The Southern Boys & Girls 18s is under way at Burns Park. If your looking for some great tennis to watch with a lot of college scouting going on, Burns Park is the place to be this week. The top seeds in the Boys division are #1 Anderson Reed and #2 Garrett Brasseaux. The top seeds in the Girls division are #1 Alexandra Anghelescu and #2 Whitney Kay . The only seeded Arkansan is Mario Martinez (pictured right) of Maumelle at #9. Caroline Price, the Easter Bowl champ and daughter of NBA great Mark Price, is another seeded player to check out. Fun tournament to watch with a lot of stressed out parents of participants!
27 comments:
The stressed out parents are pouring out their complaints about the tournament already. Poor scheduling by tournament director is one major problem with the girls playing main draw matches at 3:00pm when morning matches would suit them better than the severe heat.
A bigger complaint than the scheduling is the seeding. Numerous parents were upset that the tournament director took the easy ( or lazy route ) of seeding according to point standing than taking the extra time to check head to head results at tournaments and recent state qualifying results. One parent complained that Gus Rivera did not show up to " face the music " of these parent's complaints. Gus R. failed to show up at the parent meeting on Sunday and hid from them by using his tournament volunteers as the ones to greet the public.
Glad I ran across this site. Nice place for tourney but as a parent of a player my complaint is that my child has beaten many of the seeded players yet wasn't seeded. I then had to take off work to arrive earlier as well as pay for extra nights of stay. This was all uncalled for. I as most other parents have had it with USTA and the way they operate. This event is the icing on the cake as far as poor USTA procedures.
While I agree that scheduling has been an issue, seeding by USTA rule changed in 2009. There is no longer use of head to head matches as a tool to seed players. Please everyone check your facts before you post. It is good to have people's opinions, let's just make sure they are on the facts.
Great tournament for 2 Arkansans- Mario Martinez and Ryan Hudelson. Both moved into the Round of 16. Go Arkansas juniors!!!!
hey, don't forget about hall fess who is working his way thru the back draw.
The seeding problem has usta problems but the tournament director has the right of discretionary procedures in the seeding. I disagree with the previous comment and parents did voice their concerns when presenting these facts.
Just noticed the time changes to morning matches. Tourney committee must be reading your column and other's comments.
umm why would the TD read a blog that slanders anyone associated with ATA.
As for the times being earlier, there are fewer matches to play so fewer courts are needed and blocks can be set earlier.
Great job posters! People are voicing their opinions both positive and negative on tennis topics that are important to them. ATA does a lot of good but has a few difficult and challenging issues to deal with. Keep up the good work! I have learned a lot from these posters since I am new to the game.
I saw plenty of coaches scouting out players- Michigan State Mens, Univ. of Memphis Mens, Murray State Womens, Arkansa State Womens, and I watched only a few matches. Anyone noticed others?
TD does not have discretionary procedures to go by when seeding. That is now a thing of the past. They must go by ranking. The only subjective nature to seeding is now in regards to younger players playing up a division. That's it.
The seeding problem by one of the parents was a younger player who won their qualifying. Gus R. must have not reviewed the qualifying results of the state she was from. That was one irate parent at this tournament!
The USTA does not require sectionals to use a certain seeding format. The all factors method should be used unless computerized list method is required. The choice may be left up to the Tournament Commitee. A LAZY tournament committee might choose the EASY route. When A SOUTHERN CLOSED tournament is played, the entries close in plenty of time for the Tournament Committee to due its due diligence in seeding and placing District players in separate brackets.
Did you notice how the Tournament Committee failed to put Whitney Kay & Caroline Price, both from Georgia in different brackets where they would not meet until the FINALS or SEMIS. WHAT ARE THEY SMOKING? Did Gus & Staff not know that Whitney & Caroline met in the FINALS of the Easter Bowl with Caroline winning. WHAT'S THE REASON BEHIND THAT MISTAKE?
I agree with the posters about Caroline Price and Whitney Kay being in different brackets. The STUPID Tournament Committee should have separated them since they were from the same District-Georgia. These two great players had NO BUSINESS playing in the Quarterfinals. PERIOD!
kind of hard to seperate GA players out when 6 of 8 QTR Finalists are from GA!!
previous poster is in lost in left field about the separation of whitney k. and caroline p. they could have easily separated due to their records and district rules. caroline p. proved it the seeding was doofed with the win today. all whitney k. has to do is clean up in the back draw and prove even more the poor seeding of tourney director.
So Caroline beats Whitney in the FINALS of the EASTERBOWL this year yet is seeded below her and they're in the same bracket and that's ok? Different level but same situation: Federer and Nadal(if were able to play) in the same bracket at Wimbledon. Would that be an oversight AR TD? Based on this tourney guess not.
Southern Closed is too important event and is costly and time comsuming to both players and parents of players. The players should have been treated with respect and hospitality with every effort by the tournament committee in seeding and scheduling. Burns Park and the ATA must want the Southern to move this event elsewhere because dealing with all the people is such an inconvenience to them!
once again there are some clueless clowns on this site, who are like a bunch of petulant children.
For the record all one has to do is look at the National Standings released prior to Southern 18's began. The Seeds were based off of National Rankings 7/8 seeds were Ranked Top 100 in the nation and seeded accordingly. Price was not in Top 100, hence she got a 5-8 seed, which are placed randomly amongst the Top 4 seeds. So in reality Price should have been in he 1 v. 8 Quarter.
To bad the conspiracy theorists do not want to listen.
The national standings are one part of the equation in seeding. Friend at the Court Comment II.A-3, II.A-4, II.A-6 and other USTA Regs. under II.A. points out that the previous comment is offbase since head-to-head and recent tournaments were left out of the calculation of Caroline Price's seeding. Easter Bowl champ over Whitney Kay was overlooked because extra effort would have to be taken. The conspiracy theorists are right when looking at the Friend At The Court USTA Regs.
Lazy Tournament Committees do not want to spend extra time considering all reasonably available info. Ranking lists are a the easy part but also recent records, types of surfaces, and head-to-head encounters are considered and take extra time in decifering the data. Tournament Committtees who are illiterate or a little dense in understanding struggle with this data, get confused, and thus choose not to use this critical data.
What is the deal about the finals of this great tourney not having any spectators? Did the tourney committee forget to tell the media? I can't think of the sports editors being to busy reporting on any other events. I remember when the stands were filled and younger tennis players watching and learning from these older players.
to the boggerwith a love affair with Price, nice you failed to mention that Price beat Kay at the Easter in the Girls "16's" not 18's". Big difference.
This was a Sectional 18's tournament, considering Price lost to two of the higher seeds back in May, here placement as a 5-8 seed was justified, although she did show that she was one of the better players by far, losing in the finals.
Of course if you had an issue with thetournament, I am sure that yo filled out the evaluation form located on the website of the tournament.
Lots of problems with the Southern tournament is what I here. Poor officiating in finals, especially the girl's finals. Poor attendance, poor scheduling, bad seeding, tournament committee's bad communication w/ parents of players. Only happy people are the winners and their entourage.
None of ya'll mentioned the Proshop at Burns Park that is void of merchandise since the tennis shoppe pulled out. Since the ATA - Arkansas Tennis Association hired Gus Rivera, the tennis facility and proshop went to pot. What's the deal with all that besides the poor running of this fine tournament. I have a call into Leslie Pfeiffer, the executive director at the ATA, to complain about the decline of the Burns Park Tennis Center!
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