John Peers (Baylor ’11) was the big winner this past weekend after he and his doubles partner Henri Kontinen won their first ATP Masters 1000 event at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris. Peers, who spent three years at Middle Tennessee State before transfering to Baylor for his senior year, and Kontinen defeated the ATP No. 1 team of Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 10-6. It was the fourth title this year for the pairing and overall it was Peers’s 23rd career title. Peers and Kontinen will compete at the year-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals which begin this Sunday at London’s O2 Arena. There will be five former collegians in the doubles draw with Treat Huey (Virginia ’08), Mike & Bob Bryan (Stanford ’98*), and Rajeev Ram (Illinois ’03) joining Peers. 

SMU seniors Hunter and Yates Johnson won their second doubles title this year, third career, with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Austin Smith (Georgia ’16) and Alex Lawson (Notre Dame ’16) in the finals of the $10K USA F35 Futures in Birmingham, Alabama. The Johnson Brothers won all four matches during the week in straight sets and didn’t drop more than six games in any match. 

Jakob Sude (Oklahoma State ’15) won his second doubles title this year, fifth career, as he and Adrian Bodmer defeated Florent Diep (Florida ’14) and Alexandre Muller 6-2, 6-1 in the finals of the $10K Greece F8 Futures in Heraklion. Sude and Bodmer’s toughest test during the week came in the semifinals against Markos Kalovelonis and Timur Khabibulin. Sude and Bodmer trailed 7-4 in the third set  supertiebreak but rallied to win six of the final seven points to move on to the finals.

Kaitlyn Christian (USC ’14) won her sixth career doubles title as she and Chanel Simmonds defeated Valeria Bhunu and Linnea Malmqvist 6-0, 7-6(3) in the finals of the ITF $10K in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Christian also played in the singles final falling in a 2 hour and 40 minute heartbreaker 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 to her doubles partner Simmonds. Christian jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the third set but Simmonds won the next four to ahead 4-2. Christian came back from 5-3 down to even it at 5-5 after breaking Simmonds from 30/40 but Simmonds broke back from 30/40 and then served it out from 40/15 to win it. 

Jacqueline Cako (Arizona State ’13) won her second doubles title of the year, ninth career, as she and Aleksandrina Naydenova defeated Angelina Gabueva and Sofia Shapatava 3-6, 6-4, 10-6 in the finals of the ITF $25K in Chenzhou, China. Cako and Naydenova broke at love to go ahead 5-4 in the second and then held at love to take the second set 6-4. They never trailed in the third set supertiebreak and converted their second match point to win it 10-6. 

Ingrid Neel, who committed to Florida for this season, won her fifth doubles title of the year as she and Taylor Townsend defeated Samantha Crawford and Melanie Oudin 6-4, 6-3 in the finals of the ITF $50K in Scottsdale, Arizona. Neel has a pro singles ranking of 678 and a doubles ranking of 176 so it’ll be interesting to see if she shows up in Gainesville in January.

All said and done 7 players with college ties won pro events last week with another 14 finishing as runner-up.

To view the table below in a separate window click here – there are two tabs below – one for current players and the other for both current and former players (combined).

If I skipped over someone let me know – thanks.