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Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Boys Team USA Set; Carle Heads Spring Signing Announcements; UCLA Men, Pepperdine Women Continue as No. 1 in USTA Division I Poll


The USTA's playoffs to decide the members of this summer's Team USA was completed today in Lake Nona, with the following boys earning spots on the team:

Jack Anthrop (14, Orlando, Fla.; Coach: John Roddick)

Alexander Bernard (14, Bonita Springs, Fla.; Coach: Rene Gomez)

Hunter Heck (15, New Brighton, Minn.; Coach: Viet Pham)

Toby Kodat (15, Bradenton, Fla.; Coach: Ales Kodat)

Alex Lee (16, Oak Brook, Ill.; Coach: Tom Lockhart)

Marcus McDaniel (15, Vacaville, Calif.; Coach: Phil Cello)

J.C. Roddick (15, Helotes, Texas; Coach: Mark Hilderbrand)

Niroop Vallabhaneni (15, Paradise Valley, Ariz.; Coach: Jeremy Coll)

USTA Player Development provides those on the team with training opportunities, coaching and travel assistance to select USTA National and ITF junior tournaments throughout the summer.

Complete round robin results can be found here.  Those who finished in the top two in their group then played a tournament, with those results here.

More Division I spring signing announcements have been posted in the past week, with a big one today from Georgia, who has signed former ITF Top 10 junior Maria Carle of Argentina.  Carle, currently ranked No. 14, reached the semifinals of the US Open Junior championships last year and was the Eddie Herr champion in 2016.

Other women's signings:




Florida State has signed Emmanuelle Salas of France. 


Men's signings:
Arizona has signed Conner Olsen.



Louisville has signed Fabien Salle of Switzerland

Florida has signed Grey and Harry Cacciatore.


The USTA Division I weekly poll continues to have the UCLA men and Pepperdine women at No. 1.  Pepperdine is way down at No. 10 in the ITA rankings, which are done by computer, and their relatively weak conference costs them in that algorithm. Stanford is also ranked much higher by the humans, coming in at No. 7 this week, with their ITA ranking at 20. The complete Top 25 poll is available at usta.com.

USTA Poll Division I Top 10, April 18, 2019 (previous April 11 rankings in parentheses):

Men:
1. UCLA (1)
2. Wake Forest (2)
3. Ohio State (3)
4. Stanford (4)
5. Texas A&M (5)
6. North Carolina (6)
7. TCU (7)
8. USC (9)
9. Illinois (8)
10. Florida State (11)

Women:
1. Pepperdine (1)
2. North Carolina (2)
3. Vanderbilt (3)
4. Duke (4)
5. Texas (5)
6. Georgia Tech (6)
7. Stanford (10)
8. Georgia (11)
9. South Carolina (7)
10. Florida (T8)

3 comments:

Guest said...

Colette, I disagree. Stanford’s relatively weak conference is NOT what keeps their computer ranking low. Their decision to skip the Indoors has a much bigger impact. By choice, they miss 3 high profile matches against top ranked opponents. Plus, it means their ranking basically hinges on their matchup with Florida. Lose that match and the resume doesn’t at all reflect their talent level. It’s a shame they couldn’t make up the Pepperdine match that was rained out. While the conference does not help Stanford, they had the chance to play some strong out of conference teams, but unlike the Stanford men, they declined.

Colette Lewis said...

I was referring to Pepperdine's conference, not Stanford's

Fairness said...

Regarding the USA Boys Team, when closely examined, the round robin groupings were fundamentally flawed, leading to an inequitable result.
While not singling him out, JC Roddick was selected to the team USA after winning only 1 match, yet other players who happened to be in complete and arguably much tougher groups also won 1 match but were not selected.

At that point, total number of sets won should have been the deciding factor. Of those who won 1 match per the round robin groupings, Spencer Brachman won 2 sets and lost 4 sets, Aidan Mayo won 3 sets and lost 5 sets, JJ Tracy also won 3 sets and lost 5 sets, and JC Roddick by comparison won 2 sets and lost 3 sets. A playoff between Aidan Mayo and JJ Tracy would probably have made the most sense.