Ohio High School Tennis
ARCHIVE -- This portion mainly includes the 2011 Boys Tennis Season and 2011 Girls Season.
October 14, 2011: There was one match yesterday. Columbus Academy defeated Worthington Christian in the Division 2 OTCA Final.
It looks like the courts are drying. The start of the Division 2 matches was delayed until 10am. The Columbus School for Girls tennis facility is very secluded which makes the courts slower to dry. Hilliard Davidson is anything but secluded. Since it is windy at our house (near Riverside Hospital), then that means that the asphalt might be blowing away at Hilliard Davidson.. Those who like playing in wind are going to be very happy at Davidson today.
The draws for the Southeast District are now available via the link above. Thanks to Mr. Dawson for providing these.
October 13, 2011: There were no matches last night.
Here are today's pictures of the Ohio State University Courts. This is what Districts is all about. Who will get to play at the new OSU courts on October 21?
Good luck at Districts tomorrow.
October 12, 2011: There were several matches played yesterday as teams wrap-up the dual match season. Dublin Coffman defeated Pickerington Central; Columbus Academy beat Seven Hills; Big Walnut defeated Whetstone; Dublin Scioto beat Pickerington North; and Westerville South defeated Briggs. In OTCA play, Upper Arlington defeated Hilliard Bradley.
Platform tennis is gaining in popularity in central Ohio as an outdoor, winter, racquet sport. The strokes are very similar to tennis and it can be played comfortably all winter long. If you would like to learn more about the sport, there is a major platform tennis tournament in Columbus this weekend. It features the top eight teams in the sport including Columbus' own Brian Heil and Denny English. The tournament will run from 10am-4pm on Saturday, and the semi's and finals will be held at 9am on Sunday. There are free clinics on Friday from 5-6pm, 6-7pm, and 7-8pm. (Email Denny English at djpenglish@yahoo.com
to participate in a clinic.)
The tournament will be held at Scioto Country Club and admission is free. Perfect weather for platform tennis is 20-25 degrees with gray skies. Yes, this sport is ideal for Ohioans.
Please welcome Jill Fergus as an advertiser. Jill is the coach of the Thomas Worthington Girls Team, and she is also a real estate agent on the north side of Columbus. You will see her ads on the Thomas Worthington, Worthington Kilbourne, Olentangy, Olentangy Liberty, and Olentangy Orange team pages. If you have a web site and you offer products or services that appeal to tennis fans, players, and their parents, other ads spots are available for purchase. Purchasing an ad is also another way to support this web site endeavor if you think this site benefits central Ohio tennis. Ad creative help will be provided upon request. If you have questions, please submit a Feedback or contact me via email.
October 11, 2011: There were four matches last night. Pickerington Central defeated Watterson; Columbus School for Girls beat Bishop Hartley; Eastmoor Academy defeated Centennial; and Dublin Scioto beat Big Walnut.
Among the top players, Watterson's Katie Shepherd defeated Pickerington Central Nithya Raya and Pickerington Central's Kyah Thomas beat Watterson's Courtney Brown.
Let's do another Central District coaches' poll for the Dispatch. If you are a coach, please vote for the Top Ten teams in the Central District. If you are not a coach, that's fine, too. There is an "All Voters" list as well.
October 10, 2011: The Sectional seeding round was finished yesterday. The Bexley doubles team of Becca Landon-Lindsay Staub defeated Columbus School for Girls' Lauren Gerber-Tiffany Lau in the finals. There were two Columbus Academy teams in the finals with Annie Lavin-Meghana Vallabhaneni defeating Deepa Manda-Neela Nataraj.
2011 Case Western
Men Players (l-r): Trent Searfoss (Davidson), Alex Solove (Liberty), Kyle Gerber (St. Charles), Ben McClarren (Davidson), Sean Carr (Upper Arlington)
If your daughter is a senior and she would like to play college tennis at any level, please send me a Feedback message as soon as possible. This information is being made available to college coaches. (Those with sons who are seniors should do the same.)
Most of the central Ohio graduates who play college tennis compete in Division 3. Approximately 46 players compete in D3 versus 18 in Division 1. The university with the greatest number of central Ohio players is Otterbein with eleven players followed by Case Western Reserve with eight. I took the picture of the men on the Case team this weekend and their picture is to the right.
Upper Arlington High School has the most number of college players with seven, followed by New Albany with five.
For specific information on each player's college record, click for the College page.
October 9, 2011: At this point in the season, the focus tends to shift more toward the individuals and doubles teams for each school.
To earn the first seeds in the Division 1 singles draw, Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford defeated Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power; Dublin Jerome's Emma Stein beat Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan; Watterson's Courtney Brown defeated Tri-Valley's Dempsey; and New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo beat New Albany's Jane Haffer.
The number one seeds for Division 1 doubles are: Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger-Sarah Stein; Watterson's Katie Shepherd-Lauren Ghidotti; Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai-Ashley Thai; and Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern-Audrey Berger.
The Division 2 one seeds for singles are: DeSales' My Linh Li and Columbus School for Girls' Linda Yang. The doubles will be played today due to the observance of Yom Kippur on Saturday.
To get to States, players commonly need to be very good and to be a bit lucky with the draws. The Central District draws are typically released on Monday. When I see them, I will include them in the upper-right-hand corner.
October 8, 2011: There were no matches yesterday. Today is the seeding round for Districts for most players.
Posted below are pictures of the Ohio State University's new tennis facility, which is where States will be played on October 21. These were taken yesterday evening.
October 7, 2011: We had a great day of Sectional play yesterday with 285 matches being played (plus the "rat tail" matches). Most players arrived at 
their sites before 8am, and the Columbus School for Girls site finished the day under the lights at approximiately 8pm.
Teams that obtained the largest number of District spots (where one spot equals one singles player or one doubles team) included: Dublin Jerome (5), New Albany (5), Upper Arlington (4), Columbus School for Girls (4), Watterson (3), and Columbus Academy (3).
Please note that to see all of the matches for some teams, it will be necessary for you to sign-in with your Trial or paying account.
The starting times for the seeding rounds for Districts will vary by site. Yom Kippur is on 
Saturday so some teams will play on Sunday.
I took pictures of five tennis teams playing at Columbus School for Girls yesterday. New pictures are now online for Buckeye Valley, Eastmoor Academy, Madison Plains, River Valley, and Village Academy.
Pictures for Eastmoor Academy (top) and Buckeye Valley are listed to the right.
Congratulations to all of the girls who competed in Sectionals and to those girls who earned a spot for Districts.
October 6, 2011: It's time for Sectionals.
Yesterday, Worthington Christian defeated Bexley, 3-2, in the OTCA tournament. Upper Arlington beat Watterson; Whetstone defeated Centennial; and Groveport Madison beat Watkins Memorial.
Dublin Jerome won the Ohio Capital Conference-Central Division, and Olentangy Liberty was second.
In the finals of the OCC tournament, Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger defeated Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power.
I will be at the Columbus School for Girls' site today. If you would like for me to take a picture of your team for inclusion on the web site, please look me up.
October 5, 2011: The Ohio Capital Conference tournaments were played yesterday. Of the tournaments reporting scores, Upper Arlington won the Central Division; Pickerington Central won the Ohio Division; and New Albany won the Capital Division. In OTCA play, Columbus Academy defeated Columbus School for Girls, 3-2.
Among the top players, Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford defeated Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai; Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan beat Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern; Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya defeated Gahanna's Kiara Shaw; and Hilliard Bradley's Ashley Thai beat New Albany's Jane Haffer.
The Sectionals are tomorrow. Click for the Division 1 and Division 2 Sectional draws. Please note that I will not be accepting aces for the Ace Report during the first round of Sectionals. The day is already too hectic and there can be large disparities in skills.
October 4, 2011: Rain was intermittent in central Ohio yesterday with just eight matches recorded. Dublin Jerome defeated Pickerington Central in an OTCA match. Other matches included: Lexington defeated Watterson, Dublin Coffman beat DeSales; and Grove City defeated Grandview.
Among the players on My List of Central Ohio's Top Players, DeSales' My Linh Li defeated Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan; Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger beat Nithya Raya; Lexington's Courtney Earnest defeated Watterson's Katie Shepherd; and Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein beat Pickerington Central's Kyah Thomas.
Tonight, Columbus Academy plays Columbus School for Girls in the OTCA Tournament.
October 3, 2011: The wet weather continues as teams try to wrap up their seasons.
For those coaches who are paying members, another benefit of Gerber Analytics is that you may request the results of all of your matches "by player" to share with your players and their parents. Please give me at least 48 hours notice if you would like this end-of-season report. To see the entire New Albany report from last year, click here. Coaches may still join Gerber Analytics by clicking here.
October 2, 2011: The Mid-State League at Teays Valley played their tournament yesterday. The Ohio Capital Conference and the other Mid-State League Tournaments were rained out. Tuesday was mentioned as the make-up date.
Most of the teams were comfortably huddled in their vehicles yesterday, but when Central Crossing braved the elements, I took their picture. It is to the right.
Most users (89%) had the correct answer to the poll question. The Dublin Jerome girls tennis page has received the most interest, followed by: Upper Arlington, Pickerington Central, New Albany, Hilliard Bradley, Columbus School for Girls, and Dublin Coffman (in that order). Since the beginning of the season, Dublin Jerome has received 45% more page views than UA. While UA has 10% more page views than third place, Pickerington Central.
Please cast your vote for the ten best teams in central Ohio. If there are enough new votes, I will submit the results to the Dispatch. Click here to vote. You must be a Paying or Trial member to vote.
October 1, 2011: There were no matches yesterday. This could be a damp day for the OCC and 
Mid-State tournaments.
Rather than go outside in the drizzle today, a few tennis fans will be coming to this web site. The usage of the Gerber Analytics' tennis site has been very brisk this season. The number of pages viewed by readers is more than double the number from last year. The number of unique users is almost three times what it was last season. Most of the readers view four and a half pages and spend five minutes each time that they visit the site. The number of page views and the amount of time of each visit is slightly lower than last year, but that is actually what I am striving for by providing more relevant information on each page. In a sense, I want you to be more productive with your leisure time. [Some unnamed spouses may say that G.A. allows you to waste your time more effectively.]
The map to the right shows the location of the usage. While most of the usage is in central Ohio, Gerber Analytics is also heavily used in the Northeast and Southwest Districts. Almost all of the usage is in Ohio, but there are also active readers in Pennsylvania, New York, California, Michigan, and New Jersey.
The Tennis Home page receives the most activity, but the team reports also get a large amount of usage. Today's poll question is: Which team has received the most usage so far this season (August 15 to September 30)?
September 30, 2011: There were several great matches last night. Dublin Jerome defeated Upper Arlington. Olentangy Liberty beat Olentangy Orange to win the battle of the Olentangy's. Other matches included: Hilliard Bradley defeated Bishop Hartley; Grove City beat Thomas Worthington; Hilliard Davidson defeated Dublin Scioto; Hilliard Darby beat Delaware Hayes; and Grandview defeated Jonathan Alder.
The top players were active. Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger defeated Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern; Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford beat Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power; Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai defeated Bishop Hartley's Rachael Morales; and Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein beat Upper Arlington's Audrey Berger.
The Central Ohio Graduates Playing College Tennis page has been updated. Newspapers provide this information for football and basketball players who are competing in 
college, but this information is not readily available for our local tennis players. There are 53 athletes included.
Please be aware that this is the most painful report to update because the college web pages are always being redesigned (this causes the links to change). Some of the information has also not been updated for the 2011-2012 season. The link attached to the player's name should take readers to the player's bio or roster information on the college site. The "College" column link takes users to the college's tennis web site. The "Stats" column link takes users to statistics for the team or player. If there are other central Ohio players not included, please submit a Feedback. High school pictures are also still being accepted.
The OCC's and Mid-State League tournaments are tomorrow.
September 29, 2011: In last night's action, Bloom-Carroll defeated Whitehall; Newark beat Granville; Briggs defeated Mifflin; Canal Winchester beat Fisher Catholic; and in OTCA play, Hilliard Bradley defeated Pickerington North.
Tonight's matches include Dublin Jerome versus Upper Arlington and Olentangy Orange versus Olentangy Liberty.
Progress on the Ohio State University courts continues. I stopped by and took a few pictures in the rain yesterday, and there were still a few people at work at 7pm. In the first picture, the indoor football facility is to the left. The second picture was taken from the other direction. You can see the brick column (by the white truck) in both pictures.
September 28, 2011: A few matches were sneaked in between rain drops. Pickerington Central defeated Olentangy Orange; Lancaster beat Westerville North; Granville defeated Fisher Catholic; and Marion-Franklin beat Briggs.
Among the top players, Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford defeated Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya.
Now that the college season is underway. Look for changes in the College Players from Central Ohio page soon.
Tonight's matches include: Hilliard Davidson versus Lancaster; Watterson versus Pickerington Central; and Pickerington North versus Olentangy Liberty.
September 27, 2011: The matches were rained out last night.
Links to the Sectional draws will remain in the upper-right hand corner of this page to provide easy access.
Matches previously scheduled for tonight include: Pickerington Central versus Olentangy Orange; Bishop Hartley versus Columbus School for Girls; Columbus Academy versus Grandview; and Worthington Kilbourne versus Upper Arlington. At this point in the season, always confirm scheduled matches before making the trip.
