The International Aspect on College Tennis

It seems as if in college sports, tennis is impacted the most (or at least one of the most) by international players coming in. Them coming in includes taking away scholarships from American players, taking away NCAA bids from American players, and taking away championships from American players. I am not completely complaining about this, as I saw the Ohio State Buckeyes get NCAA Titles the past two years thanks to Blaz Rola of Slovenia. Rola won the NCAA doubles championship with Chase Buchanan in 2012 and Rola won the NCAA singles title last year. So as a Buckeyes fan, I have seen benefits from this. The down side to this though, is obviously that scholarship money and NCAA titles are snagged from American athletes. If Rola wasn't in the NCAA, odds are that Virginia's Jarmere Jenkins would have won the triple crown last season (winning the team title, singles title and doubles title). Jenkins was on the winning Virginia Cavaliers team and teamed with Mac Styslinger to win the doubles title. Also who knows, the bar in Division 1 tennis would be set lower to the point I would be on scholarship at a Division 1 school for tennis. So why do these players come here? They come to develop themselves in their respective sport while gaining an American education. With that, living in the United States is an experience in itself. I was played last year at the Cleveland $3,000 Championships last year and my mom and I ran into a guy who was on scholarship at Lake Erie College and he was from Australia. He said that in Australia, he would have never been able to study and to play tennis like he can here. He has since moved on and is now on scholarship at New Mexico State.

So where am I going with this? After this weekends ITA Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in New York City, I thought to myself how different would this field be without international players incorporated. First off, let's look at the men's singles field and the countries where the players were from:

Seeds:
1. Patrick Pradella, Germany (Baylor) 
2. Guillermo Alcorta, Spain (Oklahoma)
3. Julian Lenz, Germany (Baylor)
4. Austin Smith, United States (Georgia)
5. Gonzales Austin, United States (Vanderbilt)
6. Clay Thompson, United States (UCLA)
7. Winston Lin, United States (Columbia)
8. Jared Hiltzik, United States (Illinois)

So here, the top 3 seeds were international players and the bottom 5 were from the United States. Here is the rest of the field:

Mikelis Libietis, Latvia (Tennessee)
Peter Kobelt, United States (United States)
Ray Sarmiento, United States (USC)
Henry Craig, United States (Denver)
Joran Vliegan, Belgium (East Carolina)
Dane Webb, United States (Oklahoma)
Greg Andrews, United States (Notre Dame)
Deni Zmak, Croatia (Embry-Riddle)
Andrew Harris, Australia (Oklahoma)
Marcos Giron, United States (UCLA)
Campbell Johnson, United States (California)
Max Schnur, United States (Columbia)
Brett Clark, United States (UNC)
Malte Stropp, Germany (Mississippi State)
Alex Sarkissian, United States (Pepperdine)
Axel Alvarez, Spain (Oklahoma)
George Goldhoff, United States (Texas)
Nik Sholtz, South Africa (Ole Miss)
Carlos Lopez Villa, Spain (Old Dominion)
Samir Ifhitkar, Pakistan (New Mexico)
Diego Galeano, Paraguay (Baylor)
Nathan Pasha, United States (Georgia)
Hunter Reese, United States (Tennessee)
Yannick Hanfmann, Germany (USC)

So if you do your math right (or if I did) that is 14/32 players in this singles field that were international. That's only 18 Americans.....

So how different would this field be without these players and instead only Americans? That's what I am going to try to figure out. With 32 spots, 4 of these spots were given to wildcards. These players were Marcos Giron, Ray Sarmiento, Max Schnur and Andrew Harris. Harris was the only non-American to receive a wildcard. The next 8 spots were given to the quarterfinalists of the ITA All-Amercians and 1 spot given to the consolation champion. These players were Mitchell Frank, Guillermo Alcorta, Patrick Pradella, Jared Hiltzik, Austin Smith, Gonzales Austin, Clay Thompson, George Goldhoff and Julian Lenz. That is 3 international players (Pradella, Lenz and Alcorta). The rest of the spots were filled by ITA Regional Champions and selected Runner-Ups. For the purposes of this experiment, I will include Virginia players (even though their only player, Mitchell Frank, did not compete).

How am I going to go about this: I will first look at the ITA All-American Championships. Who did those international players knock off in the round of 16 to get clinch a spot in New York?
Next: I will look at each ITA regional where an international player clinched a spot. To determine their replacement, I will look at runner-ups and semifinalists, seeding and preseason rankings to estimate who may have gotten in. And let me say, while doing this it was amazing how very few quarterfinalists were American (Made this harder to do and made me switch up where the at-large bids were coming from).
Last: Determine one who may have received an ITA wildcard in lieu of Andrew Harris.

Now, this "experiment" will not be exactly perfect as people matchup differently with other people and if international players weren't there, the whole specific ITA tournament could've gone a lot differently (even from the 1st round). So let's see how this goes......

Green highlights denote players who would have qualified for the ITA Indoor Intercollegiate Championships (in my experiment). Blue denotes the player being replaced.

