Stanford junior Carol Zhao announced that she is foregoing her senior season to turn pro. Zhao went 76-16 in three years at Stanford and was a three-time all-conference selection. Zhao currently has a WTA ranking of 317 and reached a career high of 247 last summer. Zhao wrote about her time at Stanford and thanked several people in this piece that she wrote.
It was a good day out on the pro tour with several guys with college ties moving forward at events across the world.
Here are a few (well many) highlights:
Steve Johnson (USC ’12) moved into the quarterfinals at the ATP 500 Aegon Championships (Grass) in London after defeating Adrian Mannarino 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. Johnson earned his first top 10 win on Monday when he knocked out #10 Richard Gasquet 7-6(2), 6-2. Next up for Stevie is a match again #13 Marin Cilic with Cilic holding a 1-0 H2H record after winning in straight sets in Tokyo last October.
John Isner (Georgia ’07) moved into the second round in London with a 7-6(2), 6-4 win over former US Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro. Isner banged out 25 aces, won 80% of the points on his first serve, and was not broken all match. John will face Luxembourg’s finest, Gilles Muller, tomorrow with the big man holding a 3-1 H2H edge though Muller won in straights the last time out in Australia in January 2015.
2013 NCAA Champion Blaz Rola (Ohio State ’13) moved into the quarterfinals in Perugia, Italy, at the Blue Panorama Airlines Tennis Cup $42K Challenger (Clay). Rola beat Santiago Giraldo, former top 30 player, in the opening round and then defeated Yannick Maden (Clemson ’13) 7-6(4) in the third in today’s second round. Next up for Blaz is the top seed #82 Rogerio Dutra Silva with Dutra Silva holding a 2-1 H2H edge though Blaz won the last meeting two months ago.
Other Thursday matches:
Sekou Bangoura (Florida ’11) vs. Jared Hiltzik (Illinois ’16)
Dennis Nevolo (Illinois ’12) vs. Emil Reinberg (Georgia Rising Soph)
Jonathan Ho (Wake Forest ’16) vs. Alex Kuznetsov
Dennis Uspensky (Wake Forest Rising Soph) vs. Peter Polansky
Eric Quigley (Kentucky ’12) vs. Reilly Opelka
Aron Hiltzik (Illinois Rising Jr) vs. Darian King.
13 of the final 16 at the Buffalo USA F19 (Clay) Futures have college ties including four that came through qualies. A couple of notable first round scores were Mikael Torpegaard routing #414 Kaichi Uchida 6-0, 6-3 and William Bushamuka beating Dominic Cotrone 7-6, 4-6, 6-3.
Thursday Round of 16 Schedule:
[Q] Evan Zhu (UCLA Commit) vs. Gavin Van Peperzeel
[Q] Justin Roberts (South Florida Rising Jr) vs. Hans Hach (Abilene Christian ’13)
Mikael Torpegaard (Ohio State Rising Jr) vs. Sebastian Korda
Farris Gosea (Illinois ’15) vs. Hunter Callahan (Ohio State ’15)
Nathan Pasha (Georgia ’15) vs. William Bushamuka (Kentucky Rising Jr)
Juan Benitez Chavarriaga (Baylor ’15) vs. Tigre Hank
[Q] Andrew Watson (Memphis Rising Jr) vs. Winston Lin (Columbia ’15)
[Q] Dragos Ignat (Columbia ’16) vs. Evan King (Michigan ’13)
Nick Horton (NC State Rising Jr) has come through qualies and made his first-ever quarterfinal at the Mont-de-marsan, France F10 (Clay). Nick will face #789 Romain Arneodo on Thursday morning for a shot at his first-ever semifinal. Alexis Musialek (Kentucky ’12) is also into the quarterfinals and will face #466 Maxime Hamou.
Rishab Agarwal (Mississippi State Rising Sr) and Mikelis Libietis (Tennessee ’15) are both into the second round at the Hong Kong F2 Futures (Hard). Agarwal will face the top seed #282 Andrew Whittington while Libietis, who is the #4 seed, will face #635 Arata Onozawa.
Yuya Ito (Texas Commit) has made it past the first round for the sixth time in eight tournaments and will face qualifier #1723 Sho Shimabukuro in the second round at the Akishima, Japan, F8 Futures (Carpet).
Aziz Dougaz (Florida State Rising Jr) and Tucker Vorster (Ole Miss ’11) will face each other in the quarterfinals at the Maputo, Mozambique F2 Futures (Hard). John Lamble (Santa Clara ’14) has also booked his spot in the quarterfinals and whoever wins the match between Mitchell Frank (Virginia ’15) and Michael Grant (USC ’14) will be in the quarterfinals as well.
Connor Smith (Ohio State ’13) is into a Futures quarterfinal for the second tournament in a row and will face #346 Yann Marti at the Alkmaar, Netherlands F1 (Clay).
Peter Nagy (Texas A&M Corpus Christi ’15) is into the quarterfinals at the Warsaw, Poland, F4 Futures (Clay) and will next face #984 Patrik Niklas-Salminen.