September 26, 2011: Obtaining and scanning the Sectional Draws is a multi-hour process. The Paying and Trial members got the first look at the draws. Now they are available to everyone else.
September 25, 2011: Dublin Jerome won the Lexington Invitational with Upper Arlington coming in second. Hartley won the Wellington Cup and Wellington came in second.
Among the top players, St. Ursula's Kennedy Shaffer defeated Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern.
The Sectional Draws are today.
Tomorrow's matches include: Watterson versus Bexley; Columbus Academy versus Columbus School for Girls; Dublin Coffman versus DeSales; and Pickerington Central versus Hilliard Davidson.
September 24, 2011: One match was reported yesterday -- Watkins Memorial defeated Briggs.
The most recent picture 
posted is for one of the Olentangy schools. Can you guess which one?
The girls continue to add to their ace totals. The four leaders of the ace race are: Ashley Thai, Anna Sanford, Lauren Thai, and Jane Haffer. To view the entire ace report, click here.
A recent addition to the Top Central Ohio Girls report is Aashika Katapadi of Wellington.
Upper Arlington was scheduled to play Watterson on Monday but that match was rained out. 66% of the voters thought that Upper Arlington would defeat Watterson. That is one match that is hopefully going to be rescheduled. Please give me a heads-up when you hear of a new date.
September 23, 2011: Matches from last night included: New Albany beat Watterson; DeSales defeated Bexley; Hilliard Davidson beat Olentangy Liberty; Olentangy Orange defeated Dublin Coffman; Lancaster beat Chillicothe; and Dublin Jerome defeated Hilliard Bradley.
Among the top players, DeSales' My Linh Li defeated Bexley's Becca Landon; New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo beat Watterson's Katie Shepherd; Watterson's Lauren Ghidotti defeated New Albany's Jane Haffer; New Albany's Vitellas beat Watterson's Courtney Brown; Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern defeated Gahanna's Kiara Shaw; Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power beat Hilliard Davidson's Mackenzie Donalson; Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford defeated Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan.
The all-important Sectional Draws are on Sunday. I hope to have the Sectional Draws online on Sunday night.
[Note: I noticed errors with some of the Game Winning % on the Top Ten Girls Teams report. They have been corrected. You may notice that some of the numbers have changed.]
September 22, 2011: Just eight matches were recorded from yesterday as rain hampered play. Grove City defeated Hilliard Darby, 3-2, in a match that included two 3-setters. Other matches included: Pickerington Central beat Hilliard Davidson and Bexley defeated Wellington.
Among the top players, Wellington's Aashika Katapadi defeated Bexley's Becca Landon.
Work continues on the new Ohio State University courts. This picture is from one week ago. The courts will be ready for the OHSAA state tournament.
Tonight's matches include: DeSales versus Bexley; Olentangy Orange versus Dublin Coffman; Hilliard Bradley versus Dublin Jerome; and New Albany versus Watterson.
September 21, 2011: It was a huge night for tennis. There were 21 matches played. Upper Arlington defeated Dublin Coffman; Pickerington Central beat Reynoldsburg; Columbus School for Girls defeated DeSales; Worthington Kilbourne beat Thomas Worthington; Central Crossing defeated Westland; and Olentangy beat Westerville North.
Among the top players, Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan beat Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern; Wellington's Aashika Katapadi defeated Columbus Academy's Andrea Ballinger; and Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger beat Westerville Central's Taylor Todd. Look for more changes to the Top Players List.
Gerber Analytics is increasingly becoming the way in which fans, friends, family, and college coaches 
obtain information about high school tennis teams. Please put your best foot forward and make sure that your team picture, roster, and schedule are updated. To see how your school is presented to those who use Internet search, just type in your school name into Google to see what links are displayed.
Matches tonight include: Columbus Academy versus New Albany; Hilliard Davidson versus Olentangy Orange; Pickerington North versus Westerville Central; and Olentangy Liberty versus Reynoldsburg.
September 20, 2011: One match was reported -- Bexley defeated Fisher Catholic.
The Area Tennis Coaches' Poll was included in the Dispatch today. Thanks to all who voted. The poll results are included in the table.
| Division I | 1. Dublin Jerome; 2. Upper Arlington; 3. New Albany; 4. Watterson; 5-tie. Hilliard Bradley; 5-tie. Pickerington Central; 7. Olentangy Orange; 8. Dublin Coffman; 9. Hilliard Davidson; 10. Olentangy Liberty. |
| Division II | 1. Columbus Academy; 2. Columbus School for Girls; 3. Worthington Christian; 4. DeSales; 5. Bexley; 6. Hartley; 7. Wellington; 8. Grandview; 9. Village Academy; 10. Fisher Catholic. |
To cast your own vote (as a coach or fan), click here.
Please note that the Coaches' Poll votes are now prominently displayed at the top of the Top Ten Tennis Teams report. The aggregation of All Voters is listed below the Coaches' Poll.
The Dispatch posted the State Poll today. The Division 1 schools in central Ohio that are listed include: 1. Dublin Jerome; 2. Upper Arlington; 4. New Albany; 10. Watterson (with several ties). In Division 2, Columbus Academy is listed as 6th.
There are several good matches scheduled for tonight. They include: Upper Arlington versus Dublin Coffman; Pickerington Central versus Reynoldsburg; and Columbus School for Girls versus DeSales. Especially at this point in the season, always confirm the match with a coach or player before you make a trip to the courts.
September 19, 2011: There are several great matches planned for today. They include: Worthington 
Christian versus Thomas Worthington; Upper Arlington versus Watterson; and Reynoldsburg versus Dublin Coffman. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.
Since Worthington Christian already beat Worthington Kilbourne, the Worthington Christian versus Thomas Worthington match will be for Worthington bragging rights.
I plan to stop by the UA versus Watterson match. It will be held at Upper Arlington's courts.
September 18, 2011: There were two invitationals yesterday and a couple of dual matches. Westerville Central won the Hilliard Davidson Doubles Classic, and Hilliard Davidson came in second. Logan Elm won the Grandview Invitational, and Whetstone was the runner-up. In the dual matches, both Dublin Jerome and Upper Arlington beat Toledo Central Catholic.
Unfortunately, the Dispatch's coaches poll to the right is not for tennis. It is for golf. We could do the same thing for tennis and this would attract more interest to our sport, but we still have not had an adequate number of people (especially coaches) vote. If you have not yet voted for the Top Ten teams in the Central District, please do so. While the current top ten list is a solid group of teams, please also consider Lancaster, Whetstone, Gahanna, Reynoldsburg, Big Walnut. and Pickerington North for Division 1 and Fisher Catholic, Buckeye Valley, and Eastmoor Academy for Division 2. Click here for the current list of Top Ten Central Ohio Tennis Teams.
The UA Fall Open is coming up on September 24-25 at Upper Arlington High School. For further information or to register just click www.cogp.com/uaopen.html. While this is primarily a boys and adult event (because it is during the girls tennis season) there are divisions for Girls 10s and Girls 12s. This event is a fundraiser for Upper Arlington tennis team. Please contact the tournament director, Walt Thieman, with any questions.
September 17, 2011: There were four matches reported today. Hilliard Bradley defeated Dublin Coffman; Dublin Scioto beat Upper Arlington-B; Marion Harding defeated Delaware Hayes; and Dublin Scioto beat DeSales (in a match that took place on Thursday).
Among the top players, Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai defeated Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan.
The Top Players List is still in flux (as it always is). The order has been changed and another player (Dublin Jerome's Emma Stein) was added. As stated in the Frequently Asked Questions, since we are looking at the same information, hopefully each player on my list will be within three or four spots of yours. Order changes will tend to be made gradually and the quality of the wins and losses are considered.
Congratulations to those who thought that "beat" was more overused than "defeated" on this page. In the battle among beat versus defeated versus versus, beat defeated defeated 142 to 123 and versus was beaten by both with just 45 occurrences. As a numbers guy, I would prefer to use the ">" sign to indicate a victory, but I'll probably stick with defeated and beat.
September 16, 2011: We are nearing the half-way point of the season with 309 dual matches having been played so far. The interesting matches from last night included: Worthington Christian defeated Worthington Kilbourne; Olentangy Liberty beat Dublin Coffman, and Bexley defeated Upper Arlington - B.
Among the top players, Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power defeated Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan.
Please keep those pictures coming! The photo to the right is a recent addition. It is a picture of the Bishop Hartley team.
This weekend, the order of the Top Players list will be adjusted and there may be another name or two added to the Watch List. The individual match detail portion of the Top Teams Report will also require at least a Trial membership.
Note -- The Upper Arlington versus Watterson match was moved to Monday.
September 15, 2011: Interesting matches from yesterday included: Watterson over Olentangy Orange; Dublin Coffman bested Pickerington North; New Albany over Olentangy Liberty; Columbus School for Girls bested Bexley; and Gahanna over Hilliard Davidson.
The order of the Top Players will be changed over the weekend. Yesterday's matches included: Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power defeated New Albany Cristina DiLorenzo; Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger beat DeSales' My Linh Li; Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford defeated Watterson's Katie Shepherd; and Hartley's Rachael Morales beat Wellington's Aashika Katapadi.
Tonight's good match-ups include Dublin Coffman versus Olentangy Liberty and Worthington Kilbourne versus Worthington Christian.
College coaches are provided with free access to Gerber Analytics to help them recruit central Ohio players. I have a new report coming online soon that will provide them with a list of all seniors who have shown interest in playing college tennis. Please make sure that your player's online status reflects her interest.
September 14, 2011: Yesterday's "good match-ups" list yielded the following results: Olentangy Orange defeated Hilliard Bradley; Columbus School for Girls beat Worthington Christian; Olentangy Liberty defeated Westerville Central; and Bexley beat Grandview. Gahanna also defeated Reynoldsburg, 3-2.
Among the best players, Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford defeated Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai; Hartley's Rachael Morales beat Watterson's Katie Shepherd; Ash Thenappan defeated Worthington Kilbourne's Kelley Jiang; and Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power beat Westerville Central's Taylor Todd.
Good match-ups tonight include: Gahanna versus Hilliard Davidson; Pickerington North versus Dublin Coffman; Bexley versus Columbus School for Girls; Olentangy Orange versus Watterson; Olentangy Liberty versus New Albany.
In the readers' poll of the Top Ten Teams, Dublin Coffman switched places with Olentangy Liberty in Division 1. In Division 2, Columbus School for Girls jumped in front of Bishop Hartley, and Grandview replaced Village Academy in eighth place.
September 13, 2011: The "3-2" matches from last night included: Bexley over Hartley; Ready defeated Centennial; and Worthington Christian over Upper Arlington-B. In the OTCA tournament, Dublin Jerome beat Watterson, 3-0.
There was considerable action among the top players. Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern defeated Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai; UA's Audrey Berger beat Bradley's Ashley Thai; Westerville Central's Taylor Todd beat Pickerington Central Kyah Thomas; and Dublin Jerome's Emma Stein beat Watterson's Courtney Brown.
Tonight's good match-ups include: Westerville Central versus Olentangy Liberty; Worthington Christian versus Columbus School for Girls; Olentangy Orange versus Hilliard Bradley; and Bexley versus Grandview.
September 12, 2011: Work continues on the Top Ten Teams report. Paying and Trial members will be 
presented with the individual matches that each team has played, along with the score and game winning percentage of all matches. This is generally the type of information that I use when I rank teams and I thought it might help others as well. The order will be adjusted in the next day or two.
All of the data on the report will be shown to all users for the next few days to encourage more Trial and Paying member sign-ups. [See if you can find the hint in the previous sentence.]
Please note that it is still worthwhile to retrieve the detailed records from the team reports to view the line-ups for each team. In some cases, the coaches of the best teams will sit out a player or two against the teams with less experienced players to allow others to play.
September 11, 2011: It was a great day for tennis yesterday. Olentangy Orange won the Reynoldsburg Doubles Invitational, which included eight central Ohio teams. DeSales and Reynoldsburg finished second and third. respectively. Upper Arlington and Columbus Academy both played Cincinnati's Wyoming. UA won 5-0 while Columbus Academy was defeated 4-1. Springboro (located near Middletown) also played two strong central Ohio teams. Dublin Jerome won 5-0 and New Albany defeated Springboro, 3-2
Among the top players, Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger defeated Springboro's Aundrea Busse; Aundrea Busse beat New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo in 3 (long) sets; and Columbus Academy's Andrea Ballinger defeated Wyoming's Ashley Berg. [Yes, Ms. Busse's first name is spelled correctly.]
Tomorrow's matches include: Upper Arlington versus Hilliard Bradley; Bishop Hartley versus Bexley; and Pickerington Central versus Westerville Central.
September 10, 2011: There were several interesting matches last night. Mount Notre Dame defeated Watterson; DeSales beat Granville; and Pickerington Central defeated New Albany. The DeSales and Pickerington Central matches were OTCA Tournament matches.
Among the top players, Mount Notre Dame's Sandy Niehaus defeated Watterson's Lauren Ghidotti; Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern beat Worthington Kilbourne's Kelley Jiang; New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo defeated PIckerington Central's Kyah Thomas; and on court two singles, Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya beat New Albany's Jane Haffer.
There are several great dual matches today, plus the Reynoldsburg Doubles Tournament.
