Howdy, y’all and Happy Tennis Tuesday! While professional players were continuing their Asian Swing at the China Open in Beijing, the best of the best in college tennis traveled to Cary, North Carolina to compete in one of the sport’s “majors” – the ITA Women’s All-American Championships. Former champions include Danielle Collins (2015) and Irina Falconi (2009), with Wisconsin’s Maria Sholokhova stunning the field last year to take home the crown.
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I discussed this last year, but this is the second and final year of a two-year pilot program that sees the NCAA Individual tournament moved to the fall and the Team event continuing in the spring. All-Americans is the first event of the year that will give berths to NCAAs, which will be held at the USTA National Campus November 18-23.
Next up will be the 13 ITA Regional Championships held across the country from October 8-21. All singles finalists and doubles champions from those events will qualify. Then, from November 6-9, there will be two major tournaments. The first is the ITA Conference Masters Championship in San Diego and all four singles finalists, the two doubles finalists and a third place team will advance. The draws will be be compiled of each NCAA AQ-eligible, Division I conference designating one singles player and one doubles team to participate. The final event are via the four ITA Sectional Championships. The 13 regionals are divided into four events — West (Mountain, Southwest & Northwest), Central (Texas, Central & Midwest), South (Southeast, South & Ohio Valley Regions), and East (Carolina, Atlantic, Northeast & New England). Only those who have yet to earn entry into NCAAs are eligible to compete. At those events, 24 singles (all four semifinalists and two playoff winners from those who lose in the quarterfinals) and 12 doubles (both finalists and a third place team) qualifiers will round out the field.
Per last year, there are some notes for eligibility in those fields:
- Players Qualifying for the NCAA Championships via All-Americans are eligible to participate in the Regional Championships but are not eligible to participate in the Sectional Championships or Conference Masters Championship. If a player has qualified in singles but not doubles (and vice versa) they are eligible to play in these events but only in the event (singles or doubles) they have not qualified for yet.
- Players Qualifying for the NCAA Championships via the Regional Championships are not eligible to participate in the Sectional Championships or Conference Masters Championships.
Now, for your first entries into the 2025 NCAA Championships!
Your singles qualifiers:
Valerie Glozman (Stanford): Glozman, who captured the USTA Collegiate Playoff to earn a bid into the U.S. Open main draw has continued her fine form. She became Stanford’s first player since Hilary Barte in 2010 to win All-Americans. Seeded No. 4 the Cardinal defeated No. 9-16 Mao Mushkia (Cal), No. 7 Teah Chavez (Ohio State) and in the final, bested No. 9-16 Carmen Herea (Texas) in the final.
Carmen Herea (Texas): The Romanian sophomore had a breakthrough tournament that started with a win over former USTA 18s champion Eleana Yu (Duke), followed by this year’s champion Alyssa Ahn (Stanford) before consecutively defeating No. 6 Piper Charney (Michigan), No. 2 Reese Brantmeier (UNC, via walkover) and No. 3 Luciana Perry (Ohio State).
Teah Chavez and Luciana Perry (Ohio State): Though they both lost in the semifinals, they are perhaps the best 1-2 duo in the country. These two could potentially pack a punch that could lead the Buckeyes to unchartered territory. Of course, this alum living in Columbus is biased.
Tatum Evans (UNC), Emma Charney (USC), Irina Balus (Duke), Reese Brantmeier (UNC): Qualified via quarterfinal showings
Savannah Dada-Mascoll (App State), Piper Charney (Michigan): Qualified by reaching the conoslation singles final, which was abandoned. However, I wanted to give a special shout out to Dada-Mascoll, who upset No. 1 DJ Bennett (Auburn) in the opening round and broke new ground for the Appalachian State program. She’s my standout player of the week, essentially coming from nowhere to produce a 5-1 record against higher competition she’s not used to. This one week could change the trajectory of the Mountaineers
In doubles, the teams that qualified:
Maria Sholokhova/Lucie Urbanova (Wisconsin): Champions
Roisin Gilheany/Gloriana Nahum (Oklahoma): Finalists
Reese Brantmeier/Alanis Hamilton (UNC) and Gabriella Broadfoot/Victoria Osuigwe (NC State): semifinalists
Again, this Fall program is just a tester and I will admit, I’m not the biggest fan of it. A lot of players opt out of the Fall season to play or test out the professional circuit and having these massive events at the start of the season diminishes the lure of an NCAA title. Call me a traditionalist but I will say it’s not 100% terrible. It gives players from a variety of programs (like a Dada-Mascoll) to perform at a stage that is usually reserved for the Top 50 players and a handful of small conference bids.
