by Bobby Knight | Jul 4, 2017 | Blog
The opening round of singles at Wimbledon went about as good as expected with players with college ties going 4-2. John Isner, Steve Johnson, and Jennifer Brady won in straight sets while Kevin Anderson came back from a set down to knock out the No. 31 seed Fernando Verdasco in four sets. Cameron Norrie made his Grand Slam debut but the No. 12 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga knocked him out in just 1 hour and 23 minutes. Irina Falconi was the only former collegian to come through qualies but she lost in straight sets to the top seed Angelique Kerber though it was a respectable 6-4, 6-4 scoreline. The doubles draw gets started on Wednesday plus Anderson, Johnson,...
by Bobby Knight | Jun 30, 2017 | Blog
The Wimbledon main draws were released on Friday with 34 players with college ties set to compete at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. There were 23 former college players in the singles qualifying draws but Irina Falconi was the only one to come through with the former Yellow Jacket qualifying with a straight set win over Mariana Duque-Marino. Falconi’s reward for qualifying will be a match against the top seed and last year’s runner-up Angelique Kerber.There will be four former college players in the men’s singles draw and two in the women’s singles draw. The men’s doubles draw has 25 former college players while the...
by Bobby Knight | Jun 30, 2017 | Blog
While former college players may have been shutout in the Wimbledon qualifying singles draw there were three that pulled through on the doubles side. Max Schnur, who graduated from Columbia in 2015, qualified for his first-ever Grand Slam main draw after he and Cheng-Peng Hsieh defeated Ariel Behar Aliaksandr Bury 6-7, 7-5, 6-3. Schnur won 94 doubles matches in his four years at Columbia and achieved a career-high ATP doubles ranking of 95 back in February and is currently ranked 113. The doubles team of Johan Brunstrom (SMU ’03) and Andreas Siljestrom (Middle Tenn St ’07) also qualified for the main draw after they defeated Arenda/Peng 7-6,...
by Bobby Knight | Jun 28, 2017 | Blog
Monday was a good day at Wimbledon for players with college ties but Wednesday was not as the group went a combined 2-9 with one of the wins coming in a college versus college match. Former Tennessee Volunteer JP Smith, who was the NCAA singles runner-up in 2008, defeated former UCLA Bruin Mackenzie McDonald, who won the 2016 NCAA singles championship, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3. Smith held serve all 16 times while breaking McDonald twice. The other winner with college ties was Dennis Novikov as the former UCLA Bruin defeating fellow American Stefan Kozlov 7-5, 6-2. Novikov was a perfect 10 for 10 on his service games while also breaking Kozlov three times. Both Smith and...
by Bobby Knight | Jun 26, 2017 | Blog
The opening day of Wimbledon qualies was a good one for those with college tennis ties as 11 of 18 men picked up opening round wins. 2015 USC graduate Roberto Quiroz defeated 2011 Texas graduate Ed Corrie in the only matchup between two former college players. Corrie jumped out to a 6-4, 3-1 lead but Quiroz won 10 straight games to go up 5-0 in the third and would close it out 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. Benjamin Becker, who won the 2004 NCAA Singles Championship, moved on to the second round with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Yasutaka Uchiyama. The 36-year old former Baylor Bear broke Uchiyama to go up 5-3 in the second and then in the third set he broke for 3-2.James...
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