September 9, 2011: Rain (and the threat of rain) reduced the number of matches played. Six matches were recorded. The "3-2" matches included: Ready over Central Crossing and Bexley over Reynoldsburg.
The "Which school will win the City League?" poll that was released on 9/1 is now closed. Whetstone edged Centennial.
The girls will be busy this weekend. Columbus Academy and Upper Arlington will both be playing Cincinnati-area Seven Hills and Wyoming tomorrow. Reynoldsburg is also having its doubles tournament.
September 8, 2011: The Diaz Family would like to thank everyone who participated in the Mary Diaz and Bill Copeland, Jr. Memorial PanCAN Tennis Tournament this summer. A record, 169 players 
participated in this fun doubles tournament. Over $50,000 was raised to support pancreatic cancer research and patient programs. The tournament was held at the Ohio State recreational courts facility located beside Ohio Stadium.
Please jot a note on the back of this year's calendar that next year's PanCAN will be held July 20-22, 2012.
The tournament t-shirt was modeled by the players in the picture. The first person who guesses the players, gets something of potential value. Submit a Feedback with your guess.
There was only one match reported last night. Centennial defeated Mifflin, 4-1.
September 7, 2011: Last night's matches were as good as advertised. Watterson defeated DeSales; Hilliard Davidson beat Dublin Coffman; Worthington Christian defeated Hartley; and Pickerington North beat Lancaster.
Among the best players, DeSales' My Linh Li defeated Watterson's Katie Shepherd; Westerville Central's Taylor Todd beat Olentangy's Megan Brdicka; and Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan defeated Hilliard Davidson's Mackenzie Donalson.
If the weather holds, tonight's matches include: Bexley versus Hilliard Davidson; Grandview versus Buckeye Valley; and Olentangy Liberty versus Olentangy Orange.
September 6, 2011: West Holmes defeated DeSales over the weekend.
West Holmes' Rachel Nelson beat DeSales' My Linh Li.
Great matches scheduled for tonight include: DeSales versus Watterson; Dublin Coffman versus Hilliard Davidson; Hartley versus Worthington Christian; and Pickerington North versus Lancaster. All of these teams are included in the individual votes of the Top Ten Teams report. Always double check the schedule with a player or coach prior to going to a match.
September 4, 2011: There was just one match played yesterday. Upper Arlington defeated Rocky River Magnificat.
Speaking of UA, Jim Flower has created a great web site that highlights UA's past and present tennis programs. Click here to
access the site.
It's time to watch the US Open!
September 3, 2011: The Top Ten Teams report is updated. Dublin Coffman moved into the Top Ten in Division 1. Hartley moved up two spots in Division 2. This report is still in flux. Links to the team reports were added to the school names to make it easier to do your own research. Pictures were included for the teams that have provided them. If you would like a picture of your team to be shown, please ask your coach to send one to me.
There were no matches held last night.
September 2, 2011: There were several big matches last night. Dublin Jerome beat New Albany; Bexley defeated Worthington Christian; and Reynoldsburg beat Westerville South.
Of those girls on My Top Players List, Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger defeated New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo and Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power beat Upper Arlington's Audrey Berger. Another player or two will be added to the list this weekend and the order will be revised.
If two more people vote in the Top Ten Teams report, I will re-aggregate the results today. Please feel free to vote on whatever division you know the best. If are you most comfortable with Division 1, then that's fine - just vote on that division.
September 1, 2011: The matches are getting better as teams get deeper into their schedules. Watterson defeated Columbus Academy (three, 3-setters); Hilliard Bradley beat Westerville Central (four, 3-setters); and Thomas Worthington defeated Watkins Memorial (two, 3-setters).
The top players were active in matches against each other. Watterson's Katie Shepherd defeated Columbus Academy's Andrea Ballinger; Watterson's Lauren Ghidotti beat Columbus Academy's Hannah Wexner; Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai defeated Westerville Central's Taylor Todd; New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo beat Dublin Coffman's Ash Thenappan; Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford defeated Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger; and Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power beat Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya.
The Top Ten Girls Teams report proved to be very popular yesterday, and the number of new voters are growing. Please note that while members can see any new votes that are cast on a real-time basis, the votes are not aggregated on a real-time basis. If there are new voters today, I'll aggregate the votes again tonight for tomorrow's release.
There are too many good matches tonight to list. View the Upcoming Match report for an update. Note that this report is currently still available to non-members.
August 31, 2011: There were numerous, close matches yesterday. They included: DeSales over Hartley; Westerville Central defeated Dublin Scioto; Big Walnut beat Delaware Hayes; and Hilliard Davidson over Worthington Kilbourne.
Among the top players, Hartley's Rachael Morales defeated DeSales' My Linh Li, and Dublin Jerome's Sarah Stein defeated Olentangy's Megan Brdicka.
There is a new report today. It is a user poll of the best teams in the Central District. This is strictly in beta (test) mode, but you can get an early look at it. Paying and Trial Members may vote and see all of the results. Non-members may view the aggregate results. Click for the Top Ten Girls Teams - Central District report.
August 30, 2011: In last night's matches, Hilliard Davidson defeated Olentangy Orange in the OTCA Tournament; Dublin Coffman beat Dublin Scioto; Worthington Christian defeated Grandview Heights; and Marion Pleasant beat Delaware Hayes.
It is not too late to enter the Ace race. The Ace Report is mainly for fun, but it does identify the players who have a serve weapon. There are four girls who have separated themselves from the rest: Ashley Thai and Lauren Thai of Hilliard Bradley, New Albany's Jane Haffer, and Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford. Let's see if the service returners can step up and slow down their ace count.
The league matches are starting. Tonight's matches include: Columbus Academy versus Bexley; Watterson versus Columbus School for Girls; Hartley versus DeSales, and Granville versus Grandview.
August 29, 2011: There were several new pictures taken at the Watterson Invitational. New pictures 
are online for the following teams: Watterson, Hilliard Bradley, Dublin Coffman, Bexley, and Worthington Kilbourne. Hilliard Bradley's team picture is to the right.
There is a new voting feature that will be released soon. Paying and Trial members will be able to vote for the teams they think are best. Don't be a disenfranchised voter! Sign-up now as a paying or free, Trial member.
Tonight's matches include Dublin Coffman versus Dublin Scioto, and Grandview Heights versus Worthington Christian. Tuesday will be a monster tennis night.
August 28, 2011: There were several tournaments yesterday. Olentangy Orange won the Teays Valley tournament, Upper Arlington won the Canfield doubles tournament, and New Albany won the Watterson Invitational. In other action, Dublin Jerome beat both Lexington and UA-B. Columbus Academy was defeated by Indian Hill.
Many of the top players had great matches with each other. Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford defeated Hartley's Rachael Morales; New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo defeated both Watterson's Katie Shepherd and Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai (in a super tie-break); Lexington's Courtney Earnest beat Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger (in a super tie-break); and Watterson's Lauren Ghidotti beat Hilliard Bradley's Ashley Thai (in a super tie-break).
There were some changes to My Top List of Central Ohio's Top Players. More changes are to come.
In tomorrow's matches, Dublin Coffman plays Dublin Scioto, and it is Grandview Heights versus Worthington Christian.
Thanks to John Stechschulte for providing the UA scores in typed form.
August 27, 2011: Only two matches were played yesterday. Worthington Christian defeated Village Academy and Worthington Kilbourne beat Grove City in a D1 OTCA match.
The girls on my top players list were inactive.
In addition to the Watterson Invitational at the Park of Roses, Columbus Academy is playing Indian Hill. Upper Arlington is also hosting Lexington and Dublin Jerome at their courts.
August 26, 2011: It was a big tennis day yesterday. There were 23 matches played. Reynoldsburg had a tightly contested match with Pickerington North, and Canal Winchester had a great match with Ready.
The Top Player's List is in need of adjustment but there are still players on the list who have not yet played this season. Watch for a few girls to be added and for changes in the order in the next few days. Occasionally, parents of players offer suggestions (typically involving their own daughters) via Feedback. That's fine, but what I look for are tightly contested matches against other singles players on the list. Obviously, earning wins over other players on the list are great, but having "6-4, 6-4" losses to top players are also noticed.
Of the girls on my list who did play yesterday, Hartley's Rachael Morales defeated Columbus Academy's Andrea Ballinger, Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford beat New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo, Pickerington Central's Nithya Raya defeated Gahanna's Kiara Shaw, and Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power beat Olentangy's Megan Brdicka.
Thank you for the sign-ups. Please note that due to considerable fraud in the past, email addresses will be checked prior to providing full access. This may take a few hours if I am not by my computer.
The big, Watterson Invitational takes place this weekend at the Park of Roses' courts. Please look me up if you attend.
August 25, 2011: The 3-2 matches from last night included Hartley over Village Academy, Jonathan Alder defeated Delaware Hayes, Thomas Worthington beat Groveport Madison, and Hilliard Bradley over Columbus School for Girls.
In yesterday's poll, Columbus Academy narrowly led DeSales in the voting for the top central Ohio D2 team. Academy defeated DeSales yesterday 4-1 in a tightly contested match.
Among the top players, DeSales' My Linh Li defeated Columbus Academy's Andrea Ballinger.
Interesting matches tonight include New Albany versus Olentangy Orange, Columbus Academy versus Hartley, Gahanna versus Pickerington Central, and Reynoldsburg versus Pickerington North.
To view all of this year's results for a specific school, sign-up for a Trial Membership. It is free.
August 24, 2011: The close matches from last night included: Gahanna over Lancaster and London over Teays Valley.
Among the top players, Dublin Jerome's Lauren Bellinger defeated Olentangy Liberty's Sydney Power and Upper Arlington's Elaine Cloern beat Worthington Kilbourne's Kelley Jiang.
Your eyes are not getting better -- the team pictures are just a bit bigger on the team report pages. Speaking of team pictures, there are several new ones, including: Worthington Christian, Reynoldsburg, Westerville North, DeSales, and Dublin Jerome. If you would like your varsity team to be recognized online, please send a note that you have a picture via Feedback along with your email address. I will be at the Watterson Invitational this weekend so please speak up if you would like a picture taken of your team.
August 23, 2011: In the "I'm sorry I didn't get my homework done" match of the evening, the Big Walnut versus Jonathan Alder match included four, three-setters. Big Walnut won 3-2. Other great matches included Hilliard Bradley over DeSales, and Gahanna Lincoln defeated Bexley.
Among the top players, Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai defeated DeSales' My Linh Li in three sets. Both players won the same number of games (16).
Tonight there will be a large number of matches. The interesting matches include Hilliard Davidson versus Thomas Worthington, Olentangy Liberty versus Dublin Jerome, and Pickerington Central versus Pickerington North.
August 22, 2011: In tennis, everything is relative. Your opponent is your track, your golf course, or your swimming pool. Unlike in many other sports, tennis does not provide competitors with a way in which they can measure their performance against others by using times or strokes per course.
As a partial solution, a new report was launched this fall to make comparisons easier for players on the same team 
or against their competition. The new Dual Match Results by Court report includes the players side-by-side along with the Game Winning Percentage of each court. The report above is for Bexley's winning, 3-2 match against Wellington. Looking at 1st Doubles as an example, Bexley's doubles team of Fechtor-Wirthman defeated Wellington's Espirit-Perkins by a score of 6-2, 6-1 and their Game Winning Percentage was 80%.
Over the course of a season, coaches can use this report to identify the strengths and weaknesses of various teams in order to fine-tune their line-ups.
This feature is part of the Girls Team Results report and many tennis fans will print just this portion to take to matches. Details for all of the matches for all teams are available for $14.95. Those with Trial memberships can obtain the details for one team.
August 21, 2011 4:00pm Update: The paywall is now active. To receive all of the results for the girls season, please sign-up and become a Gerber Analytics member for $14.95. If you are only interested in tracking the results of one team, you may obtain a Trial Membership at no additional cost. The membership for coaches is $24.95. All email addresses are validated prior to providing access. If you have any questions, please submit a Feedback.
Join now for in-depth information on all of the central Ohio teams. Click to Sign-up.
August 21, 2011: There was plenty of tennis played yesterday. Dublin Jerome dominated the Columbus School for Girls Doubles Tournament, winning the tournament and all four flights. In other action, New Albany defeated both Westlake and Lakota East, while Hilliard Bradley was defeated by Westlake and Lakota East. Walsh Jesuit defeated Columbus Academy in a close, 3-2, contest that included two, three-set matches.
Among the top players, Westlake's Lauren Golick defeated both New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo and Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai.
The four flight winners in the Columbus School for Girls Tournament were: A) Sarah Stein-Lauren Bellinger; B) Emma Stein-Caitlyn Merzbacher; C) Emma Schnell-Mara Shelley; and D) Maddie Easdale-Sofia Gomez.
August 20, 2011: There were just two matches played yesterday. Reynoldsburg defeated Watterson's Varsity B team and Whetstone beat Briggs.
The Columbus School for Girls Doubles Tournament will be held today at their Kirk Campus.
There are still many players who have not yet competed so there will be no changes to the Top Players List for a few more days.
August 19, 2011: Over the weekend, access will be restricted to each team's two most recent matches. Please sign up for either a $14.95 girls season membership or for a Trial membership. The $14.95 members will continue to have access to all of this seaon's data. Trial members will have access to one specific school (and this should be restricted to the "home" school).
