Nilsson Leaves Mississippi State Men for Pepperdine Women; More on USTA's Lake Nona Site; Townsend Given Wimbledon Wild Card

Per Nilsson, who has been men's head coach at Mississippi State for seven years, has been named women's head coach at Pepperdine. Nilsson, who was the men's assistant at Pepperdine from 2003-2007, will take over from Gualberto Escudero. Escudero led the Waves for 37 years, and he will remain at Pepperdine as associate head coach. Nilsson's departure from Mississippi State is covered in its release, and his arrival in Malibu is covered in the Pepperdine release.

In other college news, Idaho has hired Mariana Cobra as women's head coach. She replaces Myriam Sopel, who left in January for University of Texas-El Paso.  Cobra was previously at Northern Iowa.  LSU has hired Georgia men's volunteer assistant Tristan Venables as assistant to Julia Sell in the women's program.  Steve Smith, a long time private coach in Tampa (and father of Connor Smith) has moved to Raleigh and will be serve as the volunteer assistant for the men's program at North Carolina State.

The USTA Florida publishes a blog called Game Changer and a recent post goes into great detail about the new USTA facility to be built in Lake Nona, outside Orlando.  It mentions bidding for the NCAA tournament (which has been already been awarded for Division I through 2018) and a multitude of other items of interest in Player Development.  When the announcement was made last month, I didn't understand how the sections were going to benefit from this as far as junior development goes, but here's how it's explained:

The 17 USTA Sections throughout the country will be able to take advantage of the Team USA Area. The eight hard courts and eight clay courts can be used by USTA Section coaches and players to work on their own, or collaboratively with USTA Player Development. In the winter, USTA Section coaches and players in northern climates who would find local indoor court costs prohibitive could fly down to Orlando for a week or two to use the facilities at no cost.

There's much, much more, so if you are interested in the project, you can read the blog post here.

All of the wild cards to Wimbledon have not yet been awarded, (here's the earlier wild card announcement by the club) but word is leaking out today of some others. Taylor Townsend tweeted the following earlier: 

Reports today have additional wild cards going to Vera Zvonareva of Russia, Silvia Soler-Espinosa of Spain and Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic.

US Open National Playoffs Update; UCLA's Anderson Wins Honda Award for Tennis

The sectional playoffs for the US Open qualifying wild card in men's and women's singles and a main draw wild card in mixed doubles began last month, but with the NCAAs and the French Open, I haven't had time to post about them until now.

Three of the 13 sectional competitions have been completed: Southwest, which ended May 20, Mid-Atlantic, which ended June 3, and Southern California, which wrapped up today.

Former Arizona State All-American Jacqueline Cako won the women's tournament and the mixed doubles tournament in the Southwest sectional qualifying. Cako defeated 16-year-old Savannah Slaysman in the final via a walkover, with Slaysman unable to compete due to illness.   Former University of Minnesota player Chris Wettengel won the men's singles tournament, beating Joel Kielbowicz(UNLV)  6-1, 6-0 in the final.  Cake and Kielbowicz won the mixed doubles with a  6-0, 7-6(3) victory over Carol Finke and Brett Morse-Karzen.

In the Mid-Atlantic tournament, Skylar Morton, who played at UCLA from 2011-2013, won her second women's title, beating Nika Kukharchuk 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 in the final.  Former Dartmouth player Alexander Centenari won the men's tournament, beating South Carolina freshman Harrison O'Keefe 5-7, 7-6, 6-1 in the final.  In the mixed doubles competition, Jessica Keener and Matt Stillwagon advanced to the national playoffs with a  6-4, 6-2 win over Sydney Rider and Shane Monroe.

For reasons that continue to elude me, the Southern California section always features small draws and this year, the fifth of the competition, was no exception.  Duke freshman Dan McCall won the men's title in a 21-player draw, beating former St. John's player Dustin Goldenberg 6-1, 6-4 in the final.  Fifteen-year-old Kelly Chen won the women's draw in a 18-player draw, beating USC junior Zoe Scandalis 6-4 6-3 in the final.  USC Associate women's coach West Nott and senior Kaitlyn Christian won the mixed doubles title in a draw with seven teams.  Nott and Christian defeated Pam Montez and Andrew Scorteanu 6-1, 6-1 in the final. 

The men's and women's singles winners will compete in the National Playoffs in New Haven, Connecticut August 15-18.  The mixed doubles nationals are August 19-22, also at Yale.

The Eastern section's tournament is winding down, and New England's tournament has just begun.  Only one tournament is still open to entries--the Southern section's deadline is tomorrow.  For links to all the TennisLink sites, see this page.  For more on the completed events, see this page.

