Brad Baughman

[Number1Coach]

Originally Posted by Freak4tennis

I am so happy that the collision is now entering the multiple vehicle arena. It makes slowing down and watching so much more fun.

At least your right , when most so-called educated people would ask about us homeschooling there first question was "what about his social life " can you believe that educated people worried wether he had friends when it came to us schooling ? good one , you know what schools for !

[Freak4tennis]

Originally Posted by Number1Coach

At least your right , when most so-called educated people would ask about us homeschooling there first question was "what about his social life " can you believe that educated people worried wether he had friends when it came to us schooling ? good one , you know what schools for !

Schools are for what you want to get out of it. Brad, Dennis Nuguyen (however you spell it) is not going to Harvard to come out and play pro tennis, nor is he going there for girls, or parties. He's going there for one reason and you know what that reason is. Dennis Novikov, come on man...what he's going to open the Novikov law firm...seriously. He's getting out of it what he wants man...get the picture

Don't argue with people over the benefits of school or no school. Who cares, everyone gets what they want out of it. Period.

Now can you people please keep arguing over the benefits of taking some college dude to three sets that's way more fun.

[Number1Coach]

Originally Posted by mikej

publicly trashing steve johnson is a great way to get a scholarship offer from peter smith! (not that DB would ever get one anyway, i remind you)

keep it up, one day you're going to be wishing your son had even a sniff of the type of career that SJ is developing right now (couple US open wins this year)

For the record what you "do in public" is there for people to comment on ,I call it for what it is , You complain on the court excessively, throw your rattle"I mean racket" argue with your opponent over and over, throw your racket out of a stadium like good ole Donny Young In other words disgrace the sport , I will point at it , if you don't want me to point don't act this way !

where you at school ? have them enroll you in a comprehension class , "Want to go proooooo not loooking forrrrrrr scholorshippppp" OOOOOOOkaaayyyyyy, wont be asking for one from PS

[Number1Coach]

Originally Posted by Freak4tennis

Schools are for what you want to get out of it. Brad, Dennis N. is not going to Harvard to come out and play pro tennis, nor is he going there for girls, or parties. He's going there for one reason and you know what that reason is.

Don't argue with people over the benefits of school or no school. Who cares, everyone gets what they want out of it. Period.

Dennis N . is a solid kid who I like and who has always been a solid kid on and off court , has had his goals I have talked with him about and as the uneducated person I have encouraged him to go after his goals and let nothing get in the way of it , wished him the best but then again thats coming from a uneducated position.

Dennis is a class act was raised right.

[mikej]

Originally Posted by Number1Coach

where you at school ? have them enroll you in a comprehension class , "Want to go proooooo not loooking forrrrrrr scholorshippppp" OOOOOOOkaaayyyyyy, wont be asking for one from PS

haha, well recently you've made comments such as "i'll let you know if plans change" and mentioned scholarship offers a lot, so who knows what your definitive position is on whether there's any possibility of college tennis in DB's future

but yeah it's OOOOOkaaaayyyy with me if you want to close some of the doors that his hard work is opening, and especially humorous if you're doing so without even consulting with him (you know, the guy that is actually accomplishing these things while you're trying to figure out how space shuttles work)

[ClarkC]

The win over Hess-Olesen of Texas is very impressive. I have no idea that it says anything about a pro career, because DB is just 16 and probably needs to be about 20 before I would try to judge that possibility, but today's win was very impressive (and unexpected to me).

Let's be honest, folks: We were all waiting for DB to play someone lower in the ITA rankings than Hess-Olesen (like maybe an unranked Harvard player) in order to get a win this weekend. Two losses to good players and one win over a Harvard guy would be pretty encouraging for DB. He has already exceeded expectations.

[Number1Coach]

Originally Posted by ClarkC

The win over Hess-Olesen of Texas is very impressive. I have no idea that it says anything about a pro career, because DB is just 16 and probably needs to be about 20 before I would try to judge that possibility, but today's win was very impressive (and unexpected to me).