Two of the stronger D1 teams played last night. New Albany defeated Hilliard Bradley, 4-1. In other action, Columbus Academy beat Sycamore. The 3-2 matches included Fisher Catholic over Ready and Buckeye Valley over River Valley.
Among the top players, New Albany's Cristina DiLorenzo defeated Hilliard Bradley's Lauren Thai and Columbus Academy's Andrea Ballinger defeated Sycamore's Samantha Kruger.
Watterson will be playing Reynoldsburg tonight. On Saturday, the Columbus School for Girls will have its doubles tournament.
August 18, 2011: In a battle for Hilliard, Bradley defeated Davidson, 3-2. Other 3-2 matches included: Big Walnut over Westerville South, Bexley over Wellington, and Reynoldsburg over Athens.
Most of the season kick-off articles from ThisWeekSports.com are now available. Click on the team reports to access these links.
Tonight is going to be busy. Several of the good match-ups include Columbus Academy versus Cincinnati Sycamore, Hilliard Bradley versus New Albany, and Thomas Worthington versus Upper Arlington.
August 17, 2011: It was another nice day for tennis. The "3-2" matches included Olentangy Liberty over Gahanna, Hamilton Township over Central Crossing, and Logan over Amanda-Clearcreek.
Many of the schedules are now online. To view upcoming matches, select "List of Upcoming Matches" from the "More Stats/Info" navigation bar. Good match-ups for tonight include: Hilliard Bradley versus Hilliard Davidson and Olentangy Liberty versus Worthington Kilbourne. The schedule information is sourced directly from the coaches and from ThisWeekSports.com.
The first aces of the season were reported with Olentangy Orange's Anna Sanford taking the early lead. The Girls Ace report is also available under the "More Stats/Info" navigation bar.
August 16, 2011: There were seven matches played yesterday. Lexington defeated Columbus Academy, while North Canton Hoover defeated both Bexley and Columbus School for Girls.
Among the top players, Lexington's Courtney Earnest defeated Columbus Academy's Andrea Ballinger in three sets.
The transitioning to this school year is still underway. Numerous schedules will be added today. My List of Central Ohio's Top Players will be adjusted by the end of the week.
Get those arms loosened up. The Ace Race is underway.
August 14, 2011: High school matches begin tomorrow. The switch from the 2010 to 2011 seasons takes a bit of time because the information flow is a bit slower than what it is for the beginning of the 
boys season.
The pricing for the web site continues to evolve as I try to find the right combination of a free membership for the casual user and a higher price for the tennis enthusiasts and coaches. The plan for the girls season is to offer four tiers:
- Free - No sign-in necessary for limited information for all teams
- Free Trial Membership - Sign-in is necessary and all of the information is provided for one school, and limited information is shown for the rest. At some pont, the number of logins per season may be limited but that is still to be determined..
- $14.95 - Sign-in is necessary and this year's information is provided for all schools
- $24.95 - This is for coaches only. Sign-in is necessary and it provides a number of features to assist coaches do their jobs. Information for more than one season will be available (soon).
Click on Member Sign-up to select the best pricing tier for you.
For the next couple of days, everyone has access to a new, all-inclusive report that provides a far more detailed view of how players perform in dual matches and greater insight on how a coach sets his/her line-up. To view the report for Bexley, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.
Aces will be tracked for the girls season just as they were last year. There were many positive comments about this last year because it encouraged the girls to focus and work on their serves. Obviously there are times in which going for an ace may not be the right thing to do -- players need to seek guidance from their coach on this.
Please send a Feedback if you have any questions.
August 9, 2011: There is more USTA National Championship news. Colette Lewis wrote about the Chris Diaz - Bjorn Fratangelo match her ZooTennis blog. It is too bad that was not scheduled to be a five set match.
Only Yale Goldberg remains in the front draw of the Boys 16/18 championships.
August 8, 2011: The USTA National Championships continue at their respective locations. In Kalamazoo, Chris Diaz was defeated in the front draw today by Bjorn Fratangelo in *three* sets. That name may be familiar to some of you. Fratangelo was the French Open Junior Champion this year. Click on the links for more information.
August 7, 2011: The USTA National Championships for the various age groups are underway. These are very prestigious events and the list of players below includes previous (and likely future) state champions.
| Competitor | Event | City | Tournament Location |
| McNally, John | B12 | Cincinnati | North Little Rock, AR |
| Thomas, Danny | B12 | Canal Winchester | North Little Rock, AR |
| Wolf, JJ | B12 | Cincinnati | North Little Rock, AR |
| Hirsch, Asher | B14 | Cincinnati | San Antonio, TX |
| Indrakanti, Deepak | B14 | Cincinnati | San Antonio, TX |
| Cepeda, Miguel | B16 | Mason | Kalamazoo, MI |
| Dunbar, Jacob | B16 | Medina | Kalamazoo, MI |
| Goldberg, Yale | B16 | Beachwood | Kalamazoo, MI |
| Buffington, Colton | B18 | Westlake | Kalamazoo, MI |
| Diaz, Christopher | B18 | Columbus | Kalamazoo, MI |
| Mueck, Zachary | B18 | West Chester | Kalamazoo, MI |
| Desiatnikov, Abigail | G12 | Gates Mills | Alpharetta, GA |
| Dunbar, Emily | G12 | Medina | Alpharetta, GA |
| Rohrbacher, Olivia | G12 | Sandusky | Alpharetta, GA |
| Sanford, Alexandra | G12 | Westerville | Alpharetta, GA |
| Thomas, Emily | G12 | Cincinnati | Alpharetta, GA |
| Dilorenzo, Francesca | G14 | New Albany | Peachtree City, GA |
| Safdar, Mehvish | G14 | Mason | Peachtree City, GA |
| Shaffer, Kennedy | G14 | Rossford | Peachtree City, GA |
| Stein, Emma | G14 | Dublin | Peachtree City, GA |
| Wolf, Danielle | G14 | Cincinnati | Peachtree City, GA |
| Broda, Brooke | G16 | West Chester | San Diego, CA |
| Myers, Olivia | G16 | Belmont | San Diego, CA |
| Nelson, Rachel | G16 | Big Prairie | San Diego, CA |
| Sanford, Anna | G16 | Westerville | San Diego, CA |
| Stone, Sierra | G16 | Powell | San Diego, CA |
| Davis, Lauren | G18 | Gates Mills | San Diego, CA |
| McPhillips, Kyle | G18 | Willoughby | San Diego, CA |
Please note that these players are traveling all over the United States to compete.
Players from the Central District are bolded. Players to watch from the Central District for the upcoming Ohio High School Girls season include: Francesca DiLorenzo (freshman at New Albany), Emma Stein (freshman at Dublin Jerome), and Anna Sanford (sophomore at Olentangy Orange). Sierra Stone from Powell trains in Florida, but does not play Ohio high school tennis.
The number of boys on this list from Central Ohio is lower than in previous years. Chris Diaz is the only high school representative. The Central Boys have recently had great runs at States, but this may be an indication of leaner years to come.
Yale Goldberg of University School (D2 - NE) did not play high school tennis last year as a freshman. It will be interesting to see if he does this spring. His brother, Mark, did play high school tennis for Beachwood.
Lauren Davis and Kyle McPhillips from the Northeast District competed at States as freshmen. (Davis won States.) Davis is now on the tour. McPhillips is a rising senior and competing all over the U.S.
August 4, 2011: In an effort to catch-up on some good tennis news, Columbus won the Midwest City Team Tennis Championship in July. The tournament was held in Indianapolis, and Columbus competed against teams from Indianapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Jasper (IN), and Madison (WI). Participants for the Columbus team were selected based on their performance in the Bernard Master Junior Satellite Circuit.
Olympic Indoor's Jim Criswell organized the event for Columbus and he was the head coach. Players representing Columbus included Ryan Wahl, Will Reynolds, Chloe Sidick, Emma Ferguson, Colton Clark, Alex Hulka, Jacob Kotik, Lexi Steer, Reagan Resor, Ty Holsopple, Austin Karbler, Mary Anne Click, Anna Marie Reynolds, Patrick Yen, Aaron Treglia, Alyssa Moreau, Paige Quinton, Blake Byrns, Eric Brunton, Meghan Letizia, and Lauren Gerber.
Max Quinton and Scott Gerber served as assistant coaches. For more details about the event, click here to go to the Olympic Indoor web site.
August 2, 2011: Welcome to the high school girls tennis season. Coaching began yesterday. Other key dates for the season are listed in the table to the right.
| Date | Event |
| August 15 | First Day of Competition |
| September 25 | Sectional Tournament Draw |
| October 3-8 | Sectional Tournament |
| October 10-15 | District Tournament |
| October 21-22 | State Tournament |
| October 22 | OTCA Tournament |
The good news is that both days of Girls States will take place at the new Ohio State University tennis facility that is under construction. If you would like to monitor OSU's progress, become a free trial member (or a paying member) and sign-in to the right.
If it has been too long since you last signed in and you have forgotten your password, please note that I have added a Forget Password? tool in the right navigation bar.
Please watch for new views of the data and for new capabilities this season.
July 19, 2011: This news is a bit dated but it is still good news. The Columbus area Davis Cup team beat the other USTA Ohio Valley teams to win the Ohio Valley Davis Cup competition. The group was coached by Tyler Stephen (Thomas Worthington Boys' and Dublin Jerome Girls' coach) and Steve Metzmaier (Worthington Kilbourne Boys' coach). For all of the details, click here.
The Mary Diaz and William Copeland, Jr. Memorial Tournament was a great success. The Diaz family extends its thanks to all who participated. More information and pictures from the event will be forthcoming.
July 14, 2011: The girls season is coming up soon. Please consider signing up for the Academy Open for competitive play. The details from Walt Thieman follow:
The Academy Open will begin on Monday, July 18. The junior divisions should be complete by Thursday with Friday morning as a rain date. The adult divisions will continue through the weekend with projected semis on Saturday and finals on Sunday. Registration for this event is on the www.cogp.com (Central Ohio Grand Prix) site. With the great setting at Columbus Academy located on Cherry Bottom Road in Gahanna this has been one of the premier stops on the Central Ohio Summer Circuit. Please consider participating. Any questions can be directed to Walt Thieman, Tournament Director, at the email address: wthieman 'at' hotmail.com.July 12, 2011: Sometimes it is hard to remember passwords.
If you are having problems with yours, click on the Forget Password? link under the Sign In button. You will need to provide the email address that you used when you signed up. 
July 10, 2011: The Mary Diaz and William Copeland, Jr. Memorial Pancreatic Cancer doubles tennis tournament is this coming weekend. Thanks to all who have already signed up. To include even more players, the deadline has been extended to July 12. Click for more information.
Progress at the Ohio State University outdoor tennis facility continues. I purposely made the resolution of the picture dense so that users could "zoom in" to view it more clearly. I recommend zooming in 300%.
June 30, 2011: While all high school tennis coaches and fans are aware of the USTA, many are not aware of the grind that the players (and parents) have to endure to boost their USTA rankings. This 
article from ZooTennis is self-serving in some respects (because it summarizes my research), but it provides an overview of the points-per-round system that the USTA uses.
Players need to maximize their points in order to get into USTA tournaments and to get seeded. This involves significant travel time, travel expense, tournament entry fees, hard work, and luck.
Given the success (or lack there of) of American tennis, I hope that the USTA is now reviewing whether this wildly expensive (for the parents) points-per-round experiment yielded the results they expected.
As I have stated before, I am a big fan of Colette Lewis' ZooTennis blog site. If you closely follow the top junior and college players, you will enjoy this site. While you can bookmark this site on your browser, I encourage you to signup to receive her daily (7am) email updates. It is a great way to start the day.
MIDWEST CLOSED |
|
| Boys | Girls |
| B18 | G18 |
| B16 | G16 |
| B14 | G14 |
June 25, 2011: The all-important Midwest Closed will begin today. The draws for the various tournaments are in the table to the right. The boys and girls 16's and 18's are played at a huge, 32 court complex in Indianapolis. The 14's are played in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Those who excel at this tournament are invited to participate in the national championships for each age group.
June 21, 2011: As usual, I continue to experiment with this web site. The blurred picture is of the construction of Ohio State's new tennis courts. Existing Gerber Analytics members will need to "Sign In" to view it.
Readers who are not 
Gerber Analytics members may Sign Up for a Trial Membership to view it. There is no charge for the Trial Membership.
Hopefully, the OSU courts will be available for the OHSAA State Girls Tennis Championships. As a frame of reference, the OSU football facility is to the left and the field hockey facility is to the right. This picture was taken on June 15.
If you encounter any problems with viewing the picture, please submit a Feedback message.
June 16, 2011: The Ohio Tennis Coaches' Association has named its first and second all-state teams. The list is here. If you recall from my previous blog postings, there needs to be more consideration placed on this list since the OHSAA / OTCA does not seed the players for States. A player such as a Michael Fredericka should not be excluded from the First Team All-State list just because he had to play the state champion in the second round.
Seeding the top four singles players in each division at States would not be hard with today's technologies and information sources. The USTA information could be very beneficial with this process. Please note that the USTA champions and runners-up who participated at States are highlighted in red in the table below.
Again, just focus on what is best for the players and the processes will fall into place.
