much. I had my family across the country linked to zootennis to keep up during the college season, it made them all fans, but no longer. We all know the school tennis site is slanted to that school as it should be. This was where they could keep up with everything, just like following football. So maybe we aren't blaming Colette, but it does suck that she abandoned the players most of all. Now it's just junior names that come and go every 2-3 years, and frankly following that has zero interest to me. Too each their own I suppose. I only check in now to see the comments.

fan said...

'Abandoned' the players? But they didn't do anything. No petition this time. So they were ok with no ad and killing doubles. I think they deserved what they got. If you're not going to fight for it, who will?

Pretty disappointed with the upperclassmen. They should've led by example, yet they didn't. Maybe they were just content to enjoy free tuition lol. Very disillusioned about this whole situation. Coaches, players, didn't do a thing!!!! Maybe they're all waiting for TV to save Div. I tennis!!