jcgatennismom
Hall of Fame
Stanford freshman Rotsaert took out Gage Brymer (UCLA grad) while Notre Dame freshmen Axel Nefve beat Alex Brown of Illinois. ( Soph Alex Brown has the highest UTR of any player on the Illinois team and lost in 3 sets to Nuno Borges in the semifinals of the All American tourney in the fall. ) Axel's teammate Lebedev also won his 1st rd match. Can Notre Dame be top 16 this spring or higher? (Possible as Ciamarra is a threat too-he didnt play any Futures in '18 but had a 1st rd Challenger loss in Winnetka after WC entry ). This is the level of Futures when AA SFist loses in 1st rd of Qualis-tough. Keegan Smith of UCLA (UTR 13.96) also lost in 1st rd of Qualis.
Ironic fact Sam Riffice is UTR 14.06-gets a WC to play MD of Orlando $80K Challenger. Alex Brown is UTR 14.05-has to play Qualis of $25K and loses in 1st rd. It's the wild west of wild cards but fortunately for Brown, Champaign hosts a $25K Future and a Challenger in 2019 so he will get his WCs in due course.
The sky has not fallen yet due to the Transition Tour. A player with only 2 Transition tour points earned in Zimbabwe ranked iTF world 2489 actually got in the Quali and won his 1st rd. Maybe a lot of tennis players had big NYE plans and blew off LA. Actually LA seems like a great place for NYE-the guys who lost can stay up past midnight. Will be interesting to see if it is harder for players to get in later Futures Qualis. I had read predictions players would need 15 points to get in a Quali, and this guy got in with 2 points. All it took to get 2 points was reaching the final rd of Quali twice in 2018 in either a $15K or $25K. The guy with points from Zimbabwe beat a seeded guy with points from Egypt and Dominican Republic. This is the other side of Futures where guys who earn points in 3rd world countries get an easy draw and go deeper in the tourney than college All Americans. Seeding is based on ATP/ITF world ranking, not on ITA, UTR, etc
Fun MD matches tomorrow Patrick Kypson will play former Gopher Felix Corwin tomorrow; Felix has moved up in the rankings this summer and will probably play Torp later in Jan to see who will get one of the WCs into the Cleveland Challenger courtesy of the Cracked racquet wild card series. Last month UTR sponsored the Cali championship, but there will be another big Cali battle tomorrow when Cali native Brandon Nakishima who will play for Virginia takes on Maxime Cressy. Recruit Brooksby who recently switched his commitment from TCU to Baylor will play the winner of that match provided he gets through his 1st rd MD. The first rd of MD starts as Qualis finish with lots of college guys in both draws. Too bad no livestream. For livestream check out Orlando Challenger where current collegians Wolf and Riffice (Florida freshman) won matches today.
Ironic fact Sam Riffice is UTR 14.06-gets a WC to play MD of Orlando $80K Challenger. Alex Brown is UTR 14.05-has to play Qualis of $25K and loses in 1st rd. It's the wild west of wild cards but fortunately for Brown, Champaign hosts a $25K Future and a Challenger in 2019 so he will get his WCs in due course.
The sky has not fallen yet due to the Transition Tour. A player with only 2 Transition tour points earned in Zimbabwe ranked iTF world 2489 actually got in the Quali and won his 1st rd. Maybe a lot of tennis players had big NYE plans and blew off LA. Actually LA seems like a great place for NYE-the guys who lost can stay up past midnight. Will be interesting to see if it is harder for players to get in later Futures Qualis. I had read predictions players would need 15 points to get in a Quali, and this guy got in with 2 points. All it took to get 2 points was reaching the final rd of Quali twice in 2018 in either a $15K or $25K. The guy with points from Zimbabwe beat a seeded guy with points from Egypt and Dominican Republic. This is the other side of Futures where guys who earn points in 3rd world countries get an easy draw and go deeper in the tourney than college All Americans. Seeding is based on ATP/ITF world ranking, not on ITA, UTR, etc
Fun MD matches tomorrow Patrick Kypson will play former Gopher Felix Corwin tomorrow; Felix has moved up in the rankings this summer and will probably play Torp later in Jan to see who will get one of the WCs into the Cleveland Challenger courtesy of the Cracked racquet wild card series. Last month UTR sponsored the Cali championship, but there will be another big Cali battle tomorrow when Cali native Brandon Nakishima who will play for Virginia takes on Maxime Cressy. Recruit Brooksby who recently switched his commitment from TCU to Baylor will play the winner of that match provided he gets through his 1st rd MD. The first rd of MD starts as Qualis finish with lots of college guys in both draws. Too bad no livestream. For livestream check out Orlando Challenger where current collegians Wolf and Riffice (Florida freshman) won matches today.