June 15, 2011: All of the USTA Qualifiers are finished and the champions and runner-ups are in the table to the right. Many of the names in the table are recognizable from States.
| OVTA | Champion | Runner-up |
| B18 | Chris Diaz | Zach Mueck |
| B16 | Asher Hirsch | Patrick Wildman |
| G18 | Sandy Niehaus | Amanda Lin |
| G16 | Mehvish Safdar | Anna Sanford |
| Northeastern Ohio | ||
| B18 | Michael Fredericka | Maksim Kan |
| B16 | Aaron Sandberg | Jacob Dunbar |
| G18 | Courtney Earnest | Rachel Nelson |
| G16 | Ariana Iranpour | Kati Mdzinarishvili |
| Northwestern Ohio | ||
| B18 | Evan Bechtel | Jeffrey Schorsch |
| B16 | Alex Swick | Lucas Schaible |
| G18 | April Weaver | Drew Fillis |
| G16 | Lauren Ghidotti | Ashley LaFountain |
Others who finished strong from the Columbus metro area included Canyon Teague who was third in B16's and My Linh Li who finished third in G16's.
Note that the OHSAA Districts are not the same as for the USTA. Lexington's Courtney Earnest of the OHSAA Northwest District qualified from the USTA Northeast Ohio District; Watterson's Lauren Ghidotti of the OHSAA Central District qualified out of the USTA Northwestern Ohio; and West Holmes' Rachel Nelson of the OHSAA East District qualified from the USTA Northeast District.
Best of luck to these players and to the others who qualified for the Midwest Closed Tournament out of the Ohio USTA Districts. The Closed takes place on June 25 in Indianapolis for the 16's and 18's. College coaches from all over the Midwest will be in attendance.
June 13, 2011: The qualifiers for the Northeastern and Northwestern USTA Districts have finished. Since the Ohio Valley District is so much larger in area and in participation, the OVTA draws are in the quarter-final round. Click on the links below to follow the action. Also note that the links have been modified to create a new window within your Internet browser. This makes it easier to jump from draw to draw.
Northeastern Ohio |
|
Northwestern Ohio |
|
June 10, 2011: Links to the USTA Qualifiers in Northeastern and Northwestern Ohio are included to the right. The USTA Midwest Northwestern Ohio qualifier is underway for both genders. The Northeastern qualifier is also underway for the boys, but the girls finished their qualifier in May.
Another great tennis site is ZooTennis. It does an excellent job of covering high-end junior tennis and college tennis. Today, it includes mention of a good article by the Wall Street Journal on D3 tennis. This WSJ article specifically mentions Emory, which is where Wellington's Ian Wagner will be attending next fall.
Ohio Valley |
|
| Boys | Girls |
| B10 | G10 |
| B12 | G12 |
| B14 | G14 |
| B16 | G16 |
| B18 | G18 |
June 9, 2011: The all-important Midwest Qualifiers are taking place in a variety of locations throughout the USTA-Ohio Valley District for the Central players. The kids who play extremely well have an opportunity to play at the Midwest Closed.
The draws for the various age groups are starting to come out. Click on the links for the various age groups.
June 8, 2011: The High School Court Comparison document is done. In tennis, everything is measured relative to an opponent. For example, if a player gets beat 6-3, 6-3, then a congratulations is appropriate if he just got beat by a Chris Diaz-caliber player, because again, everything is relative.
What the Court Comparison document provides is a view of how an entire team performs during the season relative to all of its opponents by showing the game winning percentage of each court. For example, if Court 1 won 180 games and lost 120 games, then the game winning percentage would be 60%.
In a perfect world, a good team would have a chart similar to the one to the right. Obviously, this could never happen though because it would require that all of its opponents have line-ups that are proportionally stronger (or weaker) across all five courts.
As you review the document, it will also be obvious who the standout players and teams have been over the years. The list of players at the bottom of the each page is not meant to be exhaustive but to jog the memories of readers of those past teams and players. Also note that of those listed, they nearly always played in the same position each time.
There are (and always have been) "head-scratcher" line-ups (i.e. stacking) during the season and some charts will reflect this. Imagine the chart to the right having a 1st doubles team with a 40% game winning average and the 2nd doubles team with an 80% game winning percentage. That would obviously be a cause for concern. Again, please note that these charts are for an entire season -- not for a specific match. In many cases, they are also not for a specific player.
In terms of the "strategic line-up" issue, I have some ideas that may reduce this from occurring and I will share some of these ideas with the coaching leadership to get their perspective.
Please let me know if you have any questions about the charts via a Feedback.
June 7, 2011: I understand that some coaches provide their players with a keepsake list of all of their season's matches. Since this data is already on Gerber Analytics, it is just a matter of repackaging the data to present it on a "by player view". 
Since I prepared this for New Albany, I will extend the offer to other coaches who are members of Gerber Analytics. Please contact me by June 10 if you would like this information so that you can give it to your players. Since there is a fair amount of manual effort involved, I will ask that you make a small donation to PanCAN if you would like for me to do this for you.
I may consider providing this as part of the coach's offering next season.
June 6, 2011: There are numerous web sites for tennis players and fans. TennisRecruiting.net is a great, nationwide web site for kids who want to play college tennis at any level. All players are ranked within their class year using TennisRecruiting.net's proprietary system and that provides users with a reasonable understanding of a player's skill level. There are portions of the site that any user can see; other portions that require registration; and a premium area that carries a $7.95/month price-tag (or $49.95 annual fee). If you have (or your child has) any interest in playing college tennis, it is a requirement that you become well-acquainted with this web site.
TennisRecruiting.net is also indispensable to college tennis coaches as they monitor how recruits and prospects play in USTA and ITF matches. Coaches are charged $250/year to access all of this information as well as to view the private information (i.e. SAT/ACT scores) that players provide.
To see the TennisRecruiting.net information for local area players, My List of Top Central Ohio Players include links to TennisRecruiting.net.
Unfortunately, TennisRecruiting.net does not include high school matches but that is where Gerber Analytics is beneficial. I had one college coach recently mention how he wished that other neighboring states had their own version of Gerber Analytics so that he could track their high school tennis player activity. Fortunately for Ohio players, that is not the case (yet) so our players will continue to have a bit of an edge over the players in other areas of the Midwest.
| Boys | City | Likely High School | Grade |
| C.J. Cash | New Albany | ? | 8th |
| Patrick Morse | Westerville | ? | 8th |
| Adam Seitz | Dublin | Dublin Jerome | 7th? |
| Jacob Wareti | Columbus | Bexley | 7th? |
| Girls | City | Likely High School | Grade |
| Emma Stein | Dublin | Dublin Jerome | 8th |
| Andrea Ballinger | Columbus | ? | 8th |
| Jane Haffer | New Albany | ? | 8th |
| Francesca DiLorenzo | New Albany | New Albany | 8th |
If anyone has insight on where the eighth graders will be playing high school tennis, please send me a Feedback message.
June 3, 2011: For a bit clearer look, here are the high-def videos for the championship points for the Diaz-Wagner and Upper Arlington vs Mason matches. If you have a really fast connection, try 1080p, otherwise use 720p.
It has been interesting to see how other areas of the state cover tennis. Here is another article from the Cincinnati Enquirer. It includes a video interview from Wyoming's Mason Bourbon and Gustav Plattenburg. This interview was done prior to States.
None of the major papers covered the OTCA Tournament.
The OTCA has not yet named the All-State Tennis Teams. Hopefully they give Warren JFK's Michael Fredericka a first team spot. Even though Fredericka was the NW's 1 seed, he had to play Chris Diaz in the second round because of the poorly conceived five district situation in Division 2. First team spots are typically only given to those who reach the semi-finals on Saturday.
June 2, 2011: St. John's Jesuit fans wanted all of the video footage that I had on their "first doubles" match (which was the deciding match). This version contains the last three points in high-definition video.
It takes a fair amount of time (processing and setup) to create the high-definition videos, but I think they are worth it. I will upgrade the Diaz-Wagner and UA-Mason matches and provide them in tomorrow's update.
The USTA qualifiers are underway for the high school boys and have finished for the girls. These are always interesting because they provide insight on how hard the girls worked on their games in the off-season and because they include interesting match-ups for the boys.
To keep those tennis skills sharp, the Gahanna Open will begin after school on Monday, June . To register, please go to the www.cogp.com web site. The deadline to register is June 4.
| Coach | School | Total | Wins | Losses | Winning % |
| Mark Latham | Olentangy Orange | 9 | 9 | 0 | 100% |
| Tommy Haddow | Wellington | 6 | 5 | 1 | 83% |
| Ryan Swinehart | Jonathan Alder | 15 | 11 | 4 | 73% |
| Dan Witteman | Westland | 11 | 8 | 3 | 73% |
| G.J. Seckel | Bexley | 11 | 8 | 3 | 73% |
| Daphne Hess | Beechcroft | 14 | 10 | 4 | 71% |
| Art Haus | Buckeye Valley | 7 | 5 | 2 | 71% |
| John Messick | Teays Valley | 10 | 7 | 3 | 70% |
| John Fill | Westerville South | 12 | 8 | 4 | 67% |
| Tyler Stephen | Thomas Worthington | 14 | 9 | 5 | 64% |
| Bob Hunter | West Jefferson | 8 | 5 | 3 | 63% |
| Andrew Brower | Marion-Franklin | 8 | 5 | 3 | 63% |
| Linda Myers | St. Charles | 18 | 11 | 7 | 61% |
| Jeff Warstler | Columbus Academy | 15 | 9 | 6 | 60% |
| Barb Woods | Watterson | 10 | 6 | 4 | 60% |
| Kelli Rings | Pickerington Central | 10 | 6 | 4 | 60% |
| Doug Ewart | Groveport | 5 | 3 | 2 | 60% |
Why three-set matches? There are several reasons. They include: the competition is of similar ability; three-setters take place near the end of the match when the coach is not occupied with five different matches; and the coach has had time to evaluate the strengths and weakness of the opponents and advise his or her players on the best strategy.
Congratulations to the coaches included in the table. Each had a 60% or better winning percentage in three-set matches. (Nine additional coaches had winning, three-set records.)
Being on this list every once in awhile is probably better than never being on it, but again, it is just one of many different ways of looking at the season.
I continue to test different video configurations. This is a revised, higher-definition version of the Evan Bechtel - Zach Mueck championship point. If you have a fast connection, set the resolution to 720p and use the full screen mode.
| Coach | School | Total | Wins | Losses | Winning % |
| Mark Latham | Olentangy Orange | 9 | 9 | 0 | 100% |
| Tommy Haddow | Wellington | 6 | 5 | 1 | 83% |
| Ryan Swinehart | Jonathan Alder | 15 | 11 | 4 | 73% |
| Dan Witteman | Westland | 11 | 8 | 3 | 73% |
| G.J. Seckel | Bexley | 11 | 8 | 3 | 73% |
| Daphne Hess | Beechcroft | 14 | 10 | 4 | 71% |
| Art Haus | Buckeye Valley | 7 | 5 | 2 | 71% |
| John Messick | Teays Valley | 10 | 7 | 3 | 70% |
| John Fill | Westerville South | 12 | 8 | 4 | 67% |
| Tyler Stephen | Thomas Worthington | 14 | 9 | 5 | 64% |
| Bob Hunter | West Jefferson | 8 | 5 | 3 | 63% |
| Andrew Brower | Marion-Franklin | 8 | 5 | 3 | 63% |
| Linda Myers | St. Charles | 18 | 11 | 7 | 61% |
| Jeff Warstler | Columbus Academy | 15 | 9 | 6 | 60% |
| Barb Woods | Watterson | 10 | 6 | 4 | 60% |
| Kelli Rings | Pickerington Central | 10 | 6 | 4 | 60% |
| Doug Ewart | Groveport | 5 | 3 | 2 | 60% |
June 1, 2011:There are certainly quite a few ways to identify the Central District's best coaches. The criteria could include: won/lost records; improvement of players during the year; strength of schedule; number of kids with great academic results; number of players reaching Sectionals / Doubles / States; number of college players from the school; etc.; etc. One nonsubjective way to evaluate coaches is to see how well their players perform in three-set matches.
Why three-set matches? There are several reasons. They include: the competition is of similar ability; three-setters take place near the end of the match when the coach is not occupied with five different matches; and the coach has had time to evaluate the strengths and weakness of the opponents and advise his or her players on the best strategy.Congratulations to the coaches included in the table. Each had a 60% or better winning percentage in three-set matches. (Nine additional coaches had winning, three-set records.)
Being on this list every once in awhile is probably better than never being on it, but again, it is just one of many different ways of looking at the season.
I continue to test different video configurations. This is a revised, higher-definition version of the Evan Bechtel - Zach Mueck championship point. If you have a fast connection, set the resolution to 720p and use the full screen mode.
May 31, 2011: This was a long season. The combination of the rain, the mess associated with not seeding the OTCA Tournament, and the weird draws at States made it seem longer.
There are a number of things that could be changed that are "low hanging fruit" that would make high school tennis better for all involved, but they are not being addressed. If we could put aside the "What is best for my kid? My school? My district?" stuff and strictly focus on rewarding the best and hardest working players, then we could make some progress.
