[ColoradoTree]

In the most recent episode of "Beyond the Baseline," the podcast from SI's Jon Wertheim, there's a great discussion of the state of college tennis with Geoff McDonald, former player and current head coach of Vanderbilt's women's team. We don't get much college tennis analysis from major media outlets, so it's worth a listen. 

https://www.si.com/tennis/2019/10/31/bey...ege-tennis

No specific mention of Stanford (except in setting the mood for his recruitment of Astra Sharma, which started in the aftermath of his frustration of losing a major recruit to Stanford), but many other topics we've all discussed on here, like increasing international presence on rosters. (McDonald thinks some cultural exchange within the team is great, but thinks it's gone too far. He's not a fan of quotas to fix the issue; rather, he'd prefer greater investment in junior tennis (he's frustrated with the USTA's relative lack of support) to expand the number of top Americans rather than put a cap on the number of spots can go to internationals, so the balance is restored competitively rather than artificially.)

That recruit he lost to Stanford? I'm pretty sure that's Taylor Davidson, whose final college decision was between Vanderbilt and Stanford, and she was a year ahead of Sharma, so it makes sense. Davidson never achieved the individual success as some of the greats here in recent years (like Nicole Gibbs, Amber Liu, and Laura Granville, each a 2x NCAA singles champion), but given her pivotal roles in clinching matches on the road to that 2016 title, she's an absolute all-timer.

[ColoradoTree]

In the most recent episode of "Beyond the Baseline," the podcast from SI's Jon Wertheim, there's a great discussion of the state of college tennis with Geoff McDonald, former player and current head coach of Vanderbilt's women's team. We don't get much college tennis analysis from major media outlets, so it's worth a listen. 

https://www.si.com/tennis/2019/10/31/bey...ege-tennis

No specific mention of Stanford (except in setting the mood for his recruitment of Astra Sharma, which started in the aftermath of his frustration of losing a major recruit to Stanford), but many other topics we've all discussed on here, like increasing international presence on rosters. (McDonald thinks some cultural exchange within the team is great, but thinks it's gone too far. He's not a fan of quotas to fix the issue; rather, he'd prefer greater investment in junior tennis (he's frustrated with the USTA's relative lack of support) to expand the number of top Americans rather than put a cap on the number of spots can go to internationals, so the balance is restored competitively rather than artificially.)

That recruit he lost to Stanford? I'm pretty sure that's Taylor Davidson, whose final college decision was between Vanderbilt and Stanford, and she was a year ahead of Sharma, so it makes sense. Davidson never achieved the individual success as some of the greats here in recent years (like Nicole Gibbs, Amber Liu, and Laura Granville, each a 2x NCAA singles champion), but given her pivotal roles in clinching matches on the road to that 2016 title, she's an absolute all-timer.