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Recognizing those who play and coach high school tennis

 

 

 

Archive of Previous Blog Entries

May 22, 2011: Other high school sports use an old fashion but effective way of insuring that draws are done fairly. They are done using pill boxes during the OHSAA Athletic Board meeting. Someone in the audience draws "pills" to determine the pairings for upcoming contests.  It is a fair, extremely transparent, and random approach. Tennis is not like that.

Year	Singles Draws	Champion / Runner-up	Doubles Draws	Champion / Runner-up
2002	Singles	NE / NW	Doubles	SW / SW
2003	Singles	SW / SW	Doubles	NW / SW
2004	Singles	SW / SW	Doubles	SW / SW
2005	Singles	SW / SW	Doubles	SW / SW
2006	Singles	SW / SW	Doubles	SW / SW
2007	Singles	SW / SW	Doubles	SW / SW
2008	Singles	SW / C	Doubles	C / SW
2009	Singles	C / SW	Doubles	C / C
2010	Singles	C / SW	Doubles	C / C

A similar approach could be used for Division 1 tennis to randomly place the 1 and 2 seeds into the four quarterfinals, but for whatever reason that does not happen. Instead, the top two seeds from Central and Southwest have had to play against each other in Singles and Doubles for the last nine (9) straight years in the second round of the draw on Friday. This is obviously a great situation for the other Districts because this has enabled their top two players from having to play the historically strong Southwest players (and more recently Central) until the semi-finals on Saturday.

You can see this for yourself, but note that it is not obvious. The draws look substantially different from year-to-year but they are largely the same. Again, this has happened for nine (9) straight years -- Central's 1 Seed plays against Southwest's 2 Seed and Southwest's 1 Seed plays against Central's 2 seed in the second round on Friday. The last year that it was not done this way was in 2001 (Singles / Doubles).

Please note that the draws are somewhat more random for Division 2. However, with five number one and five number two seeds, it is not possible to create a draw that makes sense. Division 2 needs to move to four Districts before it can be done correctly. The wrestlers realized that five Districts would not work effectively, and they successfully dealt with this issue many years ago.

To see how a fair draw rotation could be created, click here to go to the Ohio and USTA Tennis Analysis page and click on OHSAA Proposed Draws. This document was first shared in October 2008.

It would be great if the tennis draws for Division 1 could be done in the same fair manner as is done with the other sports. Hopefully it will happen this year.

 

 

 

 

October 30, 2010: The doubles list in the My List of of Central Ohio's Top Players now includes those with a TennisRecruiting.net ranking. I will add their USTA rankings tomorrow. All of the pictures that I have are now included. If you would like to submit a picture for a player (or team), please send me an email or feedback.

October 28, 2010: The My List of of Central Ohio's Top Players list now includes the doubles players. There will be pictures added soon for most of these players. I will also take another look at the singles Watch List before I wrap-up the season.

October 27, 2010: Tomorrow, the Top Doubles Players will be added to My List of Central Ohio's Top Players. Please note that this list is inexact. What I am trying to achieve with this group is to recognize those girls who have focused on doubles during the season and who are very good at doubles. I do make a few exceptions, but the goal is to recognize the best doubles players, not the second and third best singles players who teamed up for Sectionals.

The picture is from the OTCA Tournament. Click on the picture for a larger image.

October 26, 2010: The All-City League tennis players were listed in the Dispatch today. They are as follows:

North Division

First Team Singles: Catherine Beach (Centennial), Donna Nguyen (Northland), Ciara Auddino (Whetstone), Abigail Nypayer (Whetstone).

First Team Doubles: Marianne Murray-Kate Powers (Whetstone); Megan Sinclair-Rachel Murphy (Whetstone).

Second Team Singles: Fabiola Melidor (Beechcroft), Dufie Asamoah (Mifflin), Chantel Scales (Mifflin), Kaitlyn Dozer (Whetstone).

Second Team Doubles: Aminata Carew-Jamestina Kanu (Mifflin); Tatiana Chapple-Brooklynn Peterson (Northland).

South Division

First Team Singles: Stephanie Hopkins (Briggs), Mercedes Tutt (Marion-Franklin), Nary Sy (West), Theresa Baker (West).

First Team Doubles: Bria Elder Ashley Brown-Manley (Eastmoor Academy), Maranda Harris-Katherine Bustos (West).

Second Team Singles: Ebony Brown (Eastmoor Academy), Wogahta Tecle (Independence), Misty Messer (Marion-Franklin), Justine Canter (West).

Second Team Doubles: Victoria Banks-Caitlynn Tutt (Marion-Franklin), Anna Abernathy-Kassandra Taylor (West).

Congratulations to these girls.

Also note that I am still accepting digital pictures. If you have one for your team, please send it to me via email or send me a Feedback.

October 25, 2010: Congratulations to Upper Arlington for winning the D1 OTCA team championship and Lexington for winning the D2 team championship. UA beat Ursuline Academy, 3-1, in the semi-finals and then Westlake, 3-1, in the finals. Lexington beat Chagrin Falls, 3-2, in the semi-finals and Oakwood, 3-2, in the finals. Hilliard Bradley was defeated by Oakwood, 3-2, and by Chagrin Falls, 3-1.

For the results of all of the teams, click here to go to the OTCA web site.

For all of the individual results, click here. Thanks to Scott Long for providing the pictures of the draws.

October 24, 2010: There were great tennis matches yesterday at States. Congratulations to Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai and Ashley Thai -- the State D2 Doubles Champions. The Thai cousins won their semi-final match against Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit's Cristin Reed and Katelyn Hissong, and in the final match they defeated Cincinnati Hills Christian's Kassie Faugno and Dominique Baxter.

Upper Arlington's Niki Flower had two great matches. She won her first against Westlake's Lauren Golick in three sets and then lost in the championship match to Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame's Sandy Niehaus in three sets.

Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein and Lauren Bellinger were State runner-ups in D1 Doubles losing to Komal and Mehvish Safdar from Cincinnati Ursuline. They won their first match against Chagrin Falls Kenston's Victoria and Mandy Marchant.

Watterson's Katie Shepherd and Lauren Ghidotti finished fourth in the State losing first to the D1 Champion Safdar sisters and then to Chagrin Falls Kenston's Victoria and Mandy Marchant.

The State Division 2 singles championship was won by Waynesville's Alyssa Ritchie. Ritchie defeated West Holmes' Rachel Nelson in the final.

The Columbus Dispatch had a nice article written by Paul Batterson about States. It is here.

Dr. Daniel Ross, Commissioner of the OHSAA, was in attendance and I had a very worthwhile conversation with Dr. Ross and with Roxanne Price, OHSAA's assistant commissioner in charge of tennis.

While many of us were not pleased with the site that was used, they made the best of the situation. Many portable bleachers were brought in and the weather cooperated. To determine what other sites might work, I took pictures of the cars in the parking lot and of the crowd to better understand how many people attended the event. I will look more closely at this issue after I finish the district line project.

The Ohio Tennis Coaches Association (OTCA) tournament is today. Best of luck to Upper Arlington and Hilliard Bradley. The event will be held at Hilliard Davidson unless it rains. The rain location is the Lakewood Racquet Club in Lexington.

Please enjoy the videos. Note that they are uploaded in an unlisted area so that only those with the link may access the videos. Please submit a Feedback if you have any questions. I did not get video of the final point for the other championships. If you would like to share those, please contact me.

October 23, 2010: There were some great matches yesterday but I will not have the results online until later today. (It takes time to get these entered and I am going to States this morning.)

There were two nice articles written by Jeremy McLaughlin and Paul Batterson in the Dispatch about States. (I'll add the link to the McLaughlin article as soon as I find it -- it was in Friday's Dispatch.)

October 22, 2010: I attended my first OHSAA meeting today. It was very interesting and worthwhile. The OHSAA is interested in making changes in tennis and I am optimistic that we can get some changes done.

I am still working on the "redrawing district lines" document, but I am going to States today. Hopefully, I'll see you there.

Central District Parents and Coaches, Make sure that you see me today. I have a picture for you.

October 21, 2010: To continue with yesterday's topic, the D2 singles draw also includes great players, but perhaps not quite as strong as D1. D2 also does not have four players who are ranked significantly above the others. I would seed five players.

The tables are placed side-by-side today. The draw order table is to the left and the table sorted by District-Seed is on the right.

In comparison with the D1 draw, note how there are only two top players in the D2 draw who are scheduled to play each other in the second round. In D1, all of the top four players are scheduled to play each other in the second round. This would not be tolerated by the wrestlers, especially the big mean ones.

Player (as positioned in the draw)	District - Seed	Grade	Tennis Recruit-ing.net		Player (sorted by District - Seed)	District - Seed	Grade	Tennis Recruit-ing.net
Rachel Nelson	E/SE - 1	Sophomore	115		Rachael Morales	CEN - 1	Sophomore	145
Rachel Littman	SW - 4	Junior	697		Maddie Morton	CEN - 2	Senior	309
Maddie Morton	CEN - 2	Senior	309		Rachel Nelson	E/SE - 1	Sophomore	115
Chelsea Ross	NE - 2	Senior	NA		Mollie Miller	E/SE - 2	Freshman	86
Courtney Earnest	NW - 1	Junior	108		Emily Mazzola	NE - 1	Junior	246
Arianna Iranpour	NE - 5	Freshman	271		Chelsea Ross	NE - 2	Senior	NA
Kelsey Matthews	SW - 2	Senior	517		Lydia Colvin	NE - 3	Senior	422
Lydia Colvin	NE - 3	Senior	422		Victoria Ferry	NE - 4	Junior	866
Alyssa Ritchie	SW - 1	Senior	100		Arianna Iranpour	NE - 5	Freshman	271
Victoria Ferry	NE - 4	Junior	866		Courtney Earnest	NW - 1	Junior	108
Mollie Miller	E/SE - 2	Freshman	86		Ashley LaFountain	NW - 2	Junior	512
Ashley LaFountain	NW - 2	Junior	512		Drew Fillis	NW - 3	Junior	239
Rachael Morales	CEN - 1	Sophomore	145		Alyssa Ritchie	SW - 1	Senior	100
Drew Fillis	NW - 3	Junior	239		Kelsey Matthews	SW - 2	Senior	517
Emily Mazzola	NE - 1	Junior	246		Holly Dahmus	SW - 3	Junior	413
Holly Dahmus	SW - 3	Junior	413		Rachel Littman	SW - 4	Junior	697

October 20, 2010: Congratulations to Hilliard Bradley. Hilliard Bradley beat Columbus Academy to become the Division 2 representative from Central for the OTCA Tournament.

Player (as positioned in the draw)	District-Seed	Grade	Tennis Recruiting .net
Niki Flower	CEN - 1	Senior	47
Trisha Conlan	NE - 6	Senior	293
Brooke Broda	SW - 2	Freshman	34
Natalie Robson	NE - 4	Senior	291
Megan Miller	NW - 2	Freshman	467
Amina Ismail	SW - 3	Freshman	182
Lauren Golick	NE - 1	Sophomore	184
Sydney Power	CEN - 4	Freshman	356
Sandy Niehaus	SW - 1	Sophomore	63
Noelle Kaufmann	NE - 5	Senior	364
Anna Sanford	CEN - 2	Freshman	100
Madelyn Gilley	NE - 3	Sophomore	397
Alex Bastock	NE - 2	Senior	263
Meghan Buell	CEN - 3	Senior	186
April Weaver	NW - 1	Junior	418
Marianne Bonanno	SW - 4	Senior	574

Today's topic is Seeding.

As stated in the past, Wrestling seeds every wrestler in the State tournament. This means that 672 wrestlers are seeded (14 weight classes*3 divisions*16 participants). Obviously that is no easy task but it is necessary and it is very effective. I have reviewed the results and they do a very good job of seeding.

Could the same be done for Tennis? Yes and no. Wrestlers wrestle more than tennis players play tennis. Wrestlers typically have between 40-50 matches during the season while the tennis players may have between 20-30. (Of course, some of the wrestling matches may take less than a minute.) Also, when considering how the wrestling tournaments work, I believe the top wrestlers have far more quality matches.

However, tennis has TennisRecruiting.net that could be used to fill in some of the gaps for tennis. Please refer to the table. All of the top players compete during the other nine months of the year. As they compete, TennisRecruiting.net provides each player with a national ranking based on their graduation year. (While you would expect a senior ranked 25 to be better than a freshman ranked 25, it is not as obvious since tennis is a skill-based sport.) While I would not recommend that tennis seed all 16 singles players in both divisions, tennis should seed the top four using a combination of high school and TennisRecruiting.net results.

Player (sorted by District - Seed)	District - Seed	Year	Tennis Recruiting .net
Niki Flower	CEN - 1	Senior	47
Anna Sanford	CEN - 2	Freshman	100
Meghan Buell	CEN - 3	Senior	186
Sydney Power	CEN - 4	Freshman	356
Lauren Golick	NE - 1	Sophomore	184
Alex Bastock	NE - 2	Senior	263
Madelyn Gilley	NE - 3	Sophomore	397
Natalie Robson	NE - 4	Senior	291
Noelle Kaufmann	NE - 5	Senior	364
Trisha Conlan	NE - 6	Senior	293
April Weaver	NW - 1	Junior	418
Megan Miller	NW - 2	Freshman	467
Sandy Niehaus	SW - 1	Sophomore	63
Brooke Broda	SW - 2	Freshman	34
Amina Ismail	SW - 3	Freshman	182
Marianne Bonanno	SW - 4	Senior	574

Sorting the above table by District, you get the next table.

