by Bobby Knight | Nov 22, 2017 | Blog
The USTA announced that the popular College MatchDay series will return to Lake Nona in 2018 with eight matches scheduled between February 3rd and April 15th. The series kicks off with the Florida State and Florida men and women playing simultaneously and then a week later the Georgia and Georgia Tech men will play on February 9. The USTA National Campus drew over 5300 fans a year ago including just under 1800 for Florida State’s upset win over Florida. Last year, College MatchDay cemented itself as the bowl series of college tennis, with marquee matches and elite programs, said USTA Collegiate Tennis Director Stephen Amritraj via the USTA’s...
by Bobby Knight | Jul 24, 2017 | Blog
Baylor rising junior Juan Benitez won his first career pro titles over the weekend after sweeping singles and doubles at the Morocco F1 Futures in Tanger. In the doubles final, Benitez teamed with Raleigh Smith (Northwestern ’14) to defeat Skander Mansouri (Wake Forest Rising Sr) and Nick Chappell (TCU ’15) 6-4, 7-6(3). Benitez and Smith were actually fortunate to make it out of the opening round because they trailed 9-4 in the third set supertiebreak and then after erasing those five match points they fought off one more before winning 13-11. As fate would have it Benitez and Smith would face each other in the singles final with Benitez getting...
by Bobby Knight | Jun 18, 2017 | Blog
The last vacant Power Five head coaching position was filled on Friday when Minnesota Athletic Director Mark Coyle announced the hiring of Catrina Thompson as the new women’s head coach of the Gophers. Thompson comes to Minneapolis from South Bend where she has been the women’s assistant coach for the last four years. Thompson played at Notre Dame from 2003 to 2007 and also coached at Yale and Boise State. Thompson replaces Chuck Merzbacher who retired after 28 years as a head coach with the final five coming at Minnesota. Below are some quotes from Minnesota’s recap:”As an assistant coach, Catrina has contributed to significant...
by Bobby Knight | Aug 15, 2016 | Blog
Michael Mmoh came into this year’s USTA Boys 18 National Championships as the top seed and he definitely lived up to the billing. Mmoh only needed about 90 minutes to win the best of five sets final over the No. 7 seed Vasil Kirkov 6-1, 6-2, 6-3. Mmoh only lost 35 games in seven matches and didn’t drop a set all week. Colette Lewis has all the quotes from today’s winners over at ZooTennis. Mmoh’s Week at the Zoo:BYE in R1 def. Ivan Thamma 6-4, 6-4 in R2 def. Joshua Marchalik 6-0, 6-1 in R3 def. [18] Keegan Smith 6-2, 6-2 in R4 def. [10] Oliver Crawford 6-1, 7-6(4) in R5 def. [5] Gianni Ross 6-4, 6-2 in QF...
by Bobby Knight | Jul 30, 2016 | Blog
#474 Mikelis Libietis (Tennessee ’15) won his tenth straight match and second straight Futures after defeating #1626 Alberto Brizzi 7-6(6), 7-6(6) in the finals of the $10K Futures in Parnu, Estonia. Libietis broke Brizzi to start the match and then held in a four-deuce game to go ahead 2-0. Brizzi took the next four games to open up a 4-2 lead but Libietis took the next two to even it at 4-4. It stayed on serve until the tiebreak and then Libietis won the pivotal 6-6 point on Brizzi’s serve and then took the next point to take the opening set tiebreak 8-6. The second set started with six straight holds then Brizzi broke from 15/40 to go up 4-3....
Latest Comments