I hope to wrap the season up quickly. The additional work required to include the aces, coaches' entry of scores, additional results for Cincinnati / Cleveland metro areas, etc. required a significant percentage of my time this season, and I need to jump into other projects.
| School | # 3 Setters | Wins | Losses | 3 Set Winning % |
| Hartley | 13 | 11 | 2 | 85% |
| Village Academy | 16 | 12 | 4 | 75% |
| Hilliard Darby | 11 | 8 | 3 | 73% |
| New Albany | 21 | 15 | 6 | 71% |
| Westland | 13 | 9 | 4 | 69% |
| Lancaster | 16 | 11 | 5 | 69% |
| Upper Arlington | 27 | 18 | 9 | 67% |
| Bexley | 18 | 12 | 6 | 67% |
| St. Charles | 14 | 9 | 5 | 64% |
| Dublin Jerome | 18 | 11 | 7 | 61% |
| Olentangy Liberty | 10 | 6 | 4 | 60% |
In the next few days, look for updates in a couple of reports that I create each year. The first is the "High School Court Comparison" report. This report shows the relative performance of how each "court position" performed throughout the season. The link above takes you to last year's report. The second report shows the top performing schools in three setters. We do not have a "coach of the year" in central Ohio, but if we did, this would be one metric that should be included in the criteria. The report for last year is to the right.
St. John's Jesuit - OTCA Division 1 Champions
May 30, 2011: It was the agony of defeat -- and victory -- as the teams tried to cope with the heat yesterday. St. John's Jesuit beat St. Xavier 3-1, to earn the Division 1 crown. Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy defeated Bexley 3-2 to attain the Division 2 championship.
St. John Jesuit won both doubles matches in three sets to earn the win, while Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy won a three set match at third singles to seal the championship. In the pivotal CVCA-Bexley three setter, both players began struggling with the heat in the first set.
The order of finish in Division 1 was: St. John's Jesuit, St. Xavier, Walsh Jesuit, and New Albany.
Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy - OTCA Division 2 Champions
The order of finish in Division 2 was: Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy, Bexley, Seven Hills, and Lima Shawnee.
All of the results (in pdf form) are in "More Stats / Info".
Videos of the championship points for St. John's Jesuit and Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy are available via the above links.
May 29, 2011: The Central District did very well today. Congratulations to Watterson's Chris Diaz, the D2 Singles Champion and to Upper Arlington's Billy Weldon and Stu Little, the Division 1 Doubles Champions.
The results from States are here. I took a few photos and videos. The first photo is of Watterson's Chris Diaz, the second is of Wellington's Ian Wagner, and the third is of Upper Arlington's doubles team of Stu Little (left) and Billy Weldon. Videos of the championship points of the Diaz vs. Wagner, St. John's Jesuit's Evan Bechtel vs. Lakota East's Zach Mueck, and Weldon-Little vs. Mason's Miguel Cepeda-Luke Tsai matches are available via the above links.
Newspaper articles from around the state include: Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Toledo Blade.
The Ohio Tennis Coaches' Association tournament will be held today at Hilliard Davidson. The teams participating are listed in the right navigation bar. D2 will play first. Central will play the Northwest in the first round.
The data in the various team reports will be updated later today.
May 28, 2011: The Central District players still in the State tournament include: Watterson's Chris Diaz, Wellington's Ian Wagner, and Upper Arlington's Billy Weldon and Stu Little.
For what has to be a first ever situation, all six Central doubles teams won their first round matches.
News articles from around the state, include: Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland Plain Dealer #2, and the Toledo Blade.
The OHSAA did a nice job of keeping the scores updated online but please note that they erroneous listed that Columbus Academy's Langston Hughes and Chris Perrini lost their first round match. CA won that match.
Good luck today.
May 27, 2011: Good luck at States today. Let's hope that the weather holds.
There are some interesting articles from around the State on the upcoming tournaments. From the Toledo Blade on St. John's Jesuit about OTCA play, click here. From the Toledo Blade on OHSAA play, click here. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, this is an article about Lakewood and OHSAA play. From the Cincinnati Enquirer on Lakota East and OHSAA play, click here.
Today's Dispatch had a nice article on Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre. It will be a busy tennis day for the Cempre family because Casey's brother, Tyler, is competing in the NCAA doubles competition in California today.
Those schools that are participating in the OTCA tournament on Sunday are listed in the right navigation bar. (Please note that I received a late-night Feedback that Lima Shawnee is Northwest's representative, but I could not confirm that.)
Of those 51 people who participated in the "Should Ohio High School Tennis Use Fair, Random Draws?" 88% voted "Yes". As always, the polls are non-scientific. However, a result of greater than 80% may be an indication that voters are frustrated with the status quo. The other poll with a greater than 80% "Yes" vote was whether or not the OTCA Tournament should be seeded in some manner.
The correct answer to the education-related poll question was Dublin Jerome. Fifty-two percent of the voters chose correctly. While all of the schools in the poll are very good schools, Dublin Jerome had 98% of their 2010 10th graders score "Proficient or Better"; 86% scored "Accelerated or Better"; and 55% scored "Advanced" on the Ohio Graduation Test. Jerome also had a nice, year-to-year increase in Science (as well as in Mathematics and Social Studies).
May 26, 2011: The good news is that Ohio State should have a new facility in time for the girls season. The bad news is that both days of States will be at Hilliard Davidson for the boys. Fortunately for the Central players, they are already accustomed to the site and its notorious winds. The players from the other districts, who likely played at much nicer facilities for sectionals and districts, will be in for a bit of a shock.
It is really hard to dress up Hilliard Davidson to make it look like a special, championship venue for the players and fans. I used the following photo of Hilliard Davidson during the girls season.
A quote from an unnamed friend of a friend who recently visited the courts summed up Hilliard Davidson pretty well when he said, "I thought that we had bad venues in Serbia."
Since fans will find it very difficult to take pictures of the players through the chain link fence, I am hopeful that the OHSAA will at least let the fans sit on the courts during the matches on Saturday so that they can take pictures.
The match of the day on Friday (and perhaps the weekend) is slated to be between Christopher Diaz and Michael Fredericka. Both are first seeds coming out of Central and Northeast, respectively. Diaz will play college tennis for Ohio State while Fredericka will play for Notre Dame. Amazingly, the loser of this match will be Second Team All-State. Can you imagine this type of thing happening in any other sport in Ohio?
I will be wearing a Gerber Analytics t-shirt at States so please say "hi" if you like my web site. If you don't like my web site, note that I have given t-shirts to others, and they know karate.
New Albany - OTCA Central District Division 1 Champions
May 25, 2011: Congratulations to New Albany. New Albany defeated Thomas Worthington to win the Division 1 OTCA crown. They will represent the Central District on Sunday. The OTCA uses a rotation for its draws and the Central District will play the Northwest District teams first. [Yes, it is weird how a draw rotation is used for the OTCA tournament draws but not for the OHSAA Tournament.]
Congratulations to the boys who are Ace Champions this year. (Click for the Ace Report.) They are: Pickerington North's Dylan Bhaerman (the champion Champion); Sean Yun, Sam Romanoff, John Hendrix, and Steve Miller from New Albany; and St. Charles' Grant Dolven. Each will get a t-shirt which he can use to impress his friends, family, and opponents. A number of factors were taken into consideration to determine the champions, but this group stood out in the way in which they could use their serves as a tennis "weapon". Again, this was a "fun", non-serious award, but they still earned a t-shirt. (See below.) Those on the bubble but who did not quite make it included: Beechcroft's Joseph Pleasant, Olentangy Orange's Doug Ganim, and Marysville's Jordan Cox. Hopefully, Joseph and Doug, who are both juniors, will be in contention next year. (Hover on the blue, player names to view their pictures.)
It will be interesting to see if the additional focus on serving pays dividends for the central Ohio kids. Special thanks to the coaches who regularly tracked the aces. Hopefully, the coaches who participated will benefit from their effort next year!
Now that the season is winding down and readers have less to look at on the site, another link was added to the Boys Team Results pages last week. These links go to the education portion of the Gerber Analytics web site. While a significant amount of my time is spent with tennis, my main interest is with education. I am trying to get people to look at education differently -- in a manner that is similar to what they do with sports. I would like to get people to care about and focus on education at the same, high intensity level as they do with athletics.
What I am trying to accomplish is to: 1) recognize the best academic high schools in Ohio; 2) recognize the best schools in each league/division; 3) recognize the league winners in each subject; and 4) recognize the best subject areas within each school. The education reports make heavy use of bar charts (so they are boss-friendly). They also make it easier to identify trends. Also note that my data includes both private and public schools and it is the only online source of this combined data -- anywhere.
As with most things I do, the education project is an experiment but I believe the potential is significant. For a list of my Top Academic Ohio High Schools, please click here. To see how your school compares with others in its sports league (or division), click on your school link above. Just for the fun of it, let's see how well you know your school relative to the others. Science is the most difficult subject to pass on the Ohio Graduation Test -- which one of the four schools did the best?
If you want to know why your school was not the best, then that's good. That's what I am trying to accomplish with this education project.
Almost 800 high school principals were sent this education data. Some touted their schools' successes. Most did not.
May 24, 2011: Congratulations to Bexley and Northland. Bexley defeated Watterson to win the Division 2 OTCA crown. They will represent the Central District on Sunday. Northland beat Centennial to win the City League Championship.
Bexley - OTCA Central District Division 2 Champions
The four state tennis draws were released yesterday. It is more of the same. In wrestling, fourteen weight classes for three divisions are seeded. That equates to 42 draws involving 672 wrestlers. Meanwhile in tennis, we cannot get two (2) fair, random draws for Division 1 tennis. This makes ten years in a row that the top two seeds in the Southwest District play against the top two seeds in Central in the second round in Division 1. The draws could be random or rotated as they were done for the Girls in 2008 (Singles / Doubles) but they are not.
In the Division 2 state draw, the two best singles players in Ohio (Chris Diaz and Michael Fredericka) and highly ranked in the nation (per the TennisRecruiting.net web site) are slated to play each other in the second round on Friday rather than in the semi-finals or finals on Saturday. Again, it is not possible to create a draw that makes sense with five Districts. The Ohio high school tennis players deserve better.
Northland - City League Champions
As a reminder of the Mary Diaz and Bill Copeland, Jr. Memorial PanCAN Tennis Tournament to be held July 15-17, all of the "thumbs-up's" will be replaced with the PanCAN symbol. Many high school players team up to play doubles in this event. Please sign-up to get more information about this tournament.
New Albany and Thomas Worthington are scheduled to play tonight for the OTCA Division 1 crown. In the Northeast District, Walsh Jesuit defeated Solon to earn their OTCA berth.
May 23, 2011: Other high school sports use an old fashion but effective way of insuring that the draws for States are done fairly. They are done using pill boxes during the OHSAA Athletic Board meeting. Someone in the audience draws "pills" to determine the pairings for upcoming contests. It is a fair, extremely transparent, and random approach. Tennis is not like that.
| Year | Singles Draws | Champion / Runner-up | Doubles Draws | Champion / Runner-up |
| 2002 | Singles | NE / NW | Doubles | SW / SW |
| 2003 | Singles | SW / SW | Doubles | NW / SW |
| 2004 | Singles | SW / SW | Doubles | SW / SW |
| 2005 | Singles | SW / SW | Doubles | SW / SW |
| 2006 | Singles | SW / SW | Doubles | SW / SW |
| 2007 | Singles | SW / SW | Doubles | SW / SW |
| 2008 | Singles | SW / C | Doubles | C / SW |
| 2009 | Singles | C / SW | Doubles | C / C |
| 2010 | Singles | C / SW | Doubles | C / C |
| 2011 | Singles | NW / SW | Doubles | C / SW |
A similar approach could be used for Division 1 tennis to randomly place the 1 and 2 seeds into the four quarterfinals, but for whatever reason that does not happen. Instead, the top two seeds from Central and Southwest have had to play against each other in Singles and Doubles for the last nine (9) straight years in the second round of the draw on Friday. This is obviously a great situation for the other Districts because this has enabled their top two seeds to avoid having to play the historically strong Southwest players (and more recently Central players) until the semi-finals on Saturday.
You can see this for yourself by clicking on the Singles and Doubles links in the table, but note that it is not obvious. The draws look substantially different from year-to-year but they are largely the same. Again, this has happened for nine (9) straight years -- Central's 1 Seed plays against Southwest's 2 Seed and Southwest's 1 Seed plays against Central's 2 seed in the second round on Friday. The last year that it was not done this way was in 2001 (Singles / Doubles).
To see how a fair, draw rotation could be created, click on the Ohio and USTA Tennis Analysis page and click on OHSAA Proposed Draws. This document was first shared in October 2008 as a potential solution to the draw problem.
Please note that the draws are somewhat more random for Division 2. However, with five number one and five number two seeds, it is not possible to create a draw that makes sense. Division 2 needs to move to four Districts before it can be done correctly. The wrestlers realized that five Districts would not work effectively, and they successfully dealt with this issue several years ago.
It would be great if the tennis draws for Division 1 could be done in the same fair manner as is done with the other sports. Hopefully it will happen this year. Meanwhile, what do you think? Should Ohio high school tennis use fair, random draws? Please vote in today's poll.
May 22, 2011: The Central seeds are shown below in the table. In District singles play yesterday, Watterson's Chris Diaz defeated Ian Wagner, and Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre beat New Albany's Stephen Miller and Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama to earn Central's #1 seeds. Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama beat Jesse Shivener in the semi-final.