From this view, it is much clearer to see how strong each District is and to get a better understanding of how the players should be seeded. I would seed the girls in bold.

Of course, what does the OSHAA do with the draws? They have all four of these players competing against each other in the second round. (Please refer to yesterday's blog entry.)

Do the tennis players deserve the same level of consideration that the wrestlers receive from the OHSAA? Yes. So why don't they?

I am still working on the project that redistributes the schools into four regions. That might be released tomorrow.

Columbus Academy is today's free, full-access school.

October 19, 2010: The state draws are out. The OHSAA went back to the same Division 1 draws that they used from 2000 to 2007. Niki Flower (Central's #1 seed) is slated to play Brooke Broda (Southwest's #2 seed) in the second round, and Anna Sanford (Central's #2 seed) is slated to play Sandy Niehaus (Southwest's #1 seed) in the second round. The OHSAA has been provided with a way to equally rotate all of the Districts' top two players so that they play against each other over a period of six years. The OHSAA just chooses not to use it.

New topic...

For many years, the Central, East, and Southeast Districts shared either three or four spots for States in Division 2 tennis. (Central alternated with the Northwest District.) Last year, the Central girls were blindsided after the Sectional draw when it was discovered that East and Southeast went off on their own taking their two State spots with them. The result was that some very deserving kids from Central were shut out of States.

Can this issue be fixed once and for all?

There has been an effort led by the Northwest to have four regions with the same number of State spots (4) for both divisions. There has been some confusion on how this can be done. Many have been told that this breakdown has to be on a "per county" basis and that the Division 1 and 2 "lines" need to be the same. Based on what has been done by wrestling, both of these assumptions are false.

The wrestlers have used a common-sense approach for many years doing exactly what has been discussed for tennis for many years. However, the wrestlers are far, far more advanced than tennis because they have three divisions to our two and they have far more schools involved.

It was not always this way with the wrestlers. Once they even tried a five District approach (like tennis currently has with D2), but they abandoned that approach after just one year because seeding was impossible, just like it is impossible for tennis.

Here are three maps showing the Divisional breakdowns for wrestling. Note that the Northwest wrestlers have to travel further, but they feel this is a reasonable tradeoff for four equal regions. Note again how the two "requirements" once stated for tennis are not requirements for wrestling. It is also important to point out that in wrestling, Northeast Ohio is a powerhouse, but they are still working together with the other districts to do what is best for the kids.

Could the same approach work for tennis? Of course. Unfortunately for the sport of tennis, there have been a few people who like things just the way they are for their region. However, there are discussions beginning that may indicate that there is now an interest in making tennis better for all of the kids in Ohio.

The maps of the D1 and D2 schools that have tennis programs are listed above. These maps are interactive. I will break the state into four equal regions tomorrow. For those who would like to try creating their own regions, I would be willing to help with this process with the data that I have collected.

October 18, 2010: This is where the fun begins as we wait to see how the OHSAA does the Division 1 draws for States. For those uninitiated to OHSAA tennis, many would think that the draws would be done randomly or by using some type of rotation. From 2000 to 2007, the OHSAA used the same pre-arranged approach so that the top two seeds from the Central District played against the top two seeds from the strong Southwest District in the second round of States. This was odd because the Central and Southwest Districts were also the two strongest Districts. After the September 4, 2008 document was distributed, the OHSAA finally began using an un-pre-arranged draw. The draw last year was also un-pre-arranged.

Unfortunately for the boys, the top two seeds from the Southwest have been pitted against the top two seeds from Central in the second round for nine straight years. For several years, the Southwest boys were very strong so it was a huge advantage for the Northeast and Northwest Districts to protect their top seeds from the Southwest players until the semi-finals on Saturday. More recently the D1 boys from Central have been strong.

It will be interesting to see what the OHSAA does this year with the draws for the girls and boys.

Please note the pictures of the State Qualifiers from Central District. For those of you accessing my site from other Districts in the state, I'll do the same for your District. Just get your pictures and girls' names into me by Wednesday at 10pm. There will be no charge for this. Just submit a Feedback to get my email address.

October 17, 2010: There were great tennis matches yesterday. Upper Arlington's Niki Flower earnedthe number one seed for Central in D1, while Rachael Morales won the D2 one seed. Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger-Sarah Stein duo earned the number one seed for doubles for D1, while Lauren Thai-Ashley Thai received the one seed for D2.

The table below is listed in seed order.

Two articles about the Districts are available here (1st day of Districts) and here (2nd day of Districts).

I'll post pictures later today.

October 16, 2010: Congratulations to those who are State Qualifiers. There were numerous great matches yesterday. The qualifiers are listed in the table.

Division 1	(in order of finish)
Singles	Doubles
Niki Flower, Upper Arlington	Lauren Bellinger-Sarah Stein, Dublin Jerome
Anna Sanford, Olentangy Orange	Lauren Ghidotti-Katie Shepherd, Bishop Watterson
Meghan Buell, New Albany	Lydia Utkin-Cailey Easdale, Dublin Jerome
Sydney Power, Olentangy Liberty	Olivia Ott-Courtney Brown, Bishop Watterson
Division 2
Rachel Morales, Bishop Hartley	Lauren Thai-Ashley Thai, Hilliard Bradley
Maddie Morton, Bexley	Neha Patel-Parul Reddy, Columbus Academy

Once again, the Central District has a forminable group of players going to States. It will be difficult to repeat last year's success (D1 Singles and Doubles Champions and D2 Doubles Champions) but we have a group of very talented players.

Tomorrow will be the seeding rounds. Please come out and watch some great tennis. Division 1 will play at Hilliard Davidson and Division 2 will play at Columbus School for Girls. There is no charge.

Lydia Utkin-Cailey Easdale, Dublin Jerome

October 15, 2010: Congratulations to Upper Arlington. UA will represent the Central District in the D1 State Team event. UA defeated New Albany last night.

It would be very interesting to know what criteria the OHSAA used in selecting their championship site. If I were to do it for tennis, I would approach it this way. Of course, you really did not need this level of detail to arrive at the best answer. That's why 94% of us arrived at the same conclusion in the poll. I am guessing that a few of these voters were at Sectionals where CSG easily handled the 91 players and their fans. Again, please note that these criteria are for "States Saturday" play -- not for Friday.

Good luck to everyone at Districts today. For those of you headed over to Hilliard Davidson, make sure you wear a tight-fitting hat.

October 14, 2010: For the fourth year out of five, the excellent, hardworking athletes who are at the pinnacle of their sport will showcase their finely-honed skills at the OHSAA State Girls Tennis Championships at.... Hilliard Davidson High School...

Yes, that's right -- back to Hilliard Davidson.

It is important to be clear that tennis fans certainly appreciate the efforts of those at Hilliard Davidson. This is not about denigrating their facility -- it is about identifying a site that is worthy of a State Championship. What is meant by worthy? Crew Stadium will be used for the soccer championships for both the boys and the girls. The Cincinnati ATP site was used for Southwest's Districts and Sectionals. Those sites are worthy.

Can you imagine how the Southwest District feels about this? They go from playing in the best facility in the Midwest, to the great OSU Stickney Courts for the first day of States, to the Hilliard Davidson courts for the State Championships (and they thought that the Kings Island Drop Tower was a plummeting ride).

The girls deserve better. The Ohio girl tennis players deserve an apology from the OHSAA.

October 13, 2010: The OCC Capital Tournament was completed yesterday. Hilliard Bradley won. Other matches included: Pickerington North defeated Dublin Scioto and Reynoldsburg beat Village Academy.

Matches among the top players included: Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai and Ashley Thai beat Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford and New Albany's Kylie Hess, respectively.

At this point, I think it is pretty clear that tennis players and fans would like a different site for the semi-finals and finals at States on Saturday. The voting breakdown is available here. I think it is also safe to say that there is some pent-up frustration over this. There was state-wide activity on the site yesterday. (Too bad I don't make any money from page-views...)

Today's free, full-access school is Dublin Scioto.

October 12, 2010: Whetstone won the City League. Whestone defeated West, 4-1. The big OTCA match between Upper Arlington and Dublin Jerome was also played last night. Upper Arlington won 3-1. New Albany will host UA on Thursday to determine which team represents Central Ohio at the state team event.

Among the area's top players, Upper Arlington's Niki Flower defeated Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein.

The Central D1 draws are out. They are available here. Since only two singles and two doubles teams get to attend States from D2, those draws were automatic.

I spoke with one coach last night and there was a bit of confusion about my poll question yesterday. The OSU Stickney Courts will remain the site for the matches on Friday. Hilliard Davidson or CSG will only be used for Saturday's semi-finals and final rounds. Neither site would be acceptable for the large Friday crowd. If you have not voted, please do so. I will be sharing these (unscientific) poll results with the OHSAA.

Today's free, full-access school is City League Champion, Whetstone.

October 11, 2010: The OHSAA State Girls Tennis Championship is the preeminent event of girls tennis in Ohio. There are thousands of girls throughout the state who work extremely hard for the honor of playing in the State Finals on Saturday.

The Ohio State University Stickney Courts are a terrific venue for this event and they are used for the boys and girls for the first two rounds on Friday and for the semi-finals and finals on "State Championship Saturday". Fortunately for the boys, they can use the Ohio State University courts on both days, but not the girls. The girls get moved to Hilliard Davidson if there is an OSU home football game.

Is the Hilliard Davidson site for the girls as prestigious and as memorable as what the boys have with the Ohio State Stickney Courts? Well, many do not think so. Are there other sites in Central Ohio that would be more worthy of the Girls State Championships? Yes, there are many, and these locations, along with criteria that could be used to select a worthy site were included in my document, written in September 2008 (see page 15). (Please also refer to this link which offers insight on why the winds at Hilliard Davidson are so notorious.)

The OHSAA is reviewing two sites now - Hilliard Davidson and Columbus School for Girls. You might be able to help with their decision. Please review the two videos and then cast your vote. The first video compares the two sites. The second is from Girls States 2007. It features the match between Kate Turvy and Stephanie Danesis and it is highlighted to show some of Hilliard Davidson's shortcomings. It also has a few shots from the Easdale-Farrar / Pleiman-Dresden championship match.

Which site best honors the girls state champions by providing these excellent athletes and their fans with a high-quality, memorable venue that best showcases the girls' hard-earned skills?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please vote today and ask your tennis friends to vote.

Feedback messages would be appreciated on this topic, especially from those who have insight on the following questions: Are there any other state championships for either gender that occur at a site similar in quality to Hilliard Davidson? Are there any other boys / girls state championships where one gender utilizes a far better facility than the other?

October 10, 2010: The results from the Sectionals are now online. Congratulations to the girls / coaches who are going to Districts.

There were numerous great match-ups yesterday. Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power had a very good day by defeating both Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya and Westerville North's Abigail Lewis. Upper Arlington's Niki Flower beat Olentangy Liberty's Anna Sanford and New Albany's Meghan Buell. Many of the other girls have teamed up to play doubles.

The free, full-access school is Eastmoor Academy.

October 9 2010: The results from the CSG site are now online. Please go to the team reports to review those results.

Good luck today to those teams with girls still in the Sectionals.

October 8, 2010: The results from the two-hundred Sectional matches are now available. Please note that the results from the Columbus School for Girls site were not posted in today's Dispatch. Also note that some of the sites did not include all of their match results.

Even though it is near the end of the season, please still consider joining Gerber Analytics. As you know, the ten most recent matches are available to non-members. While that normally includes a team's two most recent dual matches, it may not include all of the matches for Sectionals (and for some teams, Districts).

I am still accepting team pictures. I took the pictures of three teams yesterday. They were: Africentric, DeSales, and Eastmoor Academy.

October 7, 2010: It's time for Sectionals! First though, there were several good matches last night. They included: New Albany beat Watterson; Columbus Academy defeated Bexley; and Village Academy beat Bishop Ready.

Several of the top players played each other last night. New Albany's Meghan Buell beat Watterson's Shepherd and Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein defeated Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power.

You'll see another addition to the Girls Team reports today. The rosters were added for all users. For those of you who are Gerber Analytics members or coaches, you'll also see the class and graduation year for many players and whether the player has an interest in playing college tennis. This information is being gathered to share with Ohio-area college coaches. I will be asking the high school coaches to go online and complete this information for their players.

Good luck at Sectionals.

October 6, 2010: There was just one match reported in the Dispatch and that was for a match that was played on Monday. Hilliard Davidson won that match against Westerville South, 3-2.

Another state poll was released yesterday. It is here. I think Hilliard Bradley could be a bit higher than sixth. They had a very close match against Lexington which is listed as second.

When considering how much rain we've had, I was surprised to see that we have played more matches this year versus last. There have been 457 dual matches played so far. At this point in 2009, we had played 407 matches, and in 2008, 421 matches. (The 2008 season also started a few days earlier.) Other factors could include that coaches may be scheduling more total matches than before and they may also be more vigilant about reporting scores than in previous years.

Coaches will have the ability to modify their online rosters later today. This will give coaches the opportunity to identify players on their teams who have an interest in playing college tennis. This type of information is very beneficial to the D2/3 college coaches who would like to recruit our players.

October 5, 2010: There were several close matches last night. Groveport beat Teays Valley; Upper Arlington-B defeated Columbus School for Girls; Gahanna beat Westerville Central; and Hilliard Davidson defeated Westerville South.

