Who says you can’t come home again – certainly not Danielle McNamara after she named as the new head coach at Yale. McNamara was the head coach at Yale from 2006 to 2014 before leaving for personal reasons and then ending up at Texas. She spent one year at Texas, going 10-11 and finished ranked #37, but missed out on the NCAAs due to the dreaded .500 rule. Shortly after the season she resigned to go back to Connecticut to start Little Rockets Tennis. Her resignation at Texas was partly and possibly largely due to the lack of a facility and the penny pinching that was going on under now former Athletic Director Steve Patterson. For full details on the hire you can check out Yale’s release.
The other first round winners were Steve Johnson and Benjamin Becker with both picking up straight set wins over top 100 opponents. John Isner’s match against Marcos Baghdatis was pushed back to Wednesday due to rain.
Here are the results from the other former collegians playing in the men’s singles draw:
First Round:
[18] #17 John Isner (Georgia ’07) vs. #40 Marcos Baghdatis – Wednesday 6:30 a.m. ET
#29 Steve Johnson (USC ’12) def. #60 Malek Jaziri 7-5, 7-6(2), 6-4
[Q] #145 Dennis Novikov (UCLA ’13) def. [Q] #221 Luke Saville 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-4
#102 Benjamin Becker (Baylor ’05) def. #96 Facundo Bagnis 6-3, 6-3, 6-1
#65 Denis Istomin def. [20] #24 Kevin Anderson (Illinois ’07) 4-6, 6-7(13), 6-4, 7-6(2), 6-3
[22] #21 Feliciano Lopez def. #74 Rajeev Ram (Illinois ’03) 7-6(5), 6-4, 6-4
Second Round:
#29 Steve Johnson (USC ’12) vs. #34 Jeremy Chardy – Wednesday 8:30 a.m. ET
[Q] #145 Dennis Novikov (UCLA ’13) vs. #31 Joao Sousa – Thursday 5 a.m. ET
#102 Benjamin Becker (Baylor ’05) vs. [10] #9 Tomas Berdych
Baylor women’s coach Joey Scrivano announced today that Chris Frusci is the new assistant coach replacing Alison Ojeda who left to take the same position at her alma mater, Tennessee. Frusci was the men’s and women’s coach at St. Leo (D2) the last two years and led the men’s team to the National Championship match.
New Arizona men’s head coach Clancy Shields announced the hiring of Alex Emery as the new assistant coach. Emery spent the last two years as the volunteer assistant at Wake Forest under head coach Tony Bresky. Arron Spencer was the assistant at Arizona the last two years but Tad Berkowicz’s departure meant he was out of a job.
The ITA Summer Circuit got underway last weekend with seven different schools hosting regionals. Below were the singles winners with each draw linked.
Abilene Christian
M – [5] Nico Agritelley (Abilene Christian) d. [4] Nathan Brown (Yale) 6-3, 6-4
W – [2] Priya Niezgoda (Rice Commit) d. [1] Hunter Blesser (Virginia Commit) 6-3, 6-1
Arizona Christian
M – [1] Dominic Patrick (Iowa) d. [4] James Ponwith (San Diego) 6-3, 6-1
W – [2] Savannah Slaysman (Arizona St Commit) d. [1] Maddie Pothoff (Alabama Commit) Wd(inj)
Florida State
M – [2] Javier Restrepo (UNC Wilmington) d. [4] Trevor Foshey (Mississippi State) 6-4, 0-6, 10-7
W – [2] Josie Kuhlman (Florida) d. [2] Meible Chi (Duke Commit) 7-5, 7-5
Northwestern
M – [1] Ben Vandixhorn (Northwestern) d. [5] Branden Metzler (Kalamazoo) 6-1, 7-5
W – [1] Asuka Kawai (’17 Illinois Commit) d. [2] Tiffany Chen (Princeton Commit) 6-2, 6-3
Pomona-Pitzer
M – [3] Sean Hill (Wake Forest Commit) d. [8] Octave De Giacomoni (Irvine Valley Coll) 6-1, 6-1
W – [1] Jana McCord (St. Mary’s) d. [2] Sophie Whittle (Gonzaga) 6-4, 6-3
Denver
M: [1] Alex Gasson (Denver) vs. [2] Wyatt Lovera (Denver)
W: [1] Melissa Pick (Wisconsin) d. [3] Emma Scott (High School) 6-4, 7-5
Missouri-Kansas City
M: (6) Brady Anderson (Coe) d. (3) Matthew Barlow (Washburn) 6-1; 1-6; 1-0(6)
Georgia Gwinnett, 3-time defending NAIA Champion, did a nice video feature on Kevin Konfederak in their Core Value Series. Konfederak, for those that didn’t know, had a dominating sophomore year which included winning the National Small College Championships over the best from D2, D3, and NAIA.
Yes it is…he will play at Ivc for another year and then be looking to transfer. He is from France, fit as a fiddle, and can get back a ton of balls.<br />We are working on his attacking game. He played #4 for our ca state winning community college last year and will be looking to play in the top 3 this year.
I googled him and couldn't find much info – I see there is an Octave Bellet on IVC's roster – is that the same guy?
Octave de Giacomoni plays for Irvine Valley College.