US Team for Master' U BNP Paribas Competition; Wayne Bryan Gives His Suggestions on USTA Player Development

The United States will send another strong team to the annual Master'U BNP Paribas international collegiate competition next month in France, aiming for its fourth consecutive title.  Eight teams from around the world play singles, doubles and mixed doubles in a team competition that begins December 4 in Rennes, France.  Last year the US team of Peter Kobelt, Marcos Giron, Mitchell Frank, Robin Anderson, Lauren Herring and Sabrina Santamaria defeated Russia 7-0 in the final.  The coaches for the 2013 US team--Amanda Augustus of Cal and Greg Patton of Boise State--return again this year, but only Anderson will be returning to France this year.

The women's team is Anderson and Chanelle Van Nguyen of UCLA and Julia Elbaba of Virginia.  The men's team is Noah Rubin of Wake Forest, Thai Kwiatkowski of Virginia and Nathan Pasha of Georgia.  For more on last year's win and Patton's blog, see the USTA website.

Speaking of USTA websites, Wayne Bryan has provided his thoughts on where USTA Player Development needs to go from here recently on the USTA Florida website, something of a unexpected outlet for it to surface given its content.  Back in early 2012, Bryan called for the end of USTA Player Development in this letter, I responded here, and he responded to my response here.  Patrick McEnroe responded to Bryan's letter here, and Bryan responded to McEnroe's response here.

Bryan is still advocating for the dismantling of Player Development (I'm not sure when why it's now Professional Development as it's called in the post), is still advocating the private sector for coaching and is still against college scholarships for international players and the 10-and-under tennis mandate.  But although I still find some of his statements to be exaggerated for effect (we currently have 12 women in the Top 100, which is four more than any other country and far from the fewest ever) and I don't agree with him philosophically on the issue of international players in college tennis, I can't say I disagree with most of his points in the If we’re going to move forward with USTA PD we need to: section.

Here's what I wrote on the topic last month.  As we get closer to a new General Manager of Player Development and a new president and CEO of the USTA, I appreciate that Bryan is keeping the topic on the front burner.