Two players from my watch list for my Watch List played. Dublin Coffman's Ali Tzagournis beat Dublin Scioto's Kylie McGinnis.

Today's matches include Upper Arlington vs. Watterson and Pickerington Central vs. Dublin Coffman.

The boys season is still a few months away but Watterson senior, Chris Diaz, was listed by TennisRecruiting.net's as one of the top 29 "blue chip" recruits in the nation. The complete list is here. UA senior, Niki Flower, is also highly ranked as a "five star" recruit.

Groveport is today's free, full-access school.

October 4, 2010: The complete results for the OCC-Central Tournament are now available. This includes all of the matches. Thanks to Jim Flower for providing this information.

Jim also forwarded a video to me that he created for the OCC-Central Tournament. While I normally wouldn't post links to videos, Jim did a great job with it and he also captured a few of the non-UA girls playing as well. The link to the video is here.

Today's interesting matches include: Dublin Scioto vs. Dublin Coffman; Hilliard Davidson vs. Westerville South; Grove City vs. Briggs; and UA-B vs. Columbus School for Girls.

Today's free, full-access school remains Briggs.

October 3, 2010: So much for the looming rain. Next time, I'll stick to data, rather than weather forecasting. The Mid-State League-Cardinal Division reported all of its tournament results for Bexley, Columbus Academy, Granville, Grandview, Fisher Catholic, and Whitehall. Columbus Academy won the event and Bexley was a close second. Special thanks go to Alan Kinnard for providing this data.

In the OCC, only the Ohio Division tournament was reported in the Dispatch. Pickerington Central won that tournament.

While there certainly would have been a large number of great matches among the top players, just one was reported. Pickerington Central's Raya beat Grove City's Ashley Artrip.

Interesting matches for tomorrow include: Dublin Scioto vs. Dublin Coffman; Hilliard Davidson vs. Westerville South; Grove City vs. Briggs; and UA-B vs. Columbus School for Girls.

Today's free, full-access school is Briggs.

October 2, 2010: There was only one match recorded last night -- Columbus School for Girls beat Reynoldsburg, 3-2. The match had three, three-setters.

Welcome to the new readers from the Dispatch. (The Dispatch kindly included a link from their sports blog to this site.) The goal of this site is to promote tennis and to recognize high school tennis players by providing more information about Central Ohio high school tennis than for any sport in Central Ohio. The main features of this site are the 70+ team reports (use links in the next paragraph), My List of Central Ohio's Top Players, Central Ohioans playing college tennis, and the new ACE Report.

The big Ohio Capital Conference (OCC) and Mid-State League (MSL) tournaments are today. The favored teams in the OCC are Upper Arlington (Central Division), Dublin Jerome (Cardinal Division), Pickerington Central and Pickerington North (Ohio Division), and New Albany (Capital Division). In the MSL, the favored teams are Bexley and Columbus Academy in the Ohio Division and Teays Valley in the Buckeye Division. As I watch the weather right now, the rain is looming.

Today's free, full-access school is Upper Arlington.

October 1, 2010: Close matches last night included: Worthington Christian beat Westerville North; Worthington Kilbourne defeated Westerville South; Reynoldsburg beat Wellington; and Bloom-Carroll beat Amanda-Clearcreek.

Among the top players, Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya beat Hilliard Davidson's MacKenzie Donalson.

Only one match is scheduled tonight. Columbus School for Girls plays Reynoldsburg.

The OCC and MSL tournaments are tomorrow.

There's a good article in the Dispatch today written by Steve Blackledge. The article goes into detail how football teams prepare for their opponents. While football is far more complex with its different plays and defenses, I've always wondered why scouting isn't used more for tennis to identify opponent's players' strengths and weaknesses, especially for important matches. Please enter your vote in today's poll question.

Today's free, full-access school is Bloom-Carroll.

September 30, 2010: Close matches from last night included: New Albany over Watterson; Whitehall beat Watkins Memorial (with three, three-setters); Upper Arlington-B defeated Worthington Kilbourne; Bloom-Carroll over Hamilton Township; and Newark defeated Granville.

Among the top players, New Albany's Meghan Buell defeated Watterson's Lauren Ghidotti and Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power beat Dublin Scioto's Kylie McGinnis.

I would expect that there will be a few rain-out make-ups tonight. Those matches scheduled include: Worthington Christian vs. Westerville North and Watterson vs. Columbus Academy.

Today's free, full-access school is Whitehall.

September 29, 2010: The rain held off long enough for 14 matches to be played.  Close matches included: Bishop Hartley over Columbus School for Girls; Worthington Christian beat New Albany-B; Pickerington North defeated Upper Arlington-B; and Logan Elm beat Teays Valley.

Among the top players, Upper Arlington's Niki Flower defeated Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya.

ACE REPORT

Hartley's Natalie Seiffert made it clear to me why she leads the ace count on the ACE Report. I was there last night when she earned eight aces in her three set singles match. Coaches, if your players are hitting aces, please enter them here after registering.

Interesting matches tonight include: Watterson vs. New Albany and Pickerington Central vs. Dublin Scioto.

Today's free, full-access school is New Albany.

September 28, 2010: There was one match reported last night. Grove City beat Circleville. Today's weather could be equally damp.

Yesterday, rosters were added to the enhanced Team Reports that members and registered coaches see. I will be providing registered coaches with a way to modify these rosters within the next few days. Parents and players, if you might be interested in playing college tennis, please make sure that your coach indicates your interest level (especially in the Ohio-area Division III programs).

Today's free, full-access school is Grove City.

September 27, 2010: The draws are out. They are available here. The Central District looks strong again this year.

Tennis activity was light over the weekend. Hartley won the Wellington Invitational.

Interesting matches tonight include: Hilliard Davidson vs. Pickerington Central and Upper Arlington vs. Columbus Academy.

I have placed the rosters for many of the teams on the Girls Team Reports. Only registered coaches and members will be able to see these. The plan with these is to get a list of juniors and seniors that can be shared with Ohio-area college coaches for recruiting purposes. Parents / players, if your coach has not yet registered (again, it's free), please urge him/her to do so. It could benefit you. Members and Coaches, please login to see the rosters.

September 26, 2010: Only two matches were reported yesterday -- Walsh Jesuit beat Columbus Academy, and Hilliard Bradley beat Worthington Christian to advance in OTCA play.

The Sectional Draws are today. The plan is to have them online tonight.

For those of you who are Gerber Analytics, LLC members and/or registered coaches, watch for a change in the Girls Team Reports later this morning [now available]. The rosters for many of the Central Ohio teams will be listed. Those coaches who have not yet registered, click here. There is no cost.

September 25, 2010: Walsh Jesuit beat Olentangy Liberty, 4-1, in a very good match. It had three, three-setters. Watterson also beat Olentangy Orange to progress in the OTCA tournament.

On My List of Central Ohio's Top Players, Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford beat Watterson's Lauren Shepherd, and Walsh Jesuit's Reed beat Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power. There were also changes made to the order of the girls on the Top Singles Players list. Please note that Worthington Kilbourne's Kristin Cellentani and Grove City's Ashley Artrip were added to the Watch List.

Upper Arlington and Dublin Jerome will be in matches today.

September 24, 2010: There were numerous 3-2 matches last night. Eastmoor Academy beat Marion Franklin; Northland defeated Beechcroft; Watterson beat Pickerington Central; Lancaster defeated Chillicothe; and Upper Arlington-B beat Olentangy Liberty.

Within my top list, Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya beat Watterson's Lauren Ghidotti in three sets and Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai defeated Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein.

Olentangy Liberty is scheduled to play Walsh Jesuit tonight. There might be additional matches that were recently rained out.

The Sectional draws are on Sunday. I have created My Top List for several seasons and this particular season is very hard to figure out. There have been a large number of injuries and fluctuating line-ups (likely due to these injuries). I will make another round of changes to my lists before Sunday. More so than in previous seasons, please focus on the major wins and losses of each player. You have the same information that I have (especially if you are a member of Gerber Analytics) and the ranking of your list may be very different than mine.

Today's free, full-access school is Northland.

September 23, 2010: Only two matches due to the storm - Whetstone beat Walnut Ridge and Westerville South beat Centennial.

Tonight's big matches include: Dublin Jerome vs. Hilliard Bradley; Watterson vs. Pickerington Central; and Reynoldsburg vs. Worthington Kilbourne.

Today's free, full-access school is Westerville South.

September 22, 2010: The first state tennis poll is out. It is available here from the Dispatch.

It was a huge tennis night with 23 matches being played. There were just two 3-2 matches. Centennial beat Beechcroft and Whitehall defeated Bloom-Carroll.

There was just one match that included girls on my Top Players List -- Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein beat Taylor Todd of Westerville Central.

Interesting matches tonight include: Hilliard Bradley vs. Bexley; Dublin Jerome vs. New Albany; and Columbus Academy vs. Columbus School for Girls.

The Ace Report is starting to roll. Lauren Thai and Rachael Morales have the early lead. Coaches, it takes just a minute to enter these and I will continue to streamline and improve the entry process. Please send me an email if you have questions on how to get started. I can also set it up so that you can have one of your parents enter the data. Since this is a new report, I am also going to continue to tweak the report's contents. Please submit a Feedback if you have any suggestions.

For being the second to enter data in the Ace Report, Hilliard Bradley is today's free, full-access school.

September 21, 2010: Activity was relatively light last night. Pickerington Central beat Dublin Coffman to advance in the OTCA. That 3-2 match had two, three-setters. Central Crossing also beat Whitehall, 3-2.

In individual matches, Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya beat Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan.

The poll question, "Which school has the best team in Division 1?", resulted in a tie with both Dublin Jerome and Upper Arlington each receiving nine votes.

Tonight's matches will include: Grove City vs. Pickerington North; New Albany vs. Columbus Academy; Worthington Kilbourne vs. Thomas Worthington; and Pickerington Central vs. Reynoldsburg.

Bishop Hartley will be today's free, full-access school for being the first school to contribute to the Ace Report. After a few days, the plan is to add the number of Aces to the Top Players List.

September 20, 2010:

How many times have you seen something like this in the Dispatch?

High school football coaches and/or statisticians are asked to e-mail sports@dispatch.com or sblackledge@dispatch.com, or fax 614-461-8798 by 4 p.m. each Monday throughout the regular season with cumulative team leaders. Categories are rushing yards, passing yards, receptions, scoring, kick scoring, punting and interceptions.

Football, basketball, and baseball/softball players all have their own statistics to recognize their players. While it would be hard to do this type of thing for all of the important tennis statistics, it has always bothered me that we haven't done more. Beginning today, I will start to address this for one popular tennis statistic - aces. I thought that the number of aces would be a great place to start with the statistics because they are memorable, they're important, and they can be improved upon with hard work. Coaches may now record the number of aces that their players served during a match and that information will be available in real-time on the Gerber Analytics web site.

To see the report with sample data [now, real!] , click here. A detailed report is available for each player by clicking on a player's name.

Please view this as "for fun" for the rest of the girls season. I will recognize the top servers who are reported but I don't expect some of the coaches to participate. However, this report may become very popular during the boys season.

For those coaches who are outside of the central Ohio area who are visiting this site, your team may also be part of the Ace report. Just send me a note via Feedback.

September 19, 2010: Saturday matches included Upper Arlington and Dublin Jerome both beating Perrysburg and Massillon Jackson. Lexington beat Hilliard Bradley, 3-2.

In individual play, Lauren Thai beat Lancaster's Courtney Earnest in a three sets. Ashley Thai beat Alisha Angle. Both Niki Flower and Sarah Stein beat Massillon Jackson's Trisha Conlan.

Today's free, full-access school is Hilliard Bradley.

September 18, 2010: Just two matches last night -- Hilliard Bradley beat Delaware Hayes and Worthington Christian beat DeSales.

It is a shame that more schools are not playing today, but there are several good matches slated. Those teams playing today include: Upper Arlington, Dublin Jerome, Lexington, Hilliard Bradley, Grandview, Westerville South, Whetstone, and Newark.

I moved a few players around on My Central Ohio Top Players List. I will likely add more girls to the Watch List next week.

Delaware Hayes is my free, full-access school.

September 17, 2010: Obviously the rain eliminated most of the matches yesterday. The six teams that played had the following results: Pickerington North beat Chillicothe (3-2); Eastmoor Academy defeated Northland; and Whetstone defeated Beechcroft.

There are a couple of matches scheduled tonight (UA-B vs. Massillon Jackson and Watkins Memorial vs. Whetstone) and perhaps a few more that have been rained out. Grandview has their invitational tomorrow.

Eastmoor Academy is my free, full-access school.

I'll revamp My Top Players List over the weekend.

Some fun stuff is coming.

September 16, 2010: The homework hampering match of the day was Dublin Scioto vs. Chillicothe. Dublin Scioto won 3-2 with three, three-set matches. Other 3-2 scores were: Reynoldsburg beat New Albany-B (two, three-setters) and Dublin Coffman beat Pickerington North.

In individual matches, Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein and Lauren Bellinger beat Worthington Kilbourne's Kristin Cellentani and Claire Metka, respectively.

Tonight's fun matches should include: Watterson vs. Dublin Jerome; Dublin Coffman vs. Olentangy Orange; Worthington Christian vs. Worthington Kilbourne; and Bexley vs. Columbus Academy.

