USTA Pro Circuit Heads to Knoxville; Knoxville $50K Challenger Preview

As Rhyne Williams yelled during his semifinal match, "Get me to Knoxville!" he is finally here...along with the rest of the field competing. Although the qualifying didn't start until yesterday due to the University of Tennessee football game that happened Saturday. Like the Charlottesville Challenger, this challenger features many college players from the host team, so with that here are the list of Tennessee Volunteers in the draw:

Qualifying Singles:                   Main Draw Singles:
Sean Karl                                  Brandon Fickey
Markus Kerner                          Jarryd Chaplin
Sunay Bhat
Andrew Dromsky
                                                        
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The Volunteers top players Mikelis Libietis and Hunter Reese will not be competing this week as the ITA Indoor Intercollegiate Championships are this weekend in New York City. Former Volunteers that are competing this week include John-Patrick Smith (AUS), Rhyne Williams (USA) and Tennys Sandgren (USA). Sandgren had a doubles semifinal showing last week in Charlottesville and Williams had a singles semifinal showing. The Virginia Cavaliers, the defending NCAA champions, have a good amount of players in the qualifying draw, as they have Mitchell Frank, Ryan Shane and JC Aragone. Illinois' Farris Gosea (Fares Ghasya) is also in the qualifying singles.

For the Main Draw Singles here are the seeds:
1. Tim Smyczek
2. Denis Kudla
3. Jack Sock
4. Michael Russell
5. Donald Young
6. Ryan Harrison
7. Rajeev Ram
8. Alex Kuznetsov

With scheduling conflicts, this tournament that provides less prize money than Charlottesville has a stronger field.

The ITA Player of the Year, Jarmere Jenkins needed another wildcard to get into this field with his low ranking, and will have to take on Michael Russell in the first round. Another interesting matchup will be between hometown favorite Rhyne Williams and Ryan Harrison. Harrison is a top American player who has many wins on the ATP Tour but is struggling as of late, so coming to Knoxville to pick up some wins and some cash. It will be interesting to see if Williams can defend his home court and come up with a win. After a bad loss yesterday, Peter Polansky's day probably didn't get any better when he saw he had to play Jack Sock in the first round of Knoxville. After a 9 match winning streak, it is very possible he will go on a 2 match losing streak. A last intriguing match up features Donald Young and Saketh Myneni. Young should be able to win this, but Myneni showed last week if he heats up, he can be a dangerous player to play as he knocked off the top seed in Charlottesville last week, Tim Smyczek. Steve Johnson I would say finally has a shot to snap his singles losing streak that is currently at 6 matches, as he takes on Frenchman Laurent Rochette in the first round.

Here are the seeds for the doubles:
1. Groth/Smith
2. Krajicek/Sandgren
3. De Voest/Ram
4. Clusky/Neuchrist

Donald Young and Jarmere Jenkins will not team up this week, even though they got to 2 out of their last 3 tournament finals together. Jenkins will instead team up with former UCLA Bruin Dennis Novikov. The Australian top seeds will play each other in the first round here. Rhyne Williams will not play doubles in his home tournament which is strange. Jarryd Chaplin, the Tennessee Volunteer will have a main draw wildcard to team with Volunteer teammate Andrew Dromsky. That is a little strange considering Chaplin just won a college tournament at Disney World with Brandon Fickey. Ryan Harrison and Denis Kudla will be a dangerous duo despite not being seeded. Last but not least, the team of Tim Smyczek and Steve Johnson will try to win their 2nd straight tournament to build on last week's tournament win in Charlottesville.