Eden Richardson has been appointed women's assistant coach at Fordham University. Since leaving college she has been the Head Tennis Pro at the Bedens Brook Club in 2022 and since January of 2023 has been serving as the Head Tennis Pro at the Bronxville Field Club. She is PTR Certified pro in both Tennis and Padel.

https://fordhamsports.com/news/2024/9/9/womens-tennis-eden-richardson-named-volunteer-assistant-womens-tennis-coach-at-fordham.aspx

At the Battle in the Bay Lui Maxted (seeded 4, ranked 39) has reached the semi-final where he will face 5-8 seed Jay Friend (Arizona; ITA ranked 15). For Lui to be seeded higher than Jay I'm assuming seedings are based on WTN. Imogen Haddad won her opening singles match but lost to Pepperdine's Viven Yang in the Round of 16. Sally Pethybridge lost in the opening round to Parker Fry (USC). Doubles was an unmitigated disaster with all our players losing their round 1 match.

There was a clean sweep of British wins at the Kitty Harrison Hidden Dual Invitational in North Carolina Chapel Hill. Sophia Johnson retaining her position as ODU's #1 player won her opening match, Alicia Dudeney playing at Florida's #2 position also won and Talia Neilsen-Gatenby, coming straight in as Florida's #3 opened her college career with a 6-1 7-6 win.

At the Debbie Harrison Invitational, there are several British players in action. In the flight 1 draw Kylie Bilchev lost out to Georgia's Guillermina Grant (ranked 75) 5 & 1. In the flight 3 draw Kristinia Paskauskas got a 3 & 1 win over Whitley Pate (Wake Forest) but Annabelle Davis (Clemson) lost to Ava Esposito (Auburn). In flight 5 Gabia Paskauskas got a 4 & 4 win over Given Roach. In the flight 6 draw Jasmine Conway lost to Krystal Blanch (Wake Forest). I was very surprised to see Jasmine placed below the Paskauskas sisters in the NC State order. In the flight 7 draw Jess Dawson (Furman) lost to Sara Nayar (Alabama). There were wins in doubles for Given (flight 2) and Gabia (flight 4) but losses for Kristina & Jasmine (flight 2) and Jess, Annabelle and Kylie (flight 3).

We also have several men at the SEC Challenge. Hugo Coquelin (Vanderbilt), Roan Jones (Alabama), Billy Blaydes (Auburn), Matt Rankin (Kentucky), Henry Jefferson (Florida) and Will Nolan (Auburn) all won. And all apart from Matt and Will won their doubles as well.

Just so it is recorded here, as noted in the dedicated thread, Oli Tarvet (San Diego) is the men's All-American Singles and Doubles champion. With it he becomes the first to be awarded All-American status for this season with the ITA deciding to recognise the prestige of winning this event by adding it to the criteria that gives All-American status.

Joining Oli in reaching the quarter-finals of singles and thereby qualifying for the NCAAs in November was Lui Maxted (TCU). Both also qualified for the NCAAs in doubles, along with Grace Piper as our only qualifier in the womens so far.

The next qualifying event for the NCAAs will be the Regionals which, depending on the region, will be in 2 or 3 weeks. Players that have qualified for the NCAAs can play the Regionals but are unlikely to, both because they won't want to but also because with limited spots available and a guaranteed spot in the main draw for each school's highest ranked player that is selected, some colleges will be doing a bit of strategic selection of who they will send there.

Away from the All-American Championships, there was a full program of Invitational events going on. Some highlights that I have noted having a quick skim through are

Luca Bluett in his debut appearance for Santa Clara won 4 matches over 3 days to win the white flight of the Aggie Invitational at UC Davis. He also won both his doubles matches. Also competing there was Kai-Luca Ampaw (Gonzaga) who reached the semi-final of his flight.

Matt Rankin (Kentucky) won the Flight 1 singles bracket in the EKU Invite (East Kentucky)

On the women's side there was lots of British interest in the Rocket Invite in Toledo. This included DePaul and Michigan State which between them have 7 Brits on their rosters. On the DePaul roster are Hannah Smith (junior), Eleanor Nobbs (senior), Eleanor Cochran (freshman) and Isabella Gibson (freshman). Hannah picked up 3 singles wins and 3 doubles wins to go unbeaten over the 2 days. Eleanor Nobbs 2-1 in singles and 3-0 in doubles, Cochran and Isabelle both went 1-1 in singles and doubles. On Michigan State's roster we have Issey Purser (junior), Oriana Parkins-Godwin (redshirt sophomore) and Ellie Blackford (freshman). Issey went 3-0 in singles and 2-1 in doubles, Oriana went 1-2 in singles and doubles. Ellie didn't play.

Having a quick look forward to next weekend there appear to be some tasty invitationals with the men's Big 12/SEC Challenge and the USC's Women of Troy Invite which will hopefully include Grace and Immi. Many of our Florida based women - and we have a few - will be in the Florida edition of the Bedford Cup postponed from the weekend just gone due to the hurricane.