Today's free, full-access school is Worthington Kilbourne.

September 15, 2010: There were several close matches last night. Worthington Christian beat Columbus School for Girls, 3-2. This match included two, three-setters. Other 3-2 matches included: Independence over Africentric and Olentangy Liberty over Westerville Central.

There were numerous big individual matches last night. They included: Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai beat Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford; Hartley's Rachael Morales defeated Watterson's Katie Shepherd; Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power beat Westerville Central's Taylor Todd; and Dublin Coffman Ash Thenappan defeated Worthington Kilbourne's Kristin Cellentani.

Pickerington Central plays Bexley tonight. Other interesting matches include: Pickerington North vs. Dublin Coffman and Dublin Scioto vs. Chillicothe.

Today's free, full-access school is Dublin Coffman.

September 14, 2010: Please welcome Elysium Tennis as an advertiser on Gerber Analytics, LLC. Elysium is the area's newest tennis facility and they provide instruction for a significant number of juniors on My Top Central Ohio Players Lists. Elysium has also hosted a number of area tournaments, including last year's Ohio High School Girls State Tournament.

As part of the arrangement with Elysium (and Olympic Indoor), you'll see small graphical placements beside the names of the players on my top players and college lists. While these placements help the clubs showcase their players, they are also beneficial to college coaches as an important source of information and as a point-of-contact about a potential recruit.

In the great matches department, Worthington Christian beat Bexley, 3-2, with two, three-setters. Other 3-2 matches included: Hartley beat Teays Valley; Hilliard Bradley defeated Columbus Academy; and Grove City beat Westerville North.

Among the top players, Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya beat Westerville Central's Taylor Todd;

Tonight will be a big tennis night. Matches to watch include: Hilliard Bradley vs. Olentangy Orange; Dublin Coffman vs. Worthington Kilbourne; Olentangy Liberty vs. Westerville Central; and Hartley vs. Watterson.

Today's free, full-access school is Bishop Hartley.

September 13, 2010: Since there were no matches to enter yesterday, I made a few changes to the look of the tennis area. Please don't panic though - it still utilizes that beautiful gray and black color palette. You might notice a change or two in the menu navigation and I removed the "blank" pictures from the team reports. Please note that I am still accepting team pictures, but I don't want to allocate that much space for pictures that aren't there.

Interesting matches today include: Pickerington Central vs. Westerville Central; Hilliard Bradley vs. Columbus Academy; and Worthington Christian vs. Bexley.

Today's free, full-access school is Worthington Christian.

September 12, 2010: There were two doubles tournaments yesterday. Olentangy Orange won the Reynoldsburg Doubles Classic and Worthington Kilbourne won the 9-11 Memorial Doubles Tournament at Hilliard Davidson.

Among the top players, Watterson's Ghidotti and Shepherd both had a couple of losses against Cincinnati area teams.

Today's free, full-access school is Hilliard Davidson.

September 11, 2010: Just three matches last night but all were close, 3-2 matches. Gahanna beat Grove City; Bexley beat Reynoldsburg; and Kenston beat Columbus Academy.

Three sophomores - Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai, DeSales' My Linh Li, and Hartley's Rachael Morales - are essentially in a tie for second place on My List of Central Ohio's Top Players. Matches next Tuesday and Wednesday will hopefully help sort this out.

Today's free, full-access school is Reynoldsburg.

September 10, 2010: Grove City beat Hilliard Davidson-B in a match that included four, three-setters). Other 3-2 matches included: Whetstone defeated West 3-2; Hartley beat Hilliard Bradley; Marion-Franklin beat Centennial; Olentangy Orange beat Olentangy Liberty; and Ready defeated Fisher Catholic.

Matches involving the top area players included: Hartley's Morales beat Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai; Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford beat Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power.

Reynoldsburg and Hilliard Davidson both have doubles tournaments this weekend.

Today's free, full-access school is Olentangy Orange.

September 9: Just one close match as UA-B beat Olentangy Orange, 3-2.

In individual matches, Westerville North's Abigail Lewis beat UA's Elaine Cloern and Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya beat Worthington Kilbourne's Kristin Cellentani.

Interesting match-ups tonight include: Hilliard Bradley vs. Hartley; West vs. Whetstone; Dublin Jerome vs. DeSales; and Pickerington North vs. Hilliard Davidson.

Pickerington North is today's free, full-access school.

September 8: It looks as if there were a few rainouts yesterday. There were just two close matches -- Reynoldsburg beat Groveport and Marion-Franklin defeated Northland.

Interesting matches tonight include Worthington Kilbourne vs. Pickerington Central and Watterson vs. Bexley. [Note: Watterson vs. Bexley was rescheduled for 9/27.]

As a data guy, I'm always trying to find ways to represent data in unique ways. IBM has introduced an interesting graphical approach to cover a tennis match. It's best to look at this graph while a match is occurring but if you can't do that, check out the tutorial. The link is here.

I made changes to the system infrastructure yesterday and will make more today. You should not notice any changes but if anything appears amiss, please submit a Feedback.

Bexley is today's free, full-access school.

September 7: Interesting matches tonight include Watterson vs. DeSales; West vs. Briggs; Hilliard Davidson vs. Dublin Coffman; and Hartley vs. Worthington Christian.

September 5: Most of the girls tennis programs took the holiday weekend off but not Upper Arlington and Dublin Jerome. Both beat Cuyahoga Fall Walsh Jesuit 5-0. Academy also played, beating Kettering Alter, 3-2, with three, three setters.

Pickerington North had their invitational. Bexley's Maddie Morton won the singles crown.

September 4, 2010: There were no matches on Friday.

I have adjusted My List of Central Ohio's Top Players to reflect last week's contests. I also added Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya to my Watch List.

September 3, 2010: There were numerous close matches last night. They included: Briggs over Marion-Franklin (included three three setters); Westerville Central over Davidson; Reynoldsburg over Dublin Scioto; Westerville South over Watkins Memorial; and Lancaster over Athens.

There was just one match involving players on my top list. It was Watterson's Lauren Ghidotti over Coffman's Ash Thenappan.

Westerville Central gave me their picture and they are today's free, full-access school.

September 2, 2010: Last night's tightly contested matches included: Upper Arlington beating Dublin Jerome; New Albany defeating Dublin Coffman; and Columbus School for Girls beating Bexley.

In the My List of Top Players matches, UA's Niki Flower beat Jerome's Lauren Bellinger.

In my never-ending search for membership sign-ups, I've got another idea. Clearly those of you who have signed-up perceive some value in having this website around for this year and possibly even next year. So... I need your help to get more sign-ups. For those members who get Gerber Analytics, LLC five paying sign-ups by the end of girls season, you get a free Gerber Analytics t-shirt. What does the shirt look like? I really have no idea. Even though I have no graphics ability (after all this is a gray and black website), this t-shirt will look reasonably nice because I'll want to wear it in public, too. To get credit for the membership, just have the person enter his/her name in the new, "Who talked you into signing up?" box in the sign-up form. It's really that easy. Send me a Feedback if you have any questions. If you are thinking about getting your membership first, so that you can talk others into joining, then I like how you think. Just click here to go to sign-up.

Please keep those pictures coming. Upper Arlington submitted their picture yesterday and they are today's free, full-access school.

September 1, 2010: There were over 20 matches last night. Two of the closer matches were Lancaster over Reynoldsburg and Kilbourne over Davidson.

DeSales' My Linh Li won a close match against Hartley's Rachael Morales.

Last night did not have many marquee line-ups. Tonight will be different. Dublin Jerome plays Upper Arlington and Dublin Coffman plays New Albany.

Today's free, full-access school is Dublin Jerome.

August 31, 2010: West and Whetstone helped their standings in yesterday's poll by defeating Centennial and Briggs, respectively.

In individual play, DeSales' My Linh Li beat West Holmes' Rachael Nelson and Orange's Anna Sanford beat Liberty's Sydney Power.

Today's free, full-access school is Whetstone.

August 30, 2010: The first poll of the girls season is posted. [It was "Which school will win the City League this year?". Whetstone won 50% of the vote. West received 40% and Briggs 10%.]

Some tennis fans follow both the girls and boys of each school. To make it a bit easier to move from one to the other, a new link has been added to the girls and boys pages. For an example, click here.

I made a few changes to My Top List. As you may recall from earlier lists, I do not immediately place the younger players above the upperclassmen after a big win. There is plenty of time to fine-tune this list prior to the Sectional draws so my changes will be gradual. Please be aware that if I am aware of an injury situation, that is also considered. I'll be adding more players to the Watch List within another week or two. The Doubles list will take a bit longer.

Most of the pictures that I have included are ones that I have taken. Parents, please help me out and send me a picture of the team. Just send me a note in feedback if you have a picture.

I plan to make available full access to one team each day to encourage users to sign-up for a membership. Today's team is Watterson.

August 29, 2010: The tennis matched the weather yesterday - both were great. There were numerous invitationals and two big matches involving Lexington. Both Dublin Jerome and Upper Arlington beat Lexington, winning 5-0 and 4-1, respectively. The Jerome / UA match is going to be very interesting.

In individual match-ups, Lexington's Earnest got beat by both UA's Niki Flower and Jerome's Lauren Bellinger. Other big match-ups included: Lauren Thai beat Meghan Buell, Maddie Morton, and Ash Thenappan; Ashley Thai beat Katie Shepherd; Rachael Morales beat Anna Sanford; Maddie Morton beat Lauren Ghidotti; and Lauren Ghidotti beat Ash Thenappan.

The Watterson Invitational took place at the Park of Roses. Bradley edged out New Albany to win the event. There are two new pictures online: Hilliard Bradley and Bexley. Also note that the results for all of the Watterson Invitational matches are online.

August 28, 2010: It was very slow tennis day with just two matches - Worthington Christian beat Wellington and Chillicothe beat UA-B (from Thursday).

I'll be at the Watterson tournament today. If you would like an updated online picture of your team, please let me know.

August 27, 2010: In dual matches, Dublin Scioto narrowly beat Big Walnut, 3-2, with two three-setters.

Individual matches included: Orange's Anna Sanford beat Jerome's Lauren Bellinger and Watterson's Katie Shepherd defeated Kilbourne's Claire Metka,

The paywall will launch during the lunch hour. For those who have memberships, it is suggested that you Login when you first arrive at the website for the best user experience. For those without a membership, you will still be able to obtain a sizable amount of information, but not all of the results of which you are accustomed.

Please also be aware that there is a group plan available where your team gets ten 6x8 team pictures and five memberships for $79.95. This will also be the online picture that appears for your team. For more information, please go to the sign-up area.

Also effective today, the team reports for the boys will no longer be behind the paywall.

Please feel free to leave a feedback message if you have any questions.

August 25, 2010: Close dual matches included: Wellington over Hartley, Groveport over Grove City, and Lancaster beating Gahanna..

In individual match-ups, Bradley's Lauren Thai defeated DeSales' My Linh Li in a three-setter, Westerville North's Abigail Lewis beat Westerville Central's Taylor Todd in a three-setter, Jerome's Lauren Bellinger beat Liberty's Sydney Power, UA's Niki Flower beat Kilbourne's Kristin Cellentani, and UA's Elaine Cloern beat Kilbourne's Claire Metka.

The paywall will go up on Thursday around lunch time. A membership to Gerber Analytics, LLC's tennis data would make a great Valentine's Day gift for that truly special someone.

August 24, 2010: Tennis for the City League Schools is now underway with Marion-Franklin, West, Eastmoor, and Whetstone winning last night. Liberty also beat Davidson in a tightly contested match.

Individual match-ups of the area's top players included Bexley's Maddie Morton defeating Coffman's Ash Thenappan, Meghan Buell beating Chillicothe's Georgia Bennett, and Liberty's Sydney Power beating Davidson's Mackenzie Donalson.

Interesting match-ups for tonight include: Davidson vs. Thomas Worthington, UA vs. Kilbourne, Liberty vs. Jerome, Pickerington Central vs. Pickerington North, and Westerville Central vs. Westerville North.

Even though it is already noted, please always confirm the match time and location with a player or coach before you travel to one of the scheduled matches. This data is subject to change and / or it could simply be listed incorrectly. ThisWeek News and the coaches are the main sources for this information. For example, I noticed that Kilbourne was slated to play in the Watterson Invitational on Wednesday, which was clearly a mistake. (Kilbourne will play a home match against Watterson on Wednesday.) Again, please always check.

August 23, 2010: With over 20 matches [should have said "teams" rather than "matches"] scheduled for tonight, the season is now up to full speed. This will be the first evening that all of the City League Schools will be playing.

Most of the schedules are online. There was a hick-up with the City League School's tennis schedules that I am trying to get resolved so they will be added as soon as possible.

Pictures for some of the teams participating in the Columbus School for Girls - Davis Cup Invitational are available via these links: Bishop Hartley, Bishop Watterson (Varsity A), Bishop Watterson (Varsity B), Columbus School for Girls, and Pickerington Central. Coaches, please send me an email with the names if you would like the names to be included. If your school is participating in the Bishop Watterson Invitational this coming weekend, I would be happy to take your team's picture at this event.

I wanted to give more teams the opportunity to play before setting up the paywall. I'll get to it this week. Thank you to those who have already signed-up.

August 21, 2010: The number of matches are starting to pick up speed. Please note that I also included a few matches from Thursday that had been unreported in the newspaper.