I expect the Intercollegiate Tennis Association to continue this program past this year. It continues to funnel everything under their umbrella and likely increases their revenue. Though, I would like to see data and feedback from both players and coaches once they complete NCAAs. The fan experience versus what programs see/face are two different things so ultimately, as long as they’re happy, I can take it in stride.
On to links!
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This Week in Women’s Tennis
55 years ago this week, professional women’s tennis debuted in Houston, Texas. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Iga Swiatek is keen to regain the No. 1 ranking from Aryna Sabalenka at the WTA Finals later this season.
Elina Svitolina is the latest player to call it a season early to focus on rest/recovery ahead of the 2026 season.
Though only 18, Mirra Andreeva feels a lot wiser as she nears the end of another breakout season.
Alize Cornet announced her retirement again from the sport, but this time did put the paperwork with the ITIA.
Ever curious what’s in a player’s notebook they bring on court? Zhu Lin gives a little sneak peek into hers.
Madison Keys received a DM from Bobby Flay after the most brutal loss of her career and recently got to be a guest judge on his Food Network show.
Emiliana Arango put the “lucky” in lucky loser and took advantage of her cat nap and second chance at the China Open.
Zheng Qinwen returned to the tour after 88 days away following an elbow surgery and the Olympic gold medalist revealed how she spent the recovery of her first-ever surgery.
INTENNSE launched earlier this summer and the league is using investments and technology to help professional players and (hopefully) change the professional landscape.
Congratulations to former World No. 1 Garbine Muguruza, who announced she’s expecting her first child.
Amanda Augustus, who had a Hall of Fame career as a player at Cal before reaching No. 82 in the WTA doubles rankings and returning to coach her alma mater for 18 years, announced her retirement.
Amanda Anisimova and Jessica Pegula headline the entries for the Ningbo Open, while Naomi Osaka will return to the Japan Open.
Tweet of the Week
Five at The IX: China Open Week 1
Q. You said most of your memories from last year were more off court. There’s a lot of people who haven’t had a chance to come to Beijing and experience it. Could you talk a little bit about that. Why did it leave such an impression on you?
COCO GAUFF: Well, the first thing was the Great Wall. I thought that was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen in person. Especially when you look at how long ago it was built. So that was really cool.
The Forbidden City, I would like to do it again, the full experience. I only did it, like, 25 minutes with Carlos. He came late, so it got cut short. I didn’t do it that much (smiling).
I think the culture is really cool and very different from anything. Being from a country like the U.S., which is considered way younger than China. I think visiting a country with so much history behind it is really cool, just learning about the different dynasties, how everything is kind of intertwined, which we don’t really have that in the U.S. because it is so much a melting pot, whereas here it’s not so.
I think it’s really cool just to do a deep dive. I would say if you’re interested, really try duck here, it’s really good, and go to the Forbidden City and some of the temples. I’m not a Beijing expert, but I had a great time and I definitely recommend people to try.
Q. Last week there was also the Billie Jean King Cup in Shenzhen. In the past the calendar position was quite a discussing topic. I’d like to know if this position at the beginning of the Asian Swing, it’s something you kind of like it for the future, and if you spoke about the tournament with a few colleagues in these days?
IGA SWIATEK: I haven’t because I knew I’m not playing these Finals.
But I think it’s a good decision in terms of the scheduling because it’s just tough in November for a player who don’t play the WTA Finals to be kind of still in the season for more weeks and not be able to go on vacation because, I mean, okay maybe I shouldn’t speak about vacation, but let’s be honest, we don’t have time during the year. We need to do that for our bodies, as well. Other players will wait. Other players will go on holidays, then practice a couple days, play Billie Jean King Cup Finals, which also is not perfect.
