Noted from an article in July 15,2024 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED by Jon Wertheim

23. A secret hiding in plain sight: college tennis. It’s not just the experience it provides. ( Navratilova’s theory: College players play doubles so they work on their lobs and overheads.) It’s not just the legion of players now populating the draws-though, on Wimbleon’s middle weekend, three alumni from one school (University of Virginia) were in action. It’s also college tennis’s far-reaching effects. Agents come out of college tennis. So do tour employees, significant others and coaches. A few weeks ago, someone wrote into the mailbag asking who was coaching Bianca Andreescu. It’s J.T. Nishimura, who played at the University of California, Berkeley. Speaking of … 24. Peter Ayers played at Duke University in the 1990s. He became a tennis coach in the Carolinas and, nearly a decade ago, began working with Navarro. As she ascended in the juniors, then in college and then in the pros, he remained the chief aide-de-camp. It says a lot about Navarro that she would stick with him. A lot of players similarly situated would have left their coach once they hit the big time.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/article290059719.html#storylink=cpy

*********************************************

Second Guessing

Here is a clip from an earlier blog—College Doubles

The most fun in tennis is playing for your school team. The doubles point often dictates the team winner. American college coaches. all things equal, recruit players who are good at both singles and doubles.

I believe college women will find great pro possibilities in doubles because of the unique efforts in developing doubles teams.

One flaw in American Junior development is the emphasis on singles ranking only. Doubles play is considered a detriment to singles rank. What if players were ranked on singles and doubles combined. Or simply a combination ranking?

Actually men’s college doubles vets shone brighter this WIMBLEDON. Henry Patten for the UNC Asheville Bulldogs, a winning partner in doubles. Rob Galloway of the Wofford College Terriers played a spectacular first set in the doubles second round. Doubles COUNT in college tennis and the results shed light on a bigger issue. Having coached against Wofford and UNC Asheville years back I can describe them as small mid majors in the NCAA.

Having watched the debacle of college sports ( portals and likeness, who pays how much? etc. ), combined with the decline of minor league baseball compared to college baseball’s staggering TV success (and women’s softball ), —haven’t these two become ” revenue sports “? The Omaha World Series, at $250 a seat sells out weekly. That Honeycutt kid from Carolina deserves a cut.

TV substituted college baseball for the pros when the Major Leagues went on strike. Colleges now are the minor leagues of baseball. Softball is a big TV draw. Are these new “money sports”? Others are growing on TV.

American Tennis players need scholarships to stay in the aena.