My Interview with ITA Rookie of the Year Brayden Schnur; Division III Final Rankings, All-Americans Revealed; Stewart, Langmo Win Florida Championships

At last month's NCAA tournament, I interviewed several coaches and student-athletes for an article I'm writing on college tennis for the US Open program.  I spoke to North Carolina freshman Brayden Schnur, who I thought would provide some perspective from outside the US college sports culture, and I was particularly interested in his decision to enter college even after he had success on the Futures circuit last summer.  I was impressed with his long term view, and I was also surprised by the support for college tennis at Tennis Canada, where Schnur trained prior to attending North Carolina.  The question and answer session with one of the new stars of college tennis is available now at the Tennis Recruiting Network.

The Division III final rankings and All-America teams have been announced, with no surprises.  The Emory women and Amherst men, both of whom won the team championships last month,  ended the year at the top spot.  Both singles champions also finished atop the rankings, with Emory's Gabby Clark and Amherst's Joey Fritz closing out their careers with two NCAA titles.  The list of the Division III All-Americans is here.  For the release with the links to the rankings, see the ITA website.

The Bobby Curtis Florida State Championships ended today, with Katerina Stewart and Christian Langmo winning the 18s divisions.  It was Stewart's fourth title, putting her in elite company, with Luanne Spadea the most recent girl to accomplish that, back in 1987. Chris Evert, who won five, and Evert's sister Jeanne, who won four, are also in that select group.  Stewart, the No. 9 seed, defeated No. 6 seed Gaby Pollner 6-2, 6-2 in the final.

No. 8 seed Langmo, who will starting at the University of Miami in the fall, won his first state title, beating top seed Dan Stefan in a 7-5, 2-6, 7-6(7) thriller.

For more coverage of the tournament, including photos of all the champions in the 12s, 14s, 16s and 18s divisions (and some of Bobby Curtis himself), see this article from the USTA Florida website.

Complete draws for the 16s and 18s are at this TennisLink site.  Draws for the 12s and 14s are here.