In doubles, Dublin Jerome's Sean Stein-Kent Seitz earned D1's first seed by beating Upper Arlington's Billy Weldon-Stu Little in the semi's and Eric Vannatta-Nate Wallace in the finals. Vannatta-Wallace beat St. Charles' Weston Niermeyer-Grant Dolven to get to the finals. In Division 2, Columbus Academy's Langston Hughes-Chris Perrini beat DeSales' John Acomb-Mike Rosile to earn the number one seed.
For the third straight year, pictures of the Central District boys who made it to States are available to the parents and coaches. To obtain your free picture:
1) Click here to enter your name and email address so that more information can be sent to you about the Mary Diaz and Bill Copeland, Jr. Memorial PanCAN Tennis Tournament to be held July 15-17.
2) Send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope by May 31. The envelope needs to be 6 1/2 by 9 1/2 for the 6 x 8 picture. Oversized envelope rates apply so please affix 88 cents of postage. Please submit a Feedback or send me an email if you need my address.
In the years to come, this picture (which includes the names of all of the players) will be one of your son's favorite photos.
If you cannot play in the PanCAN tournament, please consider making a donation to PanCAN.
Come back this evening for a preview of tomorrow's posting. There will be a poll question.
May 21, 2011: Congratulations to the players from Central who will be playing at States. They are listed to the right.
| SEED | DIVISION 1 - COMPETITORS | SCHOOLS |
| 1 | Casey Cempre | Thomas Worthington |
| 2 | Hiromi Nakayama | Dublin Coffman |
| 3 | Jesse Shivener | Gahanna |
| 4 | Stephen Miller | New Albany |
| 1 | Sean Stein-Kent Seitz | Dublin Jerome |
| 2 | Eric Vannatta-Nate Wallace | Upper Arlington |
| 3 | Billy Weldon-Stu Little | Upper Arlington |
| 4 | Grant Dolven-Weston Niermeyer | St. Charles |
| DIVISION 2 | ||
| 1 | Chris Diaz | Watterson |
| 2 | Ian Wagner | Wellington |
| 1 | Langston Hughes-Chris Perini | Columbus Academy |
| 2 | John Acomb-Mike Rosile | DeSales |
Among the top players in Division 1, New Albany's Sean Yun defeated Worthington Kilbourne's Brian Aguirre; New Albany's Stephen Miller beat Olentangy Orange's Doug Ganim; Gahanna's Jesse Shivener beat Upper Arlington's Jeffrey Melvin; Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama defeated Sean Yun; Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre beat Upper Arlington's Brandon Griffin.
In D1 doubles, Dublin Jerome's Sean Stein-Kent Seitz defeated Olentangy Orange's Mitchell Lothes-Alexander Hathaway; Upper Arlington's Billy Weldon-Stu Little beat New Albany's John Hendrix-Oliver Sybert; and St. Charles' Grant Dolven-Weston Niermeyer beat Gahanna's Canyon Teague-Stephen Cheng.
In Division 2, Wellington's Ian Wagner defeated Granville's Daniel Gardner and Watterson's Chris Diaz beat Buckeye Valley's Kendall Coffman.
May 20, 2011: Today is the day. Good luck to those competing for a spot at States.
The college coaches are now looking more closely at the results for the juniors. High School Coaches, if you have a player who is interested in playing college tennis at any level, please indicate this on the rosters. This is your opportunity to help your players gain attention from the college coaches. Please note that this information is only available to members and coaches.
A reader from NE Ohio provided an update for their OTCA Division 1 Tournament. Walsh Jesuit will play Solon in the finals on May 23.
I had to go out of town yesterday so a few things that I had planned for today are not quite ready. Look for more than normal this weekend.
May 19, 2011: There were two big matches last night. New Albany defeated Gahanna to move into the OTCA Division 1 finals. Watterson beat Thomas Worthington.
Among the best players, Watterson's Chris Diaz beat Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre; Gahanna's Jesse Shivener defeated New Albany's Sean Yun; and Gahanna's Canyon Teague beat New Albany's Sam Romanoff.
The Dispatch Scholar Athletes were announced today. Tennis was well-represented. Those who played tennis this year and were named Scholar Athletes include: Ben Graber (Jonathan Alder), Daniel Smith (Northland), Ryne Kitchen (Reynoldsburg), Adam Plank (Grove City), Ellen McDevitt-Stredney (Buckeye Valley), Lydia Utkin (Dublin Jerome), Alan George (Groveport-Madison), Meghan Buell (New Albany), Jeremy Cranmer (Marion Harding), Nathan Perez (South), Mitchell Augenstein (River Valley), Julie Burton (Marion Pleasant), Alan Clinton (Village Academy), Abbigale Neher (West Jefferson), Nary Sy (West), Halle Cheplowitz (Watkin Memorial), Austin Ohnvandy (Walnut Ridge), Adam Murry (West Jefferson), Alison Scudds (Westland), Caroline Prior (Worthington Christian). Benjamin Graber of Jonathan Alder and Daniel Smith of Northland were main scholarship winners. Congratulations to these scholar athletes.
From other districts in Ohio, St. Xavier will represent the Southwest in the OTCA Division 1 Tournament. The OHSAA draws for all districts are available in the upper right corner.
May 18, 2011: Obviously the rain was a disappointment this season. Last year, 494 dual matches were played by this point in the season. This year, 447 matches have been played. Thankfully most weekend tournaments were played (even though many used an abbreviated format). As more schools begin using a "pay to play" format, hopefully the number of weather-related cancellations that occur in tennis will be considered in the equation.
Congratulations to Seven Hills. They are the first team to make the final four for the Ohio Tennis Coaches' Tournament. Since the OTCA web site is not being updated frequently, I would appreciate updates from readers in other areas of the state. Please send a Feedback or email me.
Please make sure that you vote in the OTCA Tournament poll. This information will be shared with our representatives.
As soon as I wrap up a tennis video project for a high school team, more results from other parts of the state will be added.
May 17, 2011: There were just two matches last night. St. Charles defeated Watterson to win the Central Catholic League and Reynoldsburg beat Westerville North.
In singles play, Watterson's Chris Diaz defeated St. Charles' Weston Niermeyer.
The Central District Draws are now available. They are here.
The most recent State Tennis Poll is here.
May 16, 2011: The Ohio Tennis Coaches' Association tournament is obviously a big deal since the OHSAA does not have a team tournament. Despite the importance of this tournament, a blind draw is used to select team match-ups. I am not aware of any tournament of this magnitude that does this.
There have been a number of suggestions mentioned on ways to address this. They include:
- Seed the final four from the previous year.
- Wait until the last two weeks of the season for the tournament and seed the four best teams.
- Use the same ranking system utilized for the Sectional draws near the beginning of the season to seed the four best teams.
I contend that it is better for tennis to have the excitement build during the season and have the four best teams battle it out in the semi-finals and finals. What do you think?
May 15, 2011: The weather held long enough for the Sectional matches to complete yesterday.
There were almost too many interesting match-ups to comment on any of them, but here are a few: New Albany's Stephen Miller beat his teammate, Sean Yun; Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama defeated Upper Arlington's Brandon Griffin; Watterson's Chris Diaz narrowly defeated Wellington's Ian Wagner; and Granville's Daniel Gardner beat Buckeye Valley's Kendall Coffman.
In doubles, St. Charles' Grant Dolven and Weston Niermeyer defeated New Albany's John Hendrix and Oliver Sybert.
May 14, 2011: There was just one match played yesterday. Beechcroft defeated Marion-Franklin, 3-2. The match included three, 3-setters.
Congratulations to the boys who made Districts. Today is the extremely important seeding round.
Please note that the Cincinnati and Cleveland results have been updated to May 11. Again, this data is not as complete as the Central Ohio data, but it provides readers with a better understanding of what is happening with high school tennis in these large metro-areas.
The Ohio Tennis Coaches' Association web site provides some information on the teams that are still alive in the OTCA Tournament, but it is out of date.
OSU plays in the second round of the NCAA Tournament against Notre Dame at approximately 1pm today at the Stickney Courts. Click here for more information. Both squads include Ohio players. Those likely to play include: Peter Kobelt (New Albany), Matt Allare (Kings), Devin McCarthy (Indian Hills), Chase Buchanan (did not play hs tennis), and Stephen Havens (Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy). (Havens plays for Notre Dame.) Admission yesterday was $6 for adults and $4 for students.
May13, 2011: The Sectional matches are finally online. There were 282 matches played yesterday, so I don't look forward to the day after Sectionals.
The second day of Sectionals are always interesting because you get to see a few great matches against players on the same team.
OSU plays their first round of the NCAA Tournament at approximately 1pm today at the Stickney Courts. Click here for more information.
May 12, 2011: Close matches from last night included: Thomas Worthington beat St. Charles in an OTCA match; Watterson defeated Worthington Kilbourne; Westerville South beat Big Walnut; Hilliard Bradley defeated Watkins Memorial; Pickerington Central beat Delaware Hayes; and Bishop Ready defeated Bishop Hartley.
Upper Arlington won the Ohio Capital Conference-Central Division while Dublin Jerome won the Cardinal Division.
Good individual match-ups from last night included: Watterson's Chris Diaz defeated Worthington Kilbourne's Brian Aguirre and Westerville Central's Luke Buchanan beat Olentangy Orange's Doug Ganim.
Kudos with the poll. Voters were very accurate in identifying those programs drawing the most interest on Gerber Analytics. The order was: Dublin Jerome, New Albany, Upper Arlington, Thomas Worthington, and Dublin Coffman. The next three were Bexley, Columbus Academy, and Watterson.
Fans interested in getting all of the player history may now pay using PayPal. Please note that I no longer provide immediate access to the data. Since most of the sign-ups are fraudulent, some due diligence is necessary on my part before you may begin accessing the information.
Good luck at Sectionals today.
May 11, 2011: The close (and interesting) matches from last night included: Bexley beat St. Charles; Gahanna defeated Columbus Academy; Hilliard Davidson beat Pickerington North; Westland beat Franklin Heights; and Beechcroft defeated Olentangy.
Matches among the top players included: Bexley's Matt Wareti beat St. Charles' Weston Niermeyer; Gahanna's Jesse Shivener defeated Columbus Academy's Abram Schottenstein; and Gahanna's Canyon Teague beat Columbus Academy's Langston Hughes.
Sectional play begins tomorrow.
May 10, 2011: It was a great night for tennis. Dublin Coffman beat Pickerington Central, and Watterson defeated DeSales in an OTCA match. New Albany narrowly defeated Bexley. (New Albany was without their regular, first singles player.)
Among the top players, Bexley's Matt Wareti defeated New Albany's Steve Miller; Watterson's Chris Diaz beat DeSales' John Acomb; and Worthington Kilbourne's Brian McGuire defeated Olentangy Orange's Doug Ganim.
The most recent state poll was released. It is available on the More Stats / Info tab. Of those teams in the top ten, Central Ohio has two in Division 1 and three in Division 2.
The poll question reflects the time period from March 28 to yesterday.
May 9, 2011: The most recent state poll is included via the More Stats / Info tab above. Each of the teams is "click-able" for additional information. The central Ohio teams are thoroughly covered but the information for the teams outside of central Ohio varies. However, please note that many of the most relevant matches for the teams are included.
While most of the usage of the Gerber Analytics web site is concentrated in central Ohio, it does have state-wide usage as reflected on the usage map to the right. If the coaches of the non-central Ohio teams would like to recognize their teams and players on a state-wide basis, they may contact me via email or via a Feedback message. Additional scores, team pictures, etc. will be accepted.
Please also note the table situated in the right navigation bar below the Member Sign-up. As scores are processed for the non-central Ohio metro areas, the dates will be updated.
May 8, 2011: The weather cooperated somewhat yesterday. New Albany won the Ohio Capital Conference-Capital Division and Bexley won the Mid-State League-Cardinal Division.
Among the players on My Top Players List, New Albany's Sean Yun defeated Olentangy Orange's Doug Ganim and Bexley's Matt Wareti beat Granville's Daniel Gardner.
Wishing that I had taken more pictures before gas prices skyrocketed, I traveled first to Olentangy and took team pictures for Marysville, Dublin Scioto, Westerville South, Westerville Central, Westerville North, and Olentangy before play started. I then went to Hilliard Bradley and saw plenty of great tennis before taking pictures of Olentangy Orange, Franklin Heights, Watkins Memorial, and Big Walnut at the end of the day.
The scores of the other tournaments will be reported as they become available.
May 7, 2011: The Ohio Capital Conference and Mid-State League tournaments are being played today at various sites (weather permitting). I will be at a Olentangy and Bradley taking team pictures.
In last night's action, Bexley defeated Chillicothe in an OTCA Tournament round.
May 6, 2011: There were several big and close matches yesterday. The OTCA match-ups included: St. Charles beat Pickerington Central and Thomas Worthington defeated Worthington Kilbourne. Other close matches included: Watterson beat DeSales; Big Walnut defeated Watkins Memorial; Groveport beat Lancaster; and Westland defeated Teays Valley. In a battle of the Hilliard's, Davidson edged Darby.
Individual matches included: St. Charles' Weston Niermeyer beat Pickerington Central's Chase Thomas; Dublin Jerome's Sean Stein defeated Westerville Central's Luke Buchanan; and Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre beat Worthington Kilbourne's Brian Aguirre.