Among the top players, Toledo Central Catholic's Delp defeated Buell yesterday.

Most of the kick-off news articles are now online from ThisWeek News. Later today (especially if we get rained out), I should have the schedules online.

Note that I normally have my camera with me so if you see me at a match and want me to get a picture that I can place online, please let me know.

August 20, 2010: I wanted to get the results out from last night but I will be tweaking the site most of the day. The big match from last night was Lauren Thai beating Meghan Buell in a three setter.

At some point today, I will release My List of Central Ohio's Top Players for this season. If this is your first exposure to this list, please be aware that I use a combination of USTA head-to-head results and TennisRecruiting.net rankings to determine the first edition. After the high school season kicks into gear, I only use high school results. This makes sense from two perspectives: it is high school season and some players perform better in the team environment where they benefit from coaching and the camaraderie of their teammates.

All losses and any "wins" that I consider to be major will be listed. Note that I also care about the scores of the wins and losses. My list may differ from yours but the key is that we should both be looking at the same information. There will always be situations where pesky players purposely try to ruin my list. This occurs when Player A beats Player B who beats Player C who beats Player A.

Players can remain the Watch List for the entire season, especially if they don't receive quality matches. Also be aware that I am maintaining a watch list for the Watch List.

If a Top List or Watch List player is primarily playing doubles, she will eventually be moved to the Doubles List.

My goal is to get players within three or four spots of where they really should be.

Coaches, if I'm missing someone, please let me know.

August 19, 2010: Both New Albany and Pickerington Central were beaten by Hudson yesterday by the same 3-2 score. Worthington Kilbourne beat Chillicothe in a close match. Columbus Academy was defeated in two close matches by two Cincinnati teams.

Hudson's Bastock defeated both New Albany's Buell and Pickerington Central's Raya. Both matches were three setters.

The big switch to 2010 occurs tomorrow. The "paywall" (where users must become a member to Gerber Analytics, LLC to view all matches) will likely occur tomorrow afternoon. For more information about becoming a member, please click here to go to the sign-up area.

August 18, 2010: The good matches have started. Watterson beat Hilliard Bradley, 3-2, but Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai and Ashley Thai both won their matches versus Shepherd and Brown, respectively. New Albany beat Pickerington Central with New Albany's Buell beating Raya.

The new My List of Central Ohio's Top Players will be released on Friday.

August 17, 2010: The season is starting to roll. There were six matches yesterday. Ottawa Hills looks like a contender by beating Columbus Academy, 3-2.

Note that I will be removing the 2009 season data as I roll in 2010. I will continue to include the 2009 data for about three or four days because it provides a smoother transition into the 2010 season. Just ignore the team won / lost records.

Also note that I will be substantially reducing the number of players in My List of Central Ohio's Top Players. (This is the list from last season). I'll focus on the Top List first (with ~20 players), then the Watch List. The doubles players will be slowly added later. This is the approach that I used with the boys.

Just a couple of season-preview news articles have been posted by ThisWeek Community Newspapers. These are great articles, and as they become available, I will link to them. I do not know all of the writers so please make sure that they are aware that they will receive free memberships to Gerber Analytics to assist them with their articles. I want to make it as easy as possible for them to gather information about our players.

Thanks to the coaches who have sent their schedules to me. This data will be entered over the next couple of days.

August 11, 2010: We have several Central Ohio players in the USTA National Championships. These are highly prestigious events. The boys event is held in Kalamazoo, Michigan and the girls in San Diego, California. Competing in the boys event is Chris Diaz and the girls event includes Niki Flower and Meghan Buell. Congratulations to these players.

August 9, 2010: Welcome to the girls tennis season. The membership sign-up process is now "live" and you may go ahead and join if you wish. If you have any questions, please send me a feedback message by clicking here. There are discounts available so please make sure that you read the "frequently asked questions". To proceed to the sign-up area, please click here.

July 23, 2010: Please read this first. I am testing the process that will permit me to charge users $15 for this tennis site for the girls season. Please be aware that there will be a substantial amount of information that will remain "free" including the top players list, the college list, and the two most recent matches on the team report. For the non-member version of Reynoldsburg, please click here. To see how the member version of St. Charles would look, click here.

If you are interested in obtaining full season results from the most recent boys season, please click here, or click on the button on the right navigation bar to go to the new sign-up process. This area will also provide you with the complete plans for the upcoming girls season.

As a benefit to the indoor clubs that become sponsors, I will give their customers a $5 membership discount. I will be approaching the indoor club managers in the next few days to determine their interest in sponsoring this web site. Thanks to Olympic Indoor Tennis for agreeing to be a sponsor for the 2010 girls season.

If you have any questions or comments, please enter a feedback form.

July 1, 2010: After the Closed is finished, I will limit the number of updates to this blog. I need to implement changes that are longer-term in nature and the daily updates are too distracting (to a person who is already easily distracted). If you want to be informed of updates to this site, please enter your name and email address to the feedback form. It is located here.

One of the big changes that I need to address is how the site is monetized. I thought that I would receive substantial sponsorship interest from the indoor clubs (because they have the most to gain from this site) but that largely did not materialize.

The Ohio Graduation Test data will remain free.

There are two Central players who remain in the Midwest Closed. They are Chris Diaz and Niki Flower. As you view the table, the more matches a player had (i.e. Done-4), then the better the tournament for that player. However, please keep in mind that it was a bit easier to lose a match early in the front draw and then progress through the backdraw. Also note that some draws are much harder than others. Click here to go to the table.

Please keep in mind that there are more COGP tournaments coming up, including the Columbus Academy Open which will be held from July 12-18. Click here to go to the entry area for The Columbus Academy Open. Click here to go to the Central Ohio Grand Prix site. It is best to submit your entry via the COGP site. You can list any summer conflicts that you have and you can save $3.

June 30, 2010: There were a few surprises from yesterday's action. Central has no boys or girls left in the front draws. Diaz, Metka, and Wagner still remain in the B18's. No Central boys are left in the B16's. Flower and Kobelt remain in the G18's while Morales and Lauren Thai are still in the G16's. Click here to go to the table. Please note that those remaining are listed in red.

Cincinnati's Zach Mueck and Joey Fritz are both in the quarterfinals.

June 29, 2010: The Midwest Closed continues to progress. Diaz, Metka, Wagner, and Weldon are still in the B18's with Diaz and Metka in the front draw. Just Stu Little is left in the B16's. In the G18's, Crouser, Flower, Kobelt, and Utkin remain, with Kobelt still in the front draw. Morales is the only girl left in the front draw in G16's and Cloern, Li, Morton, Stein, Lauren Thai, and Thenappan remain in the backdraw. Click here to go to the table..

The boys in the 16's need to keep working hard if they are going to keep up with the pace set by Central's B18, G18, and G16's. They will also need to contend with the boys coming up behind them in the 14's. These boys include Stephen Miller, Joel Montgomery, Jeffrey Melvin, and C.J. Cash. Montgomery is still in the front draw.

June 28, 2010: Central players are doing well at the Closed. We have many in the front draw, a few more than that in the back draw, and just a few who are on the way home. To get an update on each player, please refer to the table below. FD indicates still in the front draw. BD means still in the backdraw. Done-2 means that a player is finished and the total number of singles matches that he/she played. Please note that this is a rather unique tournament because it is a "feed-in-consolation", which means that all players keep playing until they get two losses. In the table below, those in the front draw are indicated in red. Click here to go to the table.

In doubles, Metka-Weldon, Diaz-Wagner, and Niki Flower-Minor are in the quarterfinals. Maddie Kobelt-Kopenski are in the semi-finals.

Midwest Closed Draws
Boys	Girls
B14	G14
B16	G16
B18	G18

June 26, 2010: Links to the Midwest Closed draws are to the right. Play will start Saturday morning. This is a phenomenally tough tournament and many of the top seeds in the 18's will be going to highly regarded universities. Wish our kids "good luck".

 

 

Location	Elevation
Hilliard Davidson	817
Ohio Stadium - Press Box Roof	774
Upper Arlington	682
Columbus School for Girls - Kirk Campus Tennis Courts	636
OSU Stickney Courts	623
Ohio Stadium	591

June 24, 2010: To me and many others, it has always seemed windier at Hilliard Davidson's tennis courts than at any other tennis venue. Now I think I've got the reason why. It's the elevation.

Have you ever been to an OSU football game and seen the completely outstretched flags at the top of the stadium when it's not that windy outside of the stadium? Be happy that you are watching football and not playing tennis at Hilliard Davidson. That's because the elevation is similar. In fact, the elevation of the Hilliard Davidson's courts are 40 feet higher than the OSU press box roof.

Why is this more than just a passing curiosity? It is important to the Central District because Central uses Hilliard Davidson as the major site in determining D1 players for States. Typically, players with a defensive playing style do better in the wind. Unfortunately for Central, the Stickney Courts are not "wind" courts. They are at a lower elevation plus they are further protected by trees and buildings. The best situation for Central would be to use the Stickney Courts for Districts. If they aren't available, Central should use courts that are most similar to the Stickney Courts. Is UA available for the D1 Districts?

Boys
Boys 18	School	Boys 16	School
Benalcazar, Beni	UA (Done-3)	Little, Stu	UA (Done-4)
Cempre, Casey	Thomas Worthington (Done-3)	Seitz, Kent	Dublin Jerome (Done-3)
Diaz, Chris	Watterson (BD)	Sybert, Oliver	New Albany (Done-4)
Metka, Kevin	Worthington Kilbourne (Done-5)	Teague, Canyon	Gahanna (Done-3)
Thai, Doh	Ready (Done-2)	Wallace, Nate	UA (Done-3)
Wagner, Ian	Wellington (BD)	Wareti, Matt	Bexley (Done-4)
Weldon, Billy	UA (Done-5)
Girls
Girls 18	School	Girls 16	School
Buell, Meghan	New Albany (Done-3)	Bellinger, Lauren	Dublin Jerome (Done-3)
Crouser, Nisha	Wellington (Done-4)	Cloern, Elaine	UA (Done-4)
Easdale, Cailey	Dublin Jerome (Done-2)	Li, My Linh	DeSales (Done-6)
Flower, Niki	UA (BD)	Metka, Claire	Unknown (Done-3)
Kobelt, Maddie	New Albany (Done-6)	Morales, Rachael	Hartley (Done-6)
Lewis, Abigail	Westerville North (Done-3)	Morton, Madison	Bexley (Done-4)
Ott, Olivia	Watterson (Done-2)	Shepherd, Katie	Watterson (Done-3)
Stevens, Maureen	Watterson (Done-3)	Stein, Sarah	Dublin Jerome (Done-4)
Utkin, Lydia	Dublin Jerome (Done-5)	Thai, Ashley	Hilliard Darby (Done-2)
		Thai, Lauren	Hilliard Darby (Done-7)
		Thenappan, Ashwatha	Dublin Coffman (Done-5)

June 23, 2010: Congratulations to the players who qualified for the Midwest Closed. They are in the table to the right. There are 128 players in each division. Chris Diaz is seeded fourth in the Boys 18 and Kevin Metka is seeded 17th. Niki Flower is seeded 21, Maddie Kobelt - 26th, and Nisha Crouser - 30th.

In the Boys 16, Stu Little is seeded 30th. In the Girls 16, Lauren Thai is seeded 25th, My Linh Thai - 26, and Rachael Morales - 28.

As is obvious with the seeding numbers, the Midwest Closed is an extremely tough tournament with the best players from Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and West Virginia participating. The local players who do well in the Closed go on to play in the National Championships.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Player	Area of Residence / School
Courtney Brown	Dublin
Lauren Ghidotti	Dublin
Jeffrey Melvin	Upper Arlington
Claire Metka	Worthington
Stephen Miller	New Albany
Joel Montgomery	Powell
Sydney Power	Olentangy Liberty
Anna Sanford	Olentangy Orange

June 19, 2010: Some coaches will be pleasantly surprised when one of the better area tournament players show up at their school. Below is a list of the incoming freshmen who may be able to quickly contribute. Please note that the area in which the players live may not be the school in which they attend.

Also note that being on this list is not critical. Kevin Metka would not have been on this list as an incoming freshman, and he did just fine. The list is in alphabetical order.

Clicking on the player's name will take you to his / her information on TennisRecruiting.net.

Boys	Girls
B12	G12
B14	G14
B16	G16
B18	G18

June 16, 2010: The Midwest Qualifiers are finished. The Central players did very well. Chris Diaz won the B18's by beating Jimmy Roebker 1, 3. Niki Flower won the G18's by beating Alyssa Ritchie 0, 0.

In the backdraws there were a number of interesting matches. In a repeat of the state finals, Metka beat Mueck 1, 4. Matthew Wareti beat Stu Little 5, 4 and Kent Seitz 5, 4. My Linh Li (DeSales) beat Madison Cook (Kentucky) for 3rd in the G16's. Sarah Stein (Jerome) beat Rachael Morales (Hartley) 2-6, 6-4, 1-0.

In the B16's and G16's Central didn't fare quite as well as the Southwest.

June 15, 2010: Some of the big matches from yesterday's B18 Midwest Qualifier include: Fritz beat Metka; R.Bandy beat Weldon; Diaz beat R.Bandy; and Roebker (Kentucky HS player headed for Xavier) beat Fritz; Wagner beat Benalcazar; Reinhart beat Thai.

Diaz plays Roebker today for the B18 championship. Also playing today are: Weldon versus Wagner; Reinhart versus Metka; and Cempre versus Mueck.