The Honda Award, given annually to women in 12 collegiate sports, went this year to UCLA's Robin Anderson, the Most Outstanding Player of this year's NCAA team championships.  Anderson was selected as the tennis winner over finalists Danielle Collins of Virginia, Jamie Loeb of North Carolina and Lynn Chi of Cal.  For more on Anderson's award, see the UCLA website.

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.

Walker Leaves Memphis for TCU, New Mexico's Dils Retires; BB&T in Atlanta Awards Qualifying Wild Cards to Rakitt, O'Shaughnessey and Tiafoe; College Tennis Combine Debuts Next Month in Cerritos, Calif.

One Division I coaching job was filled today and another one opened, with Lee Taylor Walker leaving the University of Memphis for the TCU women's head coaching job and Alan Dils retiring as men's tennis coach after 18 seasons at New Mexico.

Walker replaces David Borelli at TCU, although I was unable to find any official announcement of Borelli's departure and there is no mention of him in the release announcing Walker's hire. Here is the April article from the school's newspaper that revealed Borelli's retirement.

Dils will be replaced by associate head coach Bart Scott, who has been announced as the interim head coach for the 2014-15 season.

In other Division I college news, the new tennis facility at the University of Nebraska is now expected to be completed for the 2015 outdoor season, according to this release. I assume that's April of next year, if the outdoor season there is similar to what it is in the rest of the Big Ten conference.

The ATP tournament in Atlanta next month, the BB&T Open, has announced three qualifying wild cards.  Georgia Tech's Nathan Rakitt and Alabama's Becker O'Shaughnessey have received qualifying wild cards, as has Francis Tiafoe.  Both Rakitt(Marietta) and O'Shaughnessey(Macon) grew up in Georgia. For more on the field, see this article from the tournament.

A new event is taking place in Cerritos, California next month called the College Tennis Combine.  Scheduled for July 5 and 6 at the Cerritos Tennis Center, the event has invited college tennis coaches to evaluate potential recruits based on fitness and skill tests.  The fee to participate is $350.  For more on the event, see this release.

Logan Smith, Monica Robinson Win USTA National Open Hard Court Titles; Peter Smith and Sons; Pro Circuit Update; Bradley Drops Men's Tennis

Logan Smith (courtesy photo)

Seventeen-year-old Logan Smith and 19-year-old Monica Robinson won gold balls over the weekend in San Diego, taking the singles titles at the USTA National Open Hard Court Championships. Smith, who was in Europe playing ITF Junior events though the Grade A in Italy, returned home to Southern California for a few weeks, but he is heading back across the Atlantic to compete at the Roehampton Grade 1 and Wimbledon Junior championships.

Smith, who was unseeded in the tournament (his ITF junior ranking is 54) defeated No. 2 seed Deiton Baughman 6-4, 6-3 in the final. Baughman, 18, was the fourth seeded player Smith defeated in his seven wins.

Monica Robinson (courtesy photo)

Robinson, who just completed her freshman year at Notre Dame, was a No. 5 seed in the smaller women's draw.  She defeated unseeded 17-year-old Alexandra Valenstein, also from Southern California, 6-3, 6-0 in the final.

Both draws lost their No. 1 seeds, Brian Battistone and Trang Huynh, to last-minute withdrawals.

For complete results from the tournament, see the TennisLink site.

The Orange County Register recently published this article on the University of Southern California men's head coach Peter Smith(no relation to Logan) and his three tennis-playing sons. Learning the game from one of the best coaches in the country is certainly a great advantage for them, but there are always challenges when a parent coaches his or her child, challenges that are amplified when he or she has had so much success coaching others.  Right now Garrett Patton plays for his father Greg at Boise State and Eric Diaz for his father Manny at Georgia and I'm sure there are others, with Tanner Smith to join that fraternity next year.

In the only Pro Circuit event in the United States last week, unseeded Elise Mertens of Belgium won the $25,000 tournament in El Paso, beating No. 5 seed Ashley Weinhold 6-1, 3-6, 6-4.  Weinhold had barely gotten by Baylor junior Ema Burgic of Bosnia 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(6) in one semifinal, while the 18-year-old Mertens beat top seed Connie Hsu of Taiwan 6-2, 6-0 in the other semifinal.  Weinhold did get a title however, as she and Jamie Loeb(North Carolina) took the doubles championship. The unseeded team beat top seeds Hsu and Danielle Lao(USC) 4-6, 6-4, 15-13 in the final.

Bradley University announced on Friday that it was discontinuing its men's tennis program in favor of reestablishing men's indoor track. Bradley was the alma mater of former Kalamazoo Nationals referee and USTA president and chairman David Markin, for whom the tennis courts and a recreation building on the Peoria, Illinois campus are named. Markin died last year.