ITA All-American International qualifiers
Round of 16: Pradella def. Clarke Spinosa, San Diego
                      Alcorta def. Austin Powell, NC State
                      Lenz def. Ronnie Schneider, North Carolina
ITA Midwest Regional: Not affected
ITA Northwest Regional: Not affected
ITA Southwest Regional: F: Hanfmann def. Sarkissian
                                         Mackenzie McDonald, UCLA highest seeded semifinalist
ITA Mountain Regional: F: Craig def. Ifhitkar
                                         I will not replace Ifhitkar, as he replaced Mitchell Frank (who I am keeping for this experiment).
ITA Texas Regional: F: Galeano def. Shane Vinsant, Texas A&M
ITA Central Regional: F: Alvarez def. Webb
                                     I don't think this regional would've gotten an At-Large Bid with all Americans.
ITA Northeast Regional: Not affected
ITA Ohio Valley: Reese def. Libietis
                             I don't think this regional would have gotten an At-Large Bid without Libietis there, with no other Americans in the semifinals.
ITA Atlantic Regional: Lopez Villa def. Alexis Huegas, VCU
                                      This regional is a little more complicated. Lopez Villa and Huegas are both international players, as well as semifinalist Francisco Dias, GWU. However, Virginia's Ryan Shane would be next in line. But.....Huegas defeated Mac Styslinger, Virginia in 3 tight sets in the quarterfinals and Huegas beat Shane in 2 sets in the semifinal. This isn't a stretch in my opinion to give Styslinger to upper hand in this regional, since Styslinger played a higher spot on the team last year and was seeded higher. But with an At-Large Bid available, let's say Ryan Shane, Virginia ended up getting it anyways.
ITA Carolina Regional: F: Vliegan def. Mike Redlicki, Duke  
                                       This was a tough regional so I'm surprised they didn't get an At-Large Bid, but I would give them one, and it would be Robbie Mudge, NC State since he was the only other American semifinalist (besides Redlicki).
ITA Southern Regional: Stropp def. Scholtz
                                        All 4 semifinalists were international (Kallberg and Helliar). Becker O'Shaughnessey, Alabama  was the only quarterfinalist from America. With the lack of depth of Americans (only 1 quarterfinalist) I am only going to grant one spot. .
ITA Southeast Regional: Pasha def. Alexandru Gozun, South Florida. In replacement of the ITA Southern Regionals At-Large Bid, I am going to grant Gozun one in place.
ITA Super-Bowl: Zmak def. Mate Cutura, Tyler JC
                             Cutura is from Croatia, Alla is from India and Savi is from Brazil, so that accounts for all 4 Super Bowl entrants. The guy Zmak defeated in the NAIA Championship is from Spain. I am going to put in Matt Alves, American River Community College, as he lost a close 3 set match to Cutura in the JUCO finals. However, with a Brazilian name and lack of information on the school website, he may not be American. So as a back-up (in case he isn't American) I'm going to put in Skyler Butts of Claremont-Scripps who lost in the Division 3 final.
ITA Wildcard: To replace Andrew Harris, I am simply going to put in the highest ranked American in the ITA Preseason poll who didn't already qualify. Ryan Lipman of Vanderbilt I believe was hurt, so the next person in line would be Jeremy Efferding, Texas A&M. I know they didn't give Harris his wildcard by this, but I'm just trying to find an effective way to determine this spot.

So here is my updated ITA Indoor Intercollegiate field (With all Americans) and my projected seeding based upon how the ITA seeded the original field:

1. Mitchell Frank, Virginia
2. Austin Smith, Georgia
3. Gonzales Austin, Vanderbilt
4. Clay Thompson, UCLA
5. Winston Lin, Columbia
6. Jared Hiltzik, Illinois
7. George Goldhoff, Texas
8. Clarke Spinosa, San Diego

Mike Redlicki, Duke
Mac Styslinger, Virginia
Ronnie Schneider, UNC
Shane Vinsant, Texas A&M
Mackenzie McDonald, UCLA
Austin Powell, NC State
Peter Kobelt, Ohio State
Ray Sarmiento, USC
Henry Craig, Denver
Dane Webb, Oklahoma
Greg Andrews, Notre Dame
Marcos Giron, UCLA
Campbell Johnson, California
Ryan Shane, Virginia
Max Schnur, Columbia
Brett Clark, UNC
Alex Sarkissian, Pepperdine
Nathan Pasha, Georgia
Hunter Reese, Tennessee
Alexandru Gozun, South Florida
Becker O'Shaughnessey, Alabama
Jeremy Efferding, Texas A&M
Matt Alves, American River
Robbie Mudge, NC State

This is the field of 32 I came up with for the ITA Indoor Intercollegiate Championships that is all American. There is no telling if this is accurate, just my best predictions based on Regional results, not on my bias (besides limitedly for at-large selections). Also, thank you to Zoo Tennis for helping me out on this one with nationalities of players. I tried my best and worked hard, I hope you enjoyed it.