In G18's, Flower beat Kobelt. Flower is in the finals against Ritchie today.

I also have a correction. Even though it's a USTA tournament, the Ohio Valley Tennis Association (OVTA) is taking responsibility for not having adequate facilities to insure that the Boys 16 age group could play a real match, instead of an eight game pro set. Let's hope that the best 16 boys made it to the Closed from the OVTA. Due to the unfortunate points-per-round system, the points awarded for a Closed "win" are phenominally important to a player's success. If a player doesn't make it to the Closed, then he can't get those points and he might not have enough points to get into important tournaments later in the season.

For those of you who are high school coaches, believe me, you don't want to understand anything about the points-per-round system. Please just be aware that many tennis players and their parents go through a great deal of anguish and cash during the summer, fall, and winter dealing with it. For more information than you want about the USTA and its point system, click here to read the USTA-related documents. (Please don't read them. Instead, take your dog for a walk. If you don't have a dog, this is a good reason to buy one.)

June 14, 2010: Amazingly, the USTA used an eight game pro set for the first two rounds of the Boys 16 age group because of the rain and the lack of indoor facilities. If an area doesn't have indoor facilities, then why is the tournament scheduled for that location? Central boys still in the B16 main draw are Little and Wareti.

In the B18 draw, Fritz beat Nakayama; Metka beat Abunku (Lakota); Roebker beat Benalcazar; Mueck beat Wagner; Weldon beat Sherba; R.Bandy beat Cempre; and Diaz beat Thai. Metka and Fritz (the D2 runner-up) will be an interesting match today.

June 13, 2010: The rain hampered play today in the Midwest Qualifiers. I am going to mix in a few of the girls' matches since that is the next season coming up. Some of the bigger matches included: Nakayama beat Andy Jackson; Nisha Crouser beat Maureen Stevens; Corinne Rauck beat Meghan Buell; and Elaine Cloern beat Ashley Thai.

June 12, 2010: The Midwest Qualifier draws are out for the 16's and 18's in both genders. (See below for links.) Not to jinx anyone, but some possible match-ups in the quarterfinal and R16 rounds include: Metka vs. Fritz; Wagner vs. Mueck; Cempre vs. R.Bandy; and Reinhart vs. Diaz.

June 11, 2010: I'm continuing to work on the Four Equal Districts project and I am starting to receive feedback from the wrestlers. Again, keeping in mind that wrestling and tennis are very similar, here are two maps that I've created for the wrestlers to help them understand what I'm up to. (Each map is clickable.) The first map represents every school that sends a wrestler to States. Note how there are overlaps because of Wrestlings' three divisions. Also note how some counties are split. The second map represents each school that had a champion or runner-up. (Some schools had several Champs/Runner-ups.)

What I think is fascinating about the maps is that while Northeast Ohio is a major power in Wrestling, it appears that they are doing what's best for the sport by sending some of their good teams to the Northwest so they can have balanced Districts. Also note that the Southeast is also having problems with Wrestling, but instead of using a quota system approach of insuring that they have "representation at States", the Wrestlers are making them earn it. To thank all wrestlers for having common sense and a logical approach to high school sports, I was going to suggest that we make this a "Hug a Wrestler Day", but that's probably not a good idea.

Good luck at the next round of USTA qualifiers.

June 10, 2010: The biggest matches of the year are coming for the high school players who are playing tournaments in the USTA. Those who qualified in the previous round will start play this weekend throughout the Ohio Valley area, which includes Cincinnati, Dayton, Springfield, Columbus, and parts of West Virginia. Those who do exceptionally well will get to participate in the most prestigious tournament in the Midwest Section, called the Midwest Closed.

The Girls who are 16 and under are playing at the Upper Arlington courts. The other age groups are playing out-of-town in Huntington, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Parkersburg.

The Central District is well represented. To check out which players on your team are playing, please click on the links above. The G18 Girls draw is already listed and the other draws will be posted by Saturday morning.

School	# 3 Setters	Wins	Losses	3 Set Winning %
Hartley	13	11	2	85%
Village Academy	16	12	4	75%
Hilliard Darby	11	8	3	73%
New Albany	21	15	6	71%
Westland	13	9	4	69%
Lancaster	16	11	5	69%
Upper Arlington	27	18	9	67%
Bexley	18	12	6	67%
St. Charles	14	9	5	64%
Dublin Jerome	18	11	7	61%
Olentangy Liberty	10	6	4	60%

June 9, 2010: I would like to get to the point in which a "coach of the year" could be identified based on a few valid data points, as well as a few subjective items (i.e. sportsmanship of the team). In my opinion, one criterion would be how well players perform in three set matches. I would certainly welcome feedback on this but I think that the better coaches show their value during three setters.

I looked at all of the teams that had 10 or more three set matches. That included 44 teams. Of those 44 teams, the teams that had a match winning percentage of 60% or greater are listed in the table.

Other criteria could include: performance of doubles teams, strength of schedule (based on the ability of the team), sportsmanship of the team, a winning schedule, and ability to do well in its league.

June 8, 2010: USTA Area Qualifier matches are finished. Matches with the top players included: Diaz beat Metka 4, 2; Wagner beat Benalcazar 3, 5; Sybert beat Cheng 2, 1; Seitz beat Sybert 3, 2; and Seitz beat Griffin 4-6, 6-1, 1-0. Qualifying for the Closed is this weekend.

Personally, I think that the best coaches help their teams win a greater percentage of their three set matches. Typically, by that time in the match, the coaches can focus more time on the three setters, and they've had more time to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the opponents. I'll dig into this in the next couple of days.

I am also working on the project to identify four equal Districts for the state. As I have stated before, wrestling may be the best model. I'm asking the wrestlers in JJHuddle to double check my chart / map but this is a preliminary map that shows the schools of the state participants from the three wrestling divisions in each of the four Districts. Note that the District lines vary by division so there are overlaps. Wrestling sends ~672 wrestlers to States from ~310 different schools. Wrestling also seeds each weight class. If you just thought, "wow, these wrestlers really have it together", I agree.

June 7, 2010: The High School Court Comparisons document is now available for this year for the boys and for the girls. The chart to the right is for the Columbus Academy Boys team. Even though there may have been an occasional hick-up during the season, the lineups for the entire season looked very solid this year for the Boys.

June 6, 2010: In USTA play, Diaz narrowly defeated Wagner 5, 4; Metka beat Cempre 2, 4; Metka beat Bennoui 1, 4; Teague beat Seitz 2-6, 6-1, 1-0; Little beat Teague 0, 3; Wallace beat Sybert 7-5, 3-6, 1-0; Wareti beat Wallace 5, 6; Little beat Wareti 3, 4; and Teague beat Wallace 2, 1.

June 4, 2010: The USTA season is now in full swing which makes it difficult for the guys who are banged up from a tough high school season. The area qualifier is underway and the draws are here for the 18's and here for the 16's. Notable wins to date include: Bennoui over Thai, Acomb over Hendrix; Cempre over Weldon, and Metka over Nakayama. Carter is not playing the qualifier because of his wrist injury.

I still have a few more things to do before I wrap up this season. I want to research the D2 "spot" issue and I want to update my "High School Tennis Court Comparisons" document, which shows how each "court" performed during the season.

June 3, 2010: Two things today. Some of you have wondered what the "four years of history" document looks like. Click on the link to the right to view the report for Kevin Metka.

Racquet Club has assembled a nice video from States. It is available here.

June 2, 2010: The results of the OTCA matches are available in the team results pages. Coaches, if there are any other matches that need to be submitted, please get them into me quickly.

For the players who want to keep playing, check out the Central Ohio Grand Prix tournaments. Some are sanctioned by the USTA and others are not. These are also some of the most affordable tournaments in the central Ohio area. The Gahanna tournament is slated next.

Believe it or not, I'm actually more "into" education than I am about tennis. On each team page is a link to my education data for each league. Clicking on the image to your right will take you to the education results for the Ohio Capital Conference. I know that this isn't tennis-related, but parents and college coaches might find this to be interesting. The "Home" page for the education data is here.

June 1, 2010: The coverage of the State and OTCA tournaments continues. Pictures and videos from States and the OTCA are here. (Please look on the right navigation bar.) News from Cincinnati is here. For news from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, click here. The Toledo Blade's state coverage is here. The Chillicothe Gazette's tennis article is here.

More pictures from the Columbus Dispatch are here.

STATE VIDEO CLIPS - CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS (Long Downloads - PDF Files)

Videos of the last points of the Diaz and Metka matches are now available to your right. If you have PC or Mac compatibility issues, please make sure that you are using the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. Please give me a heads-up if you are encountering compatibility issues.

May 31, 2010: I had to put up with a lot of "Go Bears!" cheers directed my way yesterday. When I posted my blog entry (see below), I thought that I could safely abuse UA because I didn't think that anyone from UA would be up early enough to read it before the OTCA Tournament. Those bugging me probably stayed up all night...

OTCA TOURNAMENT PICTURES (Click to Enlarge)
OTCA VIDEO CLIPS (Long Downloads)

In honor of UA winning the OTCA D1 Championship, click hear.

To the right are pictures from States. You may download these pictures and print them or use them on Facebook. You may not post them on a commercial web site. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll have a couple of video clips tomorrow.

Not that I'm not counting, but Central won seven of the eight championships this year between the boys and the girls, losing just D2 Girls Singles in the fall.

May 30, 2010 Update: Central won both the D1 and D2 championships. Congratulations to UA and to Columbus Academy. UA beat St. X, 3-2, and St. John's Jesuit, 3-1. The deciding matches were 1st doubles (Vannatta-Wallace) against St. X and 3rd Singles (Benalcazar) against St. John's Jesuit. CA's matches were not as tense as UA's. CA beat Seven Hills (3-0) and Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy (3-0) in the finals. All of the results are to the right. To see the results, "zooming in" is necessary. Both files are pdfs.

PICTURES FROM SATURDAY AT STATES (Click to Enlarge)

May 30, 2010: Well. That was good. Central won every championship and had two of the finalists. I don't know if that has ever happened. Also congrats to Southwest, which also had a nice tournament.

Here is a nice summary article from the Columbus Dispatch's Jeremy McLaughlin about the state tournament. I would also like to say "thanks" to Jeremy, Paul Batterson, and the other tennis reporters for their great coverage this year. I believe in the theory of - if we do a great job of recognizing our great young tennis players now, then we'll get even more great players in the future. Their coverage is extremely beneficial to Central Ohio tennis.

I wonder if the NE-leaning OTCA will try to reduce Central's number of spots even more next year.(?) If you can't beat'em, then don't even let'em play...

I know that you are probably a little sick of tennis but please come out and support Upper Arlington and Columbus Academy in the team championships at 9am at the OSU Stickney Courts. (Yes, I get tired of the "Go Bears!" thing, too, but it's just one more day, and you won't be required to yell or even murmur, "Go Bears".) All that you need to do is clap. Let's support the Central District teams.

I'll put pictures from States online in the next update.

May 29, 2010: Great tennis yesterday. Great tennis day for the Central District. Those still in the tournament include: Diaz (BW), Metka (WK) (with a great win over SW's Reinhart), Weldon-Little (UA), Stein-Seitz (DJ), Bennoui-Hendrix (NA) (winning against St. X.), Enslen-Buchanan (CA) (with a convincing win over NE's #1), and Bahnson-Hughes (CA).

Carter (OL) won a great first match over NE's Marx while playing with a wrist injury, but retired in his next match versus SW's Mueck after losing the first set in a tie breaker. Cempre (TW) also won his first round match in a 3 setter.

Southwest is also doing well.

May 28, 2010: Time for States. Have not heard about any weather-related changes.

If you missed it in yesterday's Dispatch, here is a nice article about Chris Diaz.

I have made changes to the State pictures. They are here. If you click on them, you get the names and schools of the players. On the same page are pictures of the coaches of the state participants. You may download and print off the large pictures if you would like. I'm fine with kids (or hip parents) posting them on their Facebook pages. However, please do not post them on a commercial web site. (Contact me if you have any questions.) I will be distributing hard-copy pictures to Central's state participants today so make sure that you see me.

I would be happy to add the names and post the pictures of the other District's State participants as I have done for Central. Please get them to me by next Wednesday.

For scrapbook fans, I am offering a service in which you may obtain all of your son's varsity matches during the four years in which he was in high school. Click here for more details.

May 27, 2010: Do we want the best tennis players at States or should State spots be based on where you live? In other high school sports, my guess is that events such as the 100 meter dash probably have 14 of the best 16 sprinters in the state at the state track meet with just a small handful of deserving sprinters not receiving the honor. I would also expect that the winning margin between the best and worst sprinters to be just a few meters.

Tennis is absolutely nothing like that. Using the 100 meter dash track analogy, the winning margin between the best tennis player at States and the worst player at States would be about 95 meters. In fact, there are players who didn't make States that would beat the worst players at States by a hypothetical 80 meters. Why? Some might say that the OHSAA discriminates based on where a player lives, because players have to be much better in some Districts to earn the honor of playing at States versus players in other Districts.

Why is track fair? For the 100 meter dash you need 100 meters of flat ground on which to train. Let's even go as far as to say 120 meters (just so that the sprinters have a few meters to slow down). (I'm being generous here because when I ran high hurdles at Miami Trace, I only needed about a yard to come to a complete and full stop.) In fact, believe it or not, most high schools actually have their own track. That's right - their very own track.