Roberto Cid (South Florida ’16) and Peter Bertran (South Florida Rising Jr) are into the quarterfinals at the Cartagena, Columbia, F1 Futures (Hard). Cid will next face the top seed #379 Facundo Mena while Bertran’s opponent will be determined later. Boris Arias (LSU ’16), Alejandro Gomez (’14), and Luis Valero (Tennessee Rising Jr) still have second round matches to play.
Actually the year Cornell won ivies and ecacs in the same year they finished ranked 43, good enough for an at large bid, that was they year before he got there…..you should try this thing called Google it's very useful
Yes maymi seems like a nice guy no problem there, however as an alum his results are far from impressive. I think if we go the assistant route we can hire someone who has been a part of a more successful program.
Cornell has won the ECAC (Ivy Tournament)twice and have been ranked in the top 50 each year since he has been there. The year before he got there when Cornell won the Ivies Cornell was barely ranked. Ivy men were terrible that year. Go look at the rankings.
agreed mymi would do a good job and is a class act. michigan AD will be nervous to hire big time coach again in fear of deja vu with steinberg. michigan will always be top 30 but dont see them cracking top 10 anytime soon. Still curious who is on list of interviewed coaches has anyone heard anything?
Sean is an absolute class-act and would do a great job.
Why would maymi ever be considered for the head job? His tenure as an assistant has been very poor. As an alum Michigan needs to hire someone who compete with Ohio state. We have the ability to pay. I would much rather see a mid major head coach or a big time assistant like Taylor or kwinta.
What has Cornell done since Bresky left?
Silviu has done a very good job at Cornell. He is a very good recruiter and is a class individual
Michigan is one of those emasculated programs. In which the women's team is always better. It makes it hard for the men's team to feel like men and do well. Michigan, Cal, Miami, Stanford, Florida, Vanderbilt, Clemson are such programs
Cornell has not been great lately-that coach has not done anything there. Swan to Michigan! Bruce as assistant!
So why would ou ever hire the Cornell coach? Just because he played there? He took over a team that just won ivies and had a great recruiting class and has done nothing from a success standpoint. You would think they could do better.
I was thinking Bo Hodge might return to Norman as the head guy at OU. He would have been my first call if I was the OU AD. He would have kept things pretty stable. <br /><br />As a former Oklahoma guy, I can tell you that we have had little success when we hired within the family. We have always been better when we hired outside blood. That goes for all sports.
Swan would be an excellent candidate – I don't remember if he was in the running two years ago when they hired Steinberg. Would be a little strange if he made the jump in-conference and had to play his old team at least once a year but it is his alma mater. <br /><br />OU and UM are pretty similar – before John Roddick came to Norman I would have said Michigan was the better job but Michigan has never come anywhere close to what OU has done over the last several years. Michigan has only made the Sweet 16 once since the tournament was expanded in 1999 and that was a quick exit against UVA in 2008.<br /><br />In my opinion it's harder to win at OU because of how tough the conference is whereas the Big Ten has largely been Ohio State and Illinois then everyone else for a while. The expectations will be much higher at OU because of what John accomplished so the next coach needs to be a great recruiter.<br /><br />I don't think there will be much crossover for candidates for these two jobs – OU has been open for weeks and they've already interviewed their candidates. In my opinion OU's next coach is a former OU player and OU assistant that is a current head coach in the Northeast. <br /><br />If an assistant gets the job at Michigan I don't see anyway that'd it be anyone other than Maymi.<br /><br />
any top 20 assistants have a chance at michigan?
what is better head coach job oklahoma or michigan? they could battle for coach
I am a huge college tennis fan (played D3) but have noticed how Northwestern has improved to a top 16 team. You would think coach Swan would be a top candidate as he played at U of M and has done great things at Northwestern.
I would think Sean Maymi has to be considered one of the frontrunners due to his experience both at Michigan and the JTCC. Maymi was one of the highest paid assistants last year ($90K) so the school must think pretty highly of him to pay that well. <br /><br />I agree that I don't see the head coach of a top 10 team leaving for Michigan though if the price is right I could see someone from 11 to 30 go that way – Hill (USF), Udwadia (Okla St), Roberts (Miss St) and possibly even coaches that just finished up their first year at their respective schools Keckley (USD)/Masi (TT). <br /><br />If Hill decides to leave USF the price would have to be right because he was one of the higher paid mid-major coaches out there. I doubt he'd leave the sun and sand of Tampa for an Auburn, Michigan, Oklahoma unless the school was going to seriously up his salary.
cant see any coach in the top 10 leaving their job for Michigan
Hill from USF but rumored to go to SEC, Swan from Northwestern who has done well and U of M alum , Mymi gets promoted, doubt they would hire an Ivy league coach…
Manny Diaz, Peter Smith, Andy Roddick
Who do you think will be the top 3 candidates for Michigan?
Evidently Auburn's top choice turned down the job so I guess Auburn is still trying to decide and maybe interviewing more people – not sure when they'll have it sorted out. Miami has interviewed several assistants and at least one current head coach from a school in the northeast – would think they'd have a decision in the next week.
Any update on Auburn and Miami coach jobs? Wasn't there a tweet or note last week on this site that Auburn coach would be announced soon-that new coach was head coach of a non Power school? I can't find it now.