Yeah, putting it right now, I think it’s better. But the question is if actually finally maybe ITF and WTA talk together and maybe these players don’t have to play these six mandatory 500s, or five, because they have one week less to do that. That’s the question.
Honestly, I got to say, because I didn’t play, I don’t know these rules (smiling). If WTA treated this as another tournament, maybe let them not have the six mandatory 500s, I think it would be nice. But I have no idea how it is.
Q. While you were rehabbing, did you have China Open as your target in terms of trying to race back to this tournament specifically? Can you talk about the process of healing and preparing yourself to compete again.
ZHENG QINWEN: Yeah, actually in the moment China Open wasn’t in our plan because it’s really close to be here 100%. Like I said on court, I wasn’t at my 100% still. Like 80%, 70%, whatever, but I’m able to compete.
The recovery process is very long. At the beginning I heal really fast. Somehow when it end up to the last 20%, somehow it just didn’t gets better. I check with my team and they told me, You don’t have any risk to play matches. It depends on you.
I love to play here in China. I make a tough decision I’m going to step on the court and let’s see what’s going to happen during the match. So far was pretty good still, yeah (smiling).
Q. You mentioned the podcast. How has that felt going into that world and becoming an active player podcaster, which is a different thing?
JESSICA PEGULA: That was kind of one of the reasons we wanted to do it, because we felt like we were still relevant and playing (smiling). We had a really great year, all of us. At least me and Maddie. Obviously Jenny trying to come back soon, maybe next year. Des being on tour. We were like, Why should we wait? It’s something we can do fun off the court.
First logistics-wise we had to narrow down how easy or how hard it was going to be. It actually ended up I think a lot easier than we had planned.
Once we filmed the first one, we were like, Oh, we can definitely do this. We were going to kind of trial and see how it worked with everyone’s schedules. Honestly, it’s been much easier. That’s been really fun.
Again, people keep listening to it and feeling like a lot of comments I see, It feels like we’re just on a phone call with you guys, or we are sitting and having coffee with you, or having a glass of wine, or we’re on FaceTime with you.
And that is kind of how it feels to us, too. We have a little bit of structure, but it’s very therapeutic for us to talk about things that are happening on the road.
We really wanted to give insight behind the scenes because we see like fans only see us as one-dimensional athletes on the court. There’s a lot of really kind of fun and more normal things off the court that really do happen to us. We really kind of wanted to share that in that way.
It’s been nice to see the response from everybody. I think we were a little surprised about how many people really enjoyed it almost because we had no idea what to expect.
It’s been such a cool experience, especially when you’re doing it with a bunch of friends and you’re having fun with it. It’s a learning curve for us, but we’ve really enjoyed it.
Q. In the last few days, rereading some back stories on yourself after Doha and Indian Wells, you were saying you were feeling the pressure at that stage, the extra attention you were getting. In the period from then to now, do you feel things have settled down a little bit more, you’re a little bit more comfortable with the added attention you’ve had this year, or is it still a little bit up and down?
MIRRA ANDREEVA: Honestly, I can say that I was fine with all the attention that I was getting. It was more like I was putting pressure myself, on myself. Like, it was not people from outside, it was more me. I was also expecting more from myself.
Now I’m kind of learning how to, I don’t know, be nicer and kinder to myself, give myself some time, sometimes not really judge myself too hard and right away. I’m learning new things, learning how to kind of, I don’t know, be nicer to yourself.
Yeah, I can say that now it’s a little bit easier. Obviously sometimes there are days when it’s still hard. I’m learning and improving how to make it easier for me. I think that for now it does feel easier. I’m just trying to kind of learn this new technique that I’m trying to use.
| Mondays: Soccer |
| By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer |
| Tuesdays: Tennis |
| By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer |
| Wednesdays: Basketball |
| By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports |
| Thursdays: Golf |
| By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX Sports |
| Fridays: Hockey |
| By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden |
| Saturdays: Gymnastics |
| By: Lela Moore, @runlelarun, Freelance Writer |
