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Former college tennis players rule the pros this week
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Former college player (Univ of Illinois) Rajeev Ram, photo by Marcia Frost
There have been a lot of former college players making tennis news lately and this past week was no exception as the big winner at the International Hall of Fame Championships in Newport was a former collegian who got in as a lucky loser.
Rajeev Ram was a member of the 2003 NCAA winning University of Illinois team before turning professional. He's had some ups and downs on the tour, but has always shown excellent results in doubles. He has now parlayed that talent into a rarity on the tour these days - winning doubles and singles.
This past weekend represented Ram's first ATP world tour event win in singles as he defeated fellow American Sam Querrey (6-7(3),7-5,6-3) before teaming with Jordan Kerr to win the doubles. Just prior to the International Hall of Fame, Ram won the singles title at a Challenger event in Baton Rouge, Louisiana . He then had a great Wimbledon, making it through the Qualifying before falling to Germany's Philipp Petzschner (No. 55 in the world) in a fourth set.
Also this past weekend, John Isner got his payback. At the 2007 NCAA Division I Championships, Georgia Bulldog Isner was narrowly defeated on his homecourt (in front of a packed crowd) by Virginia's Somdev Devvarman, 7-6,4-6,7-6. It was John Isner's final college match (Devarrman had another year to go and would go on to also win the '08 title) and the loss really stung, but this past weekend he was able to defeat Somdev Devvarman, 3-6,6-4,6-2, at the Kennedy Funding Invitational. In addition to the revenge, Isner got to take home the $40,000 prize the event provides.
World TeamTennis is underway with a number of former college players in the mix. It was two former NCAA Doubles champions against each other. First it was women's doubles, where the former University of Florida player Lisa Raymond of the Philadelphia Freedoms lost to the Raquel Kops-Jones, who won the NCAA Doubles Championships in 2004 for the University of California. Then, Raymond (an NCAA dubs champion in '92&'93) and partner Nathan Healey defeated Kops-Jones and Jamie Aukland of the Boston Lobsters to even it up.
Last weekend there was a major college showing at the USTA Pro Circuit event in Rochester as Wake Forest's Cory Parr and partner Marcus Fugate defeated Chase Buchanan and Bryan Koniecko, who played together for Ohio State this past season (Koniecko just finished his college tennis career and Buchanan is a freshman), 2-6,6-4,10-8. And, Travis Rettenmaier, who played for UCLA, teamed with Carsten Ball to win the doubles at the Winnetka Challenger over Texas A&M grad Brett Joelson and former University of Florida player Ryan Sweeting.
Note: More to come on former college players on the tour as I attend the Indy Championships next weekend.
More About:
college tennis ·
NCAA ·
Illini ·
Bryan Koniecko ·
Ohio State ·
Chase Buchanan ·
Somdev Devvarman ·
Rajeev Ram ·
John Isner ·
Cory Parr
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