Let's be honest, folks: We were all waiting for DB to play someone lower in the ITA rankings than Hess-Olesen (like maybe an unranked Harvard player) in order to get a win this weekend. Two losses to good players and one win over a Harvard guy would be pretty encouraging for DB. He has already exceeded expectations.

Well you are in the minority here , these college guys are playing amongst their peers so they are not playing their best against these jrs. so how is any win here over a college guy impressive ?

Remember you have to have confidence ,believe you can do it, so knowing a Jr. like DB knows he has nothing to lose,no pressure, he already is coming in with a negative mind set so there is no way he can win !

What I want to know is if this is how all the guys on here meassure things how do you drum up some real competition?

[Number1Coach]

Originally Posted by mikej

haha, well recently you've made comments such as "i'll let you know if plans change" and mentioned scholarship offers a lot, so who knows what your definitive position is on whether there's any possibility of college tennis in DB's future

but yeah it's OOOOOkaaaayyyy with me if you want to close some of the doors that his hard work is opening, and especially humorous if you're doing so without even consulting with him (you know, the guy that is actually accomplishing these things while you're trying to figure out how space shuttles work)

some dummy in the White house closed the program nothing to figure out !

[mikej]

Originally Posted by Number1Coach

Well you are in the minority here , these college guys are playing amongst their peers so they are not playing their best against these jrs. so how is any win here over a college guy impressive ?

Remember you have to have confidence ,believe you can do it, so knowing a Jr. like DB knows he has nothing to lose,no pressure, he already is coming in with a negative mind set so there is no way he can win !

What I want to know is if this is how all the guys on here meassure things how do you drum up some real competition?

first of all, i do think the win today is impressive, i'm on record a couple times predicting he'd win at least one this weekend (but yeah, thought it would be more like harvard and less like texas)

but, the easiest way to silence the "real competition" doubters comes in a few years in the futures circuit - i think it's reasonable to doubt the effort of college players in a fall tournament they may not care too much about - it's not reasonable to doubt the effort of someone fighting to make it on the pro tour and earn a check that pays for their next week of travel / coaching / food

so, all that talk of effort (some reasonable - like whether peliwo really cared about losing a couple games, or whether hess olesen cares whether he makes it out of the round robin and thus misses some more schoolwork...and some unreasonable as well) will be gone in a couple years once he's playing tour events

[jgmellor]

Originally Posted by Number1Coach

some dummy in the White house closed the program nothing to figure out !

President Bush Announces New Vision for Space Exploration Program

"The Shuttle's chief purpose over the next several years will be to help finish assembly of the International Space Station. In 2010, the Space Shuttle -- after nearly 30 years of duty -- will be retired from service." -GWB

[Freak4tennis]

Originally Posted by mikej

but, the easiest way to silence the "real competition" doubters comes in a few years in the futures circuit - i think it's reasonable to doubt the effort of college players in a fall tournament they may not care too much about - it's not reasonable to doubt the effort of someone fighting to make it on the pro tour and earn a check that pays for their next week of travel / coaching / food

Now the ambulance is finally arriving ... When the likes of Steve Johnson has to go to Izmir Turkey to play a frig... challenger. That's when the men are men and the sheep are nervous. A few years it will be too late. I won't bore you why. But it will be.

Hey why not just bypass Futures, and Challengers, lets just hit the 1000 series. Straight to it. Sirens, are going off...

[TCF]

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[TCF]

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[mikej]

Originally Posted by TCF

Sounds like he has talked to some former top juniors who went for it like I have talked to. It is almost impossible to explain how brutal that route is compared to a prodigy who bursts right up the rankings due to scary talent.

a couple - though i would sum up their futures / challengers efforts more as an experiment in "it'll be cool to see how good i can get in 2ish years totally focused on tennis, and i'll get to see some cool places around the world, and maybe even play against the future federer on some random court somewhere that i can tell my kids about" rather than a very serious effort to make a career out of pro tennis like DB's plan

who knows - maybe it's like the latest batman movie where you can only summon the energy to jump across that chasm when you're all-in without a rope and don't have a back-up plan you're comfortable with - but i'd rather be the guys i know that had solid college degrees to fall back on when they didn't make the jump - the other ending is a little bit messy

[Soianka]

Originally Posted by ClarkC

Two losses to good players and one win over a Harvard guy would be pretty encouraging for DB. He has already exceeded expectations.