To be a great tennis player you need these four things: a great work ethic, indoor courts for year-round training, a critical mass of excellent players with which to train, and excellent coaching. No area of the state has an advantage with work ethic, but the large urban areas of the state have enormous advantages with the other criteria.  If you want to be a great sprinter, you can live anywhere in the state. If you want to be a great tennis player, then you need to live in an area that has indoor courts, numerous other great players, and great coaching.

Unfortunately, while most high schools in the state have their own track (and many have nearby, outdoor tennis courts), none have their own indoor tennis facility for year-round training. For that matter, most counties in the state don't have indoor tennis facilities, and therein lies the problem. Without an indoor facility, players can't train and the area can't attract the best coaches.

District / Seeding	Year	Tennis Recruiting .net
CEN-1	Junior	25
CEN-2	Junior	165
SE-1	Junior	No rating
SE-2	Senior	No rating
NE-1	Junior	376
NE-2	Junior	93
NE-3	Junior	168
NE-4	Junior	456
NE-5	Senior	670
NW-1	Senior	466
NW-2	Sophomore	647
NW-3	Sophomore	954
SW-1	Senior	46
SW-2	Junior	647
SW-3	Sophomore	733
SW-4	Senior	No rating

Check out the D2 player positions for this year. Note that I'm using the players' positions rather than their names. Also included is each player's best 2010 TennisRecruiting.net ranking. This is a national ranking and to get a ranking you only need to play in a small number of USTA events. A senior who is ranked as 100 in the nation is generally going to be a bit better than a junior with the same ranking. In general, it's reasonably accurate and the college coaches rely on it heavily to identify quality players. Out of the entire list, only one player's TennisRecruiting.net ranking is out of whack for 2010 - Northeast's #1 (in bold). (I don't know his situation but he was ranked in the low 200's a year ago, and that means that he's a very good player.) Also be aware that two very strong Central players who are going to play college tennis didn't make it to States and they had rankings of 292 and 424. That's nuts because there are only six players in the entire draw with better rankings than theirs.

Going to States is an enormous honor for a high school tennis player. All top quality players deserve a reasonable opportunity of earning the honor of competing at States regardless of where they live. The system was broken before Southeast separated from Central and that change made the system many times more ludicrous. It is way past time to completely redraw the District lines and make four equal Districts.

If the wrestlers can identify a way to get four equal Districts (and create fair draws), we can, too (or we should pay them to help us).

May 26, 2010: Please note the promotion for the PanCAN Tournament. The Diaz Family sponsors and runs this doubles tournament and the dollars donated are being used to help find a cure for pancreatic cancer. It's not only a wonderful cause but it's also a great deal of fun. Please put the dates, July 16-18, on your refrigerator door calendar and plan to attend. If you want to make sure that the Diaz Family contacts you with more information, please enter your email address and name on the form located here. There is additional information on that same page. If you are interested in playing high school doubles next year, this is a great tournament to try out that potential partner.

It was a great match between Upper Arlington and New Albany yesterday with UA winning 3-1. The Weldon-Bennoui match did not finish. UA and Columbus Academy will represent Central in the Ohio Tennis Coaches' Association (OTCA) tournament for Division 1 and Division 2, respectively. This tournament will be held this Sunday. Good luck to both of them.

May 25, 2010: When you have a complete monopoly over high school sports, you can do whatever you want. The draws are out and it is what you'd expect. We now have nine straight years of Southwest versus Central. The draws are here.

DISTRICT DRAWS
Central
Northeast
Northwest
Southwest

I've never had a big problem with the D2 draws, but it is unfortunate that Wagner potentially faces Fritz in the second round. Fritz was last year's champion and Wagner was in the final four during his freshman and sophomore years. In doubles, two highly touted teams, Enslen-Buchanan and Goldberg-Bortz, are slated to play each other in the second round. At least the D2 draws utilize the concept of randomness. Unlike D1, their doubles and singles draws are different in the way in which they handle the 1 and 2 seeds.

The big, Upper Arlington versus New Albany match is tonight at 4pm at UA.

May 24, 2010: I have not heard anything from the OHSAA on whether they are going to create fair draws for Division 1 this year by using a random draw to distribute the top seeds or a rotation method. For that matter, the OHSAA should probably not communicate their intentions, but they are aware of the draw problems (and they have been since 9/2008). Now that a large number of people from multiple cities and Districts (and perhaps some members of the press) are carefully watching the OHSAA, it will be interesting to see if they just make the draws look different or if the draws will actually be different this year.

The keys to watch are who the first and second seeds would be playing in the second round. If Metka (Central's #1) is scheduled to play Reinhart (SW's #2) and Mueck (SW's #1) is scheduled to play Carter (Central's #2) in the second round, then the OHSAA is once again shielding the Northeast from playing against Southwest's and Central's top players until the Final Four.

With five #1 and five #2 seeds, the Division 2 draws will be more interesting than normal. Since the Southeast's 1 and 2 would typically go through Central, it would make far more sense for these players to play against Central's 1 and 2 in the early going. We'll see if that happens. Again, this wouldn't be a problem if all Districts had the same number of spots for States (as they do in wrestling).

Regardless of the draws, the boys are at States to play tennis and the draws rarely play out according to seed values.

The pictures of the boys going to States from Central are to the right.

If any other Districts would like to have pictures of their State participants posted, I'd be happy to do that. These guys deserve the recognition.

Thanks to Linda Little and Phil Diaz for the pictures.

May 23, 2010: Big day yesterday. Metka beat Nakayama and then beat Carter in the D1 finals to take Central's first seed. Weldon-Little earned the Central's first seed in doubles after beating Bennoui-Hendrix. After getting beat by Carter, Cempre beat Nakayama for third. Stein-Seitz beat McClarren-Searfoss for third in D1 doubles.

In Division 2 Diaz beat Wagner and Enslen-Buchanan beat Bahnson-Hughes for the first seeds.

Pictures will be updated tomorrow. In the meantime, the Dispatch had their photographers at the D1 Districts and they are online here.

Cincinnati's results are here. Cleveland's are here. Nothing is in the Toledo Blade but I would expect it to be updated on the District web site tomorrow. Southeast hasn't bothered to post anything.

May 22, 2010: Congratulations to those who made States. There were numerous great contests yesterday that were the deciding matches. They are in the table to the right.

Division 1
Singles	Doubles
Carter	Weldon-Little
Metka	Bennoui-Hendrix
Nakayama	Stein-Seitz
Cempre	McClarren-Searfoss
Division 2
Diaz	Enslen-Buchanan
Wagner	Bahnson-Hughes

There were others who deserved to go to States from Central, but tennis politics can be just as bad as any other form of politics when one area or group has control for too long. Removing two strong D2 spots from Central, certainly improves the odds for other Districts.

I'm leaving for Districts now. If they are moved inside, I may not have an opportunity to alert you to where the boys are playing. Please call ahead.

May 21, 2010 Updated: Districts are being played indoors at Elysium Tennis. Unsure if they will be moved back outdoors if the weather improves. Directions are here, but the satellite map is obviously outdated. To enter area, go east on Corporate Blvd.

May 21, 2010: The Districts are today (hopefully). There were several big matches yesterday. UA beat Olentangy Liberty to setup the D1 final with New Albany. West beat Centennial to win the City League and Columbus Academy beat Watterson. In individual matches Carter beat Benalcazar and Diaz beat Enslen.

A good summary of the Districts is provided by the Dispatch today here.

Districts in Cincinnati were held yesterday. There were several surprises including Adam Reinhart beat Ryan Bandy. Reinhart is a great player but Ryan Bandy had been one of the favorites to win States. Unfortunately, Southwest gets four spots for Division 1 while Northeast gets six (just in case I haven't mentioned that before), Central gets four, and Northwest receives two. Southwest has won 10 out of the last 14 boys D1 singles and doubles titles (since 2003). Central has three and Northwest has one. Northeast has zero championships.

An good article about the OSU Men's doubles squads is here from the Dispatch. OSU plays Wisconsin today at 9:00am in the NCAA's.

May 20, 2010: After a few rainy days, matches resumed yesterday. New Albany beat Jerome in an OTCA match with Bennoui beating Stein and NA's Seitz beating Sybert. Since Liberty beat Pickerington Central that sets up a match between UA and Liberty tonight.

Congrats to the boys and girls varsity tennis players who were also named as Dispatch-Scholar Athletes. They include (in school order): Luke Bauserman (Buckeye Valley), Zeenath Ameen (Scholarship Winner) (Dublin Scioto), William Trautman (Granville), Aaron Dunlap (Jonathan Alder), Kwame Aidoo, Jr. (Mifflin), Alexandra Power (Olentangy Liberty), Sruti Brahmandam (Pickerington North), Malivan Xaiyakosy (South), Jack Toscano (St. Charles), Daniel Trotier (Upper Arlington), David Griffith (Westland), and Elizabeth Early (Worthington Christian).

May 19, 2010: We had yet another rainout as the teams try to complete their OTCA matches. New Albany will play Jerome. UA and Liberty may also get a chance to play against each other in the other semifinal. All four teams are in the latest state poll which is here. In D2, Academy, Watterson, and Bexley make up three of the top ten teams in the state.

As for tennis news outside of central Ohio... Competion for the Central District is going to be tough as always from Southwest. (Please refer to my blog entry on May 17.) Here's a recent article from the Enquirer.

A rundown of Cleveland's Division 2 players is here. An article about Toledo's St. John's Jesuit team is here.

May 18, 2010: Not sure what happened at the Central District office yesterday. The draws for Division 2 are listed but not for Division 1. The links to the right will provide access to the draws for the other Districts.

To followup on the issue that I delved into yesterday, note the Division 1 draw for the Southwest District. Either Ryan Bandy or Adam Reinhart won't be going to States this year because they face each other in the qualifying round. Both players have had success against our District's best players. Meanwhile, the Northeast gets six (6) spots to States in Division 1 and five (5) spots in Division 2. Central gets four spots for Division 1 and two spots for Division 2.

The Columbus Dispatch has had several great tennis articles recently. The one today about high school players doing their own officiating is on the front page of sports and it is here. An article about OSU's men's tennis coach, Ty Tucker, is here.

May 17, 2010: Since no tennis was played yesterday, it gives me an opportunity to address a tennis issue that is a concern to me.

The answer to my poll question was "eight". (See right.) That is the number of years that the OHSAA has scheduled the top two seeds in the D1 Central District and the top two seeds in the Southwest District to play each other in the second round of States. Why is this an issue? It's because if you want the tennis players in your District to have a good opportunity to make it to the State Final Four, then you need to protect your 1 and 2 seeds on Friday so that they can make it until Saturday. When considering the dominance that the Southwest has had over the last seven years, that's the District to avoid.

Another reason to not use an arranged draw is because it's an undesirable situation for players to know prior to the District seeding round who they will play at States. Players may prefer to play the number 1 or 2 seeds from the Northeast or Northwest Districts in the first or second rounds versus the players from the Southwest. (This is especially a concern in tennis because tennis players compete against each other year-round in tournaments and they are very familiar with each other's abilities.) Please note that I'm not aware of any problems associated with this occurring but when it's easy to avoid, why not do it correctly?

The OHSAA has apparently understood the benefits of rotation because they do this in a portion of the draw, but not for all of it. To view the draws for the last ten years, the OHSAA draws are available here. Please note that the draws actually look substantially different each year until you focus on the 1 and 2 seeds from each District. To quickly see who has won the State Singles and Doubles championships over the last ten years, please click here. To see how it could be done correctly, click here.

The Division II draw is more random, but it will be especially interesting to see how the OSHAA positions the Southeast District's 1 and 2 seeds this year. The Southeast District's players are not expected to be as competitive as the other District's players because of their lack of year-round training facilities.

To better understand how Ohio high school tennis could be run differently, please check out how high school wrestling is handled in Ohio. Not only does wrestling do a great job with their draws, but they also understand the importance of having four Districts with an equal number of participants. If you think about it, wrestling and tennis are perhaps the most similar of all high school sports because of the direct athlete-versus-athlete competitions and comparisons.

We'll see if the OHSAA addresses the seeding issue this year.

As soon as the Central District draws are out, they will be linked to in a manner similar to what was done for the Sectional Draws.

May 16, 2010: There were numerous great matches yesterday, including several very good matches against teammates. (Please note that since I have no journalistic abilities, I'm going to use "beat" as my verb choice every single time.) Some of the highlights included: Diaz beat Wagner, Carter beat Metka, Wagner beat Thai, Nakayama beat Shivener, Metka beat Cempre, Harris beat Acomb, and Acomb beat Wareti. In doubles, Davidson (McClarren-Searfoss) won their championship in numerous close matches as did Jerome (Stein-Seitz) and Hartley (Mueller-Pecinovsky).

The answer to my poll question will be tomorrow. For a hint, read the rather long OHSAA Tennis Analysis that I wrote in September 2008 prior to the girls season. I also provided this document to the OHSAA back in 2008.

May 15, 2010: Forgot to mention this yesterday because things were just too hectic, but "thank you" to the Sectional tournament officials for their efforts on Friday. There were 282 matches (not counting feed-in matches) that were played on Friday. Also thanks to the Dispatch for including all of the main-draw match scores in the paper.

There were just two matches from yesterday. Good luck to those still playing in the Sectionals.

