National Indoor Intercollegiate Selections Announced

The field for the 2016 National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City was revealed on Wednesday evening and for the most part everything went according to plan. All of the ITA Regional Championship winners are participating, which hasn’t always been the case in the past, and the USTA Singles Wild Cards went to the highest ranked healthy American that wasn’t already in line for an at-large selection. The reason I said healthy is because Florida’s Brooke Austin was actually the highest ranked American but since she is injured Cal’s Maegan Manasse got the bid.

UCLA’s Ena Shibahara won the Oracle ITA Masters and finished as the All-American Runner-Up which meant one extra spot was available and that spot went to Pepperdine’s Luisa Stefani who finished as the runner-up at the Oracle ITA Masters. 

The National Tournament Committee made the at-large selections based off fall results and ITA Preseason Ranking. 6 of the 10 women’s singles at-large selections went to ITA Regional Runner-Ups while the other 4 were awarded from a pool of players that made it to at least the quarterfinals at the ITA All-Americans or ITA Regional Championships.

Florida’s Belinda Woolcock and Pepperdine’s Mayar Sherif Ahmed were both awarded at-large bids after making the quarterfinals at the All-Americans and their respective ITA Regionals. South Carolina’s Ingrid Gamarra Martins was awarded an at-large after making the semifinals at the ITA Carolina Regional plus she came through the qualifying draw at the ITA All-Americans and won her opening round match and she recently made the finals at an ITF Pro Event in Charleston, South Carolina. Duke’s Meible Chi was awarded an at-large after making the quarterfinals at the ITA Carolina Regional plus she’s had some stout results this fall – Flight Singles Champion at Duke Bonk Invitational, won four matches at the ITA All-Americans (3 qualifying/1 main draw), and won a pair of matches at the Oracle ITA Masters. 

The ITA Wild Card was awarded to Oklahoma State’s Viktoriya Lushkova who came through the qualifying draw at the ITA All-Americans and made it to the quarterfinals of the main draw before falling to North Carolina’s Hayley Carter. 

The USTA’s women’s doubles wild card went to the 2016 US Open Junior Champions UCLA”s Ena Shibahara and Jada Hart. 

The National Tournament Committee made its 6 men’s singles at-large selections from a pool of players that at least made the quarterfinals at an ITA Regional. The first selection went to the player in the pool that had the highest Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) and the remaining five selections were chosen based off the ITA Preseason Rankings. Texas’s Yuya Ito earned the UTR at-large with a 14.53 UTR with the other at-large selections going to North Carolina’s Ronnie Schneider, Arkansas’s Mike Redlicki, Duke’s Nicolas Alvarez, Georgia’s Wayne Montgomery, and Ole Miss’s Gustav Hansson. The guys that just missed out were UCLA’s #20 Martin Redlicki, Vanderbilt’s #21 Danny Valent, and Florida’s #22 Elliott Orkin. 

There were 2 men’s doubles at-large selections awarded with those going to Texas A&M’s Arthur Rinderknech and Max Lunkin and Notre Dame’s Eddy Covalschi and Josh Hagar. I thought the second at-large would go to Princeton’s Alex Day and Luke Gamble since they were ranked ahead of Notre Dame’s pair but for some reason they were not selected (may not have applied for one).

The USTA’s singles wild card went to the highest ranked American which was Virginia’s Thai-Son Kwiatkowski. Kwiatkowski wasn’t eligible for an at-large because he lost in the Round of 16 at the ITA All-Americans and did not enter the ITA Atlantic Regional. The USTA’s doubles wild card went to Valparaiso’s Jeffrey Schorsch and Charlie Emhardt. The Valpo duo finished as the ITA Midwest Regional Runner-Up each of the last two seasons. 

The ITA wild card went to Texas Tech’s Jolan Cailleau who made the finals at the ITA Texas Regional. Cailleau also defeated three ranked opponents this fall – #42 Luis Valero (Tennessee), #66 Constantin Schmitz (Tulane), #81 Walker Duncan (Georgia).

The tournament itself starts a week from Thursday (Nov 3) and finishes on Sunday November 6th. I’d expect the draws to be out sometime next week; last year they came out the day before the tournament began. 

Women’s National Indoor Intercollegiate Qualifiers