Seems to keep happening.

[jmnk]

a question not completely related to Brad.
So USTA juniors are 7:9 against those college guys. I would think that the college guys would win a great majority of those matches since they are older and have more match experience. 7:9 seems pretty close to me. Is it that those juniors are so good? Or that college guys are not that great?

[tball2day]

..............................

[mikej]

Originally Posted by jmnk

a question not completely related to Brad.
So USTA juniors are 7:9 against those college guys. I would think that the college guys would win a great majority of those matches since they are older and have more match experience. 7:9 seems pretty close to me. Is it that those juniors are so good? Or that college guys are not that great?

pretty typical for the juniors to do well in this event - usually even better than this year it seems - quoting from the document posted top of page 18:

"Last year the USTA juniors won five of eight matches on Day 1 and two years ago, led by Jack Sock, the squad went 6-2. Also last year, the USTA had two players (Connor Farren and Alexios Halebian) win their respective round-robin pools and advance to the quarterfinals with both winning one round in the Shootout before falling in the semifinals by 10-7 scores.

Two years ago, Halebian also won his pool, as did Mitchell Frank but both were beaten in the first or quarterfinal Shootout round."

you're putting highly ranked juniors against guys that aren't highly ranked college tennis players:
- best texas player (who DB just beat) finished last year #80 ITA singles rankings
- best cal player (ben mclachlan) finished last year #35 ITA singles rankings
- no georgia player in this event was ranked end of last year in singles
- no illinois player in this event was ranked end of last year in singles
- no stanford player in this event was ranked end of last year in singles
- no harvard player in this event was ranked end of last year in singles

so, even without speculating on how much these guys care about their results in this exhibition-type event that really just seems to eat up more of their time if they get out of the round-robin (yes, one guy does get a wild card for winning it, but as you can see above with their college success, none of them are going to do much with that wild card) - even trying their hardest during the college season last year these guys aren't exactly world-beaters

someone feel free to check my quick (and possible sloppy, but i doubt it) Ctrl-F work on the final 125 ranked singles players from last year:
http://www.itatennis.com/AwardsAndRa...s_-_June_6.htm

[mikej]

and after reading what i wrote, just want to restate - i am impressed w/ DB's win regardless - didn't think he was going to take out a guy who's been playing at the top of UT's lineup

but that's not because i think hess-olesen is a college player who's going to do anything on tour with his tennis - he won't - it's just because i doubted that DB was even at the level of college players low on the ITA singles rankings - perhaps i'm wrong on that, but not putting it all on one match

[mikej]

Originally Posted by Soianka

Seems to keep happening.

hesitant to respond to this, since this poster really only argues in soundbites rather than anything substantive..but sure i'll humor this particular soundbite with one response:

not exceeding my expectations, that's for sure - he's won 1 of his last 7 matches by my count (last two matches at the zoo, then us open, then futures quali, then three college player matches)

*did worse than i expected at zoo - i didn't see him doing so poorly against an unseeded player in consos, winning a total of one game

*same as i expected at us open - peliwo crushed him

*same as i expected in futures quali - a solid college player, giron, took care of him

*slightly better than i expected in this college player stretch - i said in past posts he'd win 1 or 2 depending on his grouping, but didn't think he'd take a guy like hess-olesen if i'm being honest, so there's one 'exceeding expectations' point to DB

who has posted expectations that he continues to exceed? we still talking about TCFs D2 banter from years ago? or did someone say he had no chance of winning matches this weekend?

the main expectations i see on this board are that he won't have a successful money-making ATP career - feel free to rub it in years from now if those expectations prove wrong, but it's not going to happen