After you are finished watching the Sectionals, please note that the OSU Men's Tennis team has their first round NCAA match at the Stickney courts against Western Michigan at 1pm today. The cost is $6 for adults and $4 for students. More information is available here.

May 14, 2010: Much to my surprise the weather turned out to be a great day for tennis yesterday. Except for a small number of players who could not exceed the three match maximum, it appears that all of the matches were played. I did notice a few upsets, but in a rush to get the data entered, I haven't studied the results.

Thanks to those who are helping to obtain pictures. Recently posted are pictures for Ready's Thai, Gahanna's Shivener and Teague, Liberty's Gibbons, and Davidson's McClarren and Searfoss. Also posted is a team picture for Gahanna and a new team picture of Dublin Jerome.

May 13, 2010: Yesterday was a rain out. Let's hope that we get a few Sectional matches in today. These kids don't need to miss another day of school tomorrow. (That opinion may not be unanimous though.) Good luck!

I've been sitting on this poll question all season. It's time.

May 12, 2010: Briggs had a close match with Franklin Heights as did Bexley and Worthington Kilbourne. Many matches that were scheduled, did not take place. In individual match-ups, Thai defeated Harris and Metka beat Wareti.

The state poll is out. It looks pretty accurate to me. It is available here from the Dispatch. Thanks to a few of our local teams who are playing schools from other cities, it makes it easier to arrive at a top ten.

For the really hardcore data people, 85% of the site usage is from central Ohio but it is also being accessed by users outside of our area. I don't know who accesses the site but I know the city in which they live. Toledo, Cincinnati, and Cleveland are certainly checking out our teams. I'm also seeing accesses from small towns that contain colleges. The map to the right represents the visitors that have accessed the site (time period: launch date to last night).

May 11, 2010: As I think many of you know, this site has a number of objectives. They include: recognizing the athletes who play high school tennis, raising awareness of high school tennis, and making our central Ohio players more marketable to college coaches. (Please read on for yet another objective.)

I have a multi-prong approach to reaching out to the college coaches - one of which is to identify the indoor clubs where the kids play. Most of the stronger area players are involved with their clubs during the other nine months of the year in which they are not playing high school tennis. The idea is to make college coaches more aware (and comfortable) with how these players are trained and developed by listing their clubs. It also gives the college coaches another group of people to speak with as they pursue players for their teams.

This dovetails into another objective for this site -- make enough revenue so that my hourly wage is a bit greater than a Greek postage stamp. Since there are also benefits to the clubs, the page placements that you see are paid sponsorships.

I am appreciative for Olympic Indoor's participation as the first sponsor. You will see their placements on the new, High School Graduates Playing College Tennis, page as well as other pages, very soon.

Last night, there were numerous good team and individual match-ups including: Jerome over Gahanna; Briggs defeating Whetstone; and UA beating Watterson. Not only was Gahanna unbeaten but they had also lost just seven courts during the entire season. However, Jerome was Gahanna's first contest against one of the area's strongest teams.

Individual match-ups included Diaz over Weldon; Stein beating Shivener; and Wong (LEX) edging Cempre. Cempre was a big upward mover with wins over Benalcazar and Nakayama during the OCC's and a close loss to Wong yesterday.

May 10, 2010: The site is up and running again. A provider to my Internet hosting company encountered problems today and that affected my site and many others.

My condolences to the John Dodd family. Coach Dodd past away yesterday (5/9) and his obituary is in the Dispatch today.

May 9, 2010: The guys made it through a very windy day yesterday. The data from the Dispatch is online but I'm obviously missing dozens of additional, major matches. If coaches provide me with the results of matches that affect the singles players on My List of Top Central Ohio Players. I will enter them.

May 8, 2010: I'm guessing that it might be a tad bit windy for tennis today. This will help those playing their Sectionals at Hilliard Davidson and Hilliard Darby to work up to the wind speeds that you'll face next Friday and Saturday.

May 7, 2010: Hope the weather holds for the league tournaments tomorrow. Big individual matches from yesterday included Metka over Wagner and Harris beating Wareti.

The most popular response to the poll question, "What percentage of matches are three setters?", was "10% or less". There have been 2,264 non-pro-set matches played thus far and 314 were three-setters. That's about 14%. The court with the most three-setters is second doubles.

Parents, could you help out the coaches and take a team photo while you are watching the matches tomorrow? It doesn't have to be a formal picture. I take my camera when I go to matches but I haven't been to many matches this year. The picture to the right is New Albany's team taken after last night's match between New Albany and St. Charles.

May 6, 2010: Interesting matches last night. Looks like I actually did have a reason to be confused about one of the Sectional seedings (but anything can happen on any given day).

In the Top Players category, it was Diaz over Cempre, Carter beating Bennoui, and Benalcazar winning a tight three-setter over Buchanan (CA).

Watterson is really picking up steam.

May 5, 2010: The answer to the poll question, "What team's school page is accessed the most?", is (in order): Upper Arlington, Dublin Jerome, New Albany, Columbus Academy, and Olentangy Liberty. The poll takers had NA - first, UA - second, CA - third, and OL and DJ tied for fourth.

Please be aware that another large group of users are in Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon's coach, Jeff Jarosz, asked me if they could point from their high school tennis site to mine. I told him that was fine as long as I knew. The goal of my site is to recognize the players, raise awareness of high school tennis, and get more people to the matches. Hopefully, it's been helpful to Mount Vernon.

How often do you think that you'll be done with a match by 6pm and then one court has a three-setter? That's the new poll question.

May 4, 2010: Wow. Huge amount of usage yesterday. The Sectional draws were a popular addition.

The big matches from last night included Diaz vs. Metka, Little vs. Harris, and Wareti vs. McClarren.

May 3, 2010: The Sectional draws are out and they are online here. I was surprised with a few of the decisions. I thought that some of the guys who chose doubles would play singles, and vice versa. The seedings were pretty solid, except for a doubles team or two. Should make for an interesting sectional.

Doubles were added to My Top Players list late last night.

May 2, 2010: It's Sectional draw day. Good luck with your draw strategies. In previous years, a small number of coaches had my tennis information and were well prepared for the draw. This year, hopefully you will all benefit from it.

I'm hoping to get the draws from Dan Witteman and Mike O'Callaghan after the draw meetings so that I can get them online tonight. If this works out, rather than go to Kinkos to copy sectional draws for the team, coaches can direct the players to go online.

Most of the "beginning of the season" articles were published a few weeks ago. Exceptions include articles for Canal Winchester, DeSales, Grove City, Hartley, and Westland. You may click on these links for these articles.

A doubles specialist list will be added to the Top Players list in a few hours. Let me explain what it represents. This list is not about the second or third best singles player who happens to play doubles once in a while. I tried to identify about five players who played doubles in Districts last year and who primarily played doubles matches during the season. I'll look at this list again after I see the draws. There have been over 700 different doubles combinations to-date, and I may have missed a player or two who deserves to be among the players that I listed. Coaches, please give me a heads-up, if I've missed someone.

May 1, 2010: There was a surprisingly busy Friday with numerous great matches. Central Ohio was 1-1 versus Cincinnati yesterday. UA beat Sycamore 3-2 and St. X. beat Columbus Academy 3-2.

In individual matches, it was Bennoui vs. Nakayama and Reinhart (SYC) vs. Weldon.

For the first time in five years of handling tennis data, I encountered my first tie in a dual match. Rather than ruining my Saturday trying to determine how to handle this in my database, I recorded the individual matches as tournament matches. My vote would be to have the coaches play a tiebreak if this happens again.

April 30, 2010: Just in time for Friday afternoon in the office where it's too early to leave and too late for you to start anything new... A new report, Central Ohio Graduates Playing College Tennis, was added for you to see how the local area players are competing in college. It is going to take time to completely "fill in" this report with information but it's a start. Note that I am also linking to their college statistics. The idea behind it is to recognize these athletes for their efforts and to also help the current high school players understand where they might fit in skill-wise with D I-III players, just in case they have an interest in playing college tennis.

I am also going to allow these players to advertise at no charge on my site. If you want to see how your game compares with theirs, please contact one of these college players and give them some pizza money to hit with you.

Coaches, if you have missed a match or two, please get them into me quickly so that all of the data is current before the Sectional Draws this weekend.

There was a large number of matches last night -- 22. Many were very competitive with nine matches going 3-2. From a top player perspective, it was a fairly quiet night with just Carter vs. Nakayama. Tonight, a couple of Cincinnati teams are coming to Columbus -- St. X vs. Academy and Sycamore vs. UA. Coffman plays New Albany.

April 29, 2010: The biggest individual matches last night included Diaz vs. Bennoui, Carter vs. Metka, and Weldon vs. Stein. I will make changes in the order of my Top Players' list in a couple of days.

New pictures for Thomas Worthington and Dublin Jerome are online. Both were taken at the Worthington Cup. Please keep those pictures coming(!).

The Singles and Doubles Results that are sorted in match order are now sorted so that the most recent matches are first. This should save you some scrolling time. The report that is Sorted by Court remains the same. I think it makes it easier to understand lineup changes when it is sorted that way.

April 28, 2010: Last night was a big tennis night with 25 matches. There were several interesting matchups including: Metka vs. Nakayama, Diaz vs. Harris, and Benalcazar vs. McClarren. Tonight's matches include New Albany vs. Watterson, UA vs. Dublin Jerome, and Bexley vs. Thomas Worthington.

Recent college choices include Benalcazar (Dayton) and McClarren (Case Western).

April 27, 2010: It had to happen eventually. Yesterday was a rainout.

One score was added from Sunday - St. Xavier beat New Albany. Include St. X's Ryan Bandy as one of the favorites for D1 singles. Obviously, St. X will be a favorite for the team championship, too.

April 26, 2010: Unlike other spring sports where it is possible to identify the top central Ohio performers by looking at their batting averages or best times in the 100 meter dash, it is more difficult to identify the best tennis players. My Central Ohio Top Players List is the approach that I am using to recognize the area's best singles players. There are approximately 550 boys playing singles this spring, and this list includes the 30 boys (top 5%) who are at the top of my list. The boys who focus on doubles will be added soon.

Those teams that have players on my list now have an indication of this on their Team Results reports.

April 25, 2010: The rain didn't stop play for long yesterday. The Worthington Cup was completed with Upper Arlington winning the event. UA (Billy Weldon-Stu Little) won the doubles championship, while Worthington Kilbourne (Kevin Metka) won the singles crown.

For all of the results, click here. The results for each school are also listed under their Boys-Team Results reports. Thanks to Thomas Worthington's coach, Tyler Stephen, for the information.

Hope to see you at the OSU Women's Match against Northwestern at noon.

April 24, 2010: The weather doesn't look good for the Worthington Cup. Hope they get to play a few matches.

I will link the Boys-Team Results report to the My List of Top Singles / Doubles report later today to make it a bit easier to navigate the site.

April 23, 2010: Please note that I made significant changes to My List of Top Singles / Doubles report. Not only does this report look better than the old one (yes, the old one looked awful), but it also contains links to TennisRecruiting.Net and USTA.com. If you have recent digital pictures of the players, please pass them along.

Please join us tonight for the OSU Women's match against Wisconsin at 6pm. Admission is free. The match will be at the Varsity Indoor Tennis Center just off of Henderson Road.

Year	# Dual Matches Played as of 4/21
2010	246
2009	121
2008	186
2007	172
2006	212

April 22, 2010: Hopefully we will have good weather for the Worthington Cup this Saturday. The tournament includes a number of great programs.

We have been extremely fortunate with the weather this year in comparison with previous years. When I say "fortunate", I mean that it hasn't even been close. The weather has been incredible this year. My son graduates from high school and we finally get great weather. . .

April 21, 2010: Great win for Centennial last night as they defeated Wellington in a close match. DeSales also beat St. Charles in a big league match.

Please put two dates on your schedule. The OSU Women's team plays on Friday (April 23) at their new Varsity Indoor Tennis Center at 6pm against Wisconsin. On Sunday (April 25), OSU plays Northwestern at noon also indoors. This will be UA's Kirsten Flower's last home match as a Buckeye. Dublin's Kate Turvywill be playing for Northwestern.

April 20, 2010: Yesterday was a huge day with numerous great matches including Carter vs. Weldon, Diaz vs. Enslen, Metka vs. Bennoui, and Wagner vs. Thai. The results and my rankings are here under the title of "Top Central Ohio Boys".

Upper Arlington remains undefeated after their win versus Olentangy Liberty. 55% of the people guessed the correct match-score in the poll, which was 4-1. Two of the matches went three sets.

Please get those pictures into me. I'm sure that there is a parent or two who could help by taking a picture of the boys before they take the court. If you want me to take your team's picture before your match, please let me know. I'm close to Riverside Hospital so it's easy for me to swing by Whetstone, Centennial, Watterson, or UA.

April 18, 2010: Thanks to all who are supporting the sponsors.

April 17, 2010: In an effort to increase the attendance at the OSU vs Illinois Men's Tennis Match, I have modified the graphics today. Click on the won / lost image and it will take you to the OSU site for more information about the match. Also note the new poll capability.

April 15, 2010: New pictures are online for the St. Charles and Upper Arlington boys teams and the Hartley girls team. Photos that you are submitting to me do not have to be the "official" team picture (as was the case with both SC and UA). Just provide me with the "more official" team picture when you receive it and I'll post it. I want to get more pictures up quickly so I'm willing to go through this process twice.

 

 

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