To get everyone thinking more about States, the records of most of the Cincinnati metro area teams are now available here. Most of the Cleveland area teams will be posted over the weekend.
May 5, 2011: Who would have ever thought that we would be happy with a day in May that is drizzly and 50 degrees? Thankfully, twenty-five matches were played last night.
The biggest match of the night was Bexley versus Columbus Academy. Bexley won 3-2. The match included two, three setters. Watkins Memorial and Teays Valley also had a close match with Watkins Memorial earning the win.
Among the top players, DeSales' John Acomb beat Worthington Kilbourne's Brian Aguirre; Wellington's Ian Wagner beat New Albany's Sean Yun; Pickerington North's Dylan Bhaerman defeated Grove City's Joey Hemphill; and Buckeye Valley's Kendall Coffman beat Marysville's Joe Highton.
The Cincinnati results now include the matches from the large GCTCA Coaches' Classic Tournament that took place over the weekend.
May 4, 2011: For only the first time during the entire month of May, yesterday was a complete rain out. Today does not look good either.
Since there were no matches to report on from last night, it is time for an update on the Ace Report. For over a month, some coaches and individual players have reported their aces. New Albany's Sean Yun leads the pack, followed closely by Pickerington North's Dylan Bhaerman. Others in the top five include: New Albany's Sam Romanoff, John Hendrix, and Stephen Miller. (Click on the player's name in the report to determine whether the server was playing singles or doubles.)
While the number of aces in this report is really more of a "fun" number, there are several reasons to include this statistic: it gives the fans and kids something specific to look for when they attend matches; it gives the players incentive to work on their serves during the off-season; and college coaches like to know whether a player can get easy points off of his serve.
Please note that in addition to being on the Ace Report, each player's aces is on the My List of Top Central Ohio Players and it was added to the Team Results pages yesterday. Click here for New Albany's.
It may take a year or two before we see if this extra attention on serves is worth the effort but I am already looking forward to seeing next season's results.
May 3, 2011: Fifteen matches (or portions thereof) were completed last night before the rain hit. New Albany finished its match with Dublin Jerome, and New Albany will move on to the next round. In another close match, Briggs defeated Walnut Ridge.
Among the top players, Lexington's Nicky Wong defeated Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre, and New Albany's Sean Yun defeated Dublin Jerome's Kent Seitz. The match between St. Charles' Weston Niermeyer and Dublin Scioto's Sean Ferguson did not finish due to rain.
There are new pictures available for Dublin Jerome and St. Charles.
May 2, 2011: There are two major additions to this site. The Sectional Draws are now available online via the links to the right. They are grouped by division. There is also now additional information for almost all teams in the Ohio Tennis Coaches' Association Poll.
DIVISION 1 |
DIVISION 2 |
|
| 1 | St. Xavier | University |
| 2 | Upper Arlington | Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy |
| 3 | New Albany | Bexley |
| 4 | St. John's Jesuit | Seven Hills |
| 5 | Walsh Jesuit | Wyoming |
| 6 | Sycamore | Columbus Academy |
| 7 | Hoover | Bishop Watterson |
| 8 | Mason | Cincinnati Country Day |
| 9 | Solon | Hawken |
| 10 | Kenston | Chaminade-Julienne / Bellbrook |
This additional information for the Southwest and Northeast teams should be very helpful for the coaches as they vote for the top ten teams in the state. Note that this data is incomplete and it will not be updated as quickly as what is done for the Central District teams, but it still contains very relevant matches. Coaches who would like to include additional matches to these results should contact me via an email or a Feedback message. This additional information originates from the Cincinnati Enquirer and Cleveland Plain Dealer.
May 1, 2011: Yesterday was a great day for tennis. There were two major tournaments. Dublin Jerome won the Worthington Cup. The Bob Raica Westerville Invitational champion was Westerville Central.
The single's and double's crowns for the Worthington Cup went to Thomas Worthington and Dublin Jerome, respectively. Casey Cempre beat Upper Arlington's Stu Little and Sean Stein-Kent Seitz defeated Gahanna's Jesse Shivener-Canyon Teague.
It is Sectional Draw day. With a little luck, the Sectional draws for the Central District will be online on this site later tonight.
April 30, 2011: There are normally not many matches held on Friday, but coaches needed to catch-up due to all of the rain days. There have been 314 dual matches played this year versus 339 for last year.
The closer matches from last night included: Lancaster over Circleville and Grandview over Teays Valley.
Of those on (or close to being on) my top players list, Gahanna's Jesse Shivener beat St. Charles Weston Niermeyer; Dublin Scioto's Sean Ferguson beat Big Walnut's Nathan Randall in three sets; New Albany John Hendrix beat Olentangy Liberty's Doug Ganim; and Gahanna's Canyon Teague beat St. Charles' Grant Dolven.
The all important Sectional draw takes place on Sunday. Coaches, Please consider joining Gerber Analytics so that you can best represent your players in the draw.
Dublin Jerome and New Albany did not finished their OTCA match on Thursday because of rain. It is to resume on Monday.
I hope to spend more time on the data for the Southwest and Northeast areas of the state today.
April 29, 2011: There were 19 matches played yesterday, plus the City League Coaches' Tournament. The close matches included: Olentangy Liberty defeated Dublin Coffman; St. Charles beat Upper Arlington; Delaware Hayes defeated Worthington Christian; and Westerville Central beat Pickerington North. To recognize their seniors, UA used a seniors-only lineup.
Among the top players, Wellington's Ian Wagner defeated Bexley's Matt Wareti and Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama beat Olentangy Liberty's Mitchell Lothes.
It was a big, picture taking day. The City League Coaches' Tournament took place at the Park of Roses. From that event, new photos are online for Briggs, Centennial, Eastmoor Academy, Marion-Franklin, Mifflin, West, and Whetstone.
April 28, 2011: Matches were still hit-or-miss yesterday due to the weather, but that is better than a complete wash-out.
There were several good matches. In the city league, Centennial beat Northland. Both teams had been undefeated. To avoid weather-related issues, New Albany played Westlake at Olympic Indoor and defeated them, 3-2. Upper Arlington also beat Thomas Worthington; Grandview defeated Whetstone; and Westerville Central lost to Village Academy.
Of those players on my top players list, Upper Arlington's Billy Weldon beat Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre, and Olentangy Liberty's Mitchell Lothes beat Dublin Scioto's Sean Ferguson.
I took team pictures of Northland and Westlake (of the Northwest District) yesterday.
Many of the City League teams will be participating at a tournament at the Park of Roses today. Dublin Jerome and New Albany play to determine who progresses in the OTCA Tournament.
April 27, 2011: Thirteen matches were played yesterday but others were rained out. The closest match was Westerville North over Marysville. That match included two, three-setters.
Among the best players, there was only one match-up. Dublin Jerome's Sean Stein defeated Dublin Scioto's Sean Ferguson. Normally at this point of the year, there would be numerous situations where "Player A beat Player B who beat Player C who beat Player A", but there simply have not been enough matches.
I took pictures of the Fisher Catholic and Grandview teams prior to the rain out. Just click on the links. I will be attending the Centennial versus Northland match tonight.
Please note that your eyes are not getting better. I made all of the team pictures slightly larger (because my eyes are getting worse).
Today, six Northeast Ohio teams will be added among the Other Teams under the Boys-Team Results navigation bar. This project is taking longer than expected.
The UA Spring Open will take place this weekend. It is a good tune-up for the girls prior to the USTA qualifiers. Entries close today.
April 26, 2011: Three teams found a break in the weather and played yesterday.
Among the top players, Gahanna's Jesse Shivener beat Pickerington Central's Chase Thomas.
Dublin became a suburb of Chicago for a brief time yesterday in what appears to be case of massive voter fraud. In a very brief period of time, Jerome picked up about 100 votes. This leads us to question yesterday's results and to ask this poll question today -- Which School Has Better Computer Poll Hacking Skills - Dublin Jerome or New Albany?
I'll see if I can figure out a way around the voting issue for future polls.
Watch for three D1 and three D2 teams from Northeast Ohio to be added later today.
April 25, 2011: The reports for the six, Cincinnati-area teams are already proving to be popular. The plan is to include the top three teams in each division in each of the four districts (based on the availability of tennis data). If there are a reasonable number of membership sign-ups from an area, more schools from that district will be added.
The number of player-to-player match-ups among the top players is lower this year due to the rain (and snow). There has not been significant shuffling in the rank order since the beginning of the season, but there were a few changes within the last week. Check out My List of Central Ohio's Top Players if you have not done so recently. (If a key match was not reported by the coach for your son, please have your coach contact me.)
The central Ohio OTCA battles continue. Who wins the next match - New Albany or Dublin Jerome?
Tomorrow's poll question will be - Which School Has Better Computer Poll Hackers - Dublin Jerome or New Albany?
April 24, 2011: There were several great matches played yesterday. A few teams played double headers. Thomas Worthington defeated Dublin Coffman, 3-2, in an OTCA match. Other close matches included: Upper Arlington beat University School and Dublin Jerome defeated Gahanna.
Among the top players, Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre beat Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama. Gahanna's Jesse Shivener beat Dublin Jerome's Sean Stein in three sets. Upper Arlington's Billy Weldon beat Gahanna's Jesse Shivener, and University's Billy Lennon beat Upper Arlington's Stu Little in three sets.
During the rainy days, I have been working on another project. I now have partial results for several teams in the Southwest District. These teams include: Cincinnati Country Day, Lakota East, Seven Hills, St. Xavier, Sycamore, and Wyoming. To view these teams, please click on the Boys-Team Results above and select Other Teams.
April 23, 2011: As part of the Earth Day ceremonies, the Earth rained out all of the central Ohio tennis matches. I heard that there may have been matches played indoors but they have not yet been reported.
April 22, 2011: Teams made great use of a "nice weather day". The most highly contested matches included: Dublin Jerome beat Dublin Coffman; Thomas Worthington defeated Pickerington North; Hilliard Darby beat Marysville; and Teays Valley defeated Circleville (with three, 3-setters).
Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama defeated Dublin Jerome's Sean Stein.
I went to the Grove City - Westland match yesterday. Their pictures are now online.
April 21, 2011: It was a cold night but 16 matches were still played. In the big match, New Albany defeated Upper Arlington, 3-2. Other good matches included: Watkins Memorial beat Zanesville and Dublin Coffman beat Pickerington North.
Among the top players, Upper Arlington's Billy Weldon beat New Albany's Sean Yun, Wellington's Ian Wagner beat Granville's Dan Gardner, and Upper Arlington's Stu Little beat New Albany's Sam Romanoff. In doubles, New Albany's John Hendrix and Stephen Miller beat Upper Arlington's Eric Vannatta and Nate Wallace.
April 20, 2011: There was just one match played last night, but it was a good one. St. Charles narrowly defeated DeSales, 3-2. During the match, two players on My Top Players List played against each other. DeSales' John Acomb beat St. Charles' Weston Niermeyer.
As stated before, an objective of this site is to make colleges more aware of our players. College coaches need to know the school year of the boys and which boys have an interest in playing college tennis. If you know a player who is interested in college tennis, make sure that this information is included on Gerber Analytics. Note that all high school coaches have free site access to enter this information and all college coaches have free access to view it.
The UA / NA match is at 4pm at UA.
April 19, 2011: There were numerous great matches yesterday. There were three, 3-setters in Westerville South's 3-2 victory over Grove City. Other close matches included: Dublin Coffman over Gahanna, Franklin Heights over Lancaster, Circleville over Fisher Catholic, Centennial over Beechcroft, and Pickerington Central over Dublin Scioto.
Among the top players, Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama beat Gahanna's Jesse Shivener in a three setter and Worthington Christian's Joel Montgomery beat DeSales' John Acomb.
Thankfully, the Centennial vs. Grandview match was postponed to tonight. If the match had occurred yesterday, I'd still be doing my taxes.
April 18, 2011: This is going to be a big tennis week. The Upper Arlington vs. New Albany OTCA match (that should be played near the end of the season) will be played on Wednesday. Based on the poll results (see below), UA is heavily favored.
The City League has some great teams. Please vote in today's poll.
If I get my taxes done, I will be going to the Centennial vs. Grandview match tonight to take pictures.
April 17, 2011: It was a blustery day, but the Hilliard Davidson Doubles Classic was able to finish. Thomas Worthington won the tournament with Casey Cempre and Mark Evans beating New Albany's John Hendrix and Stephen Miller in the finals.
I went to the tournament and took pictures of Dublin Coffman, Hilliard Davidson, New Albany, Olentangy Liberty, and Thomas Worthington. I hope to get to more matches this week to take pictures, but coaches are always welcome to email team pictures to me.
April 16, 2011: Fourteen matches were sneaked in before the rain hit. The tightly contested matches included: Village Academy over Worthington Christian and Dublin Coffman over Olentangy Liberty.
In singles play, DeSales' John Acomb beat Granville's Dan Gardner in three sets and Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama beat Olentangy Liberty's Mitchell Lothes.
I went to the Worthington Kilbourne vs. Seven Hills match last night and Worthington Kilbourne's picture is now online.
April 15, 2011: There were numerous 3-2 matches yesterday but the ones that looked really close included: Centennial over Whetstone, Hilliard Davidson over Worthington Kilbourne, and Big Walnut over Delaware Hayes. Watterson beat Columbus Academy in an OTCA match.
Among the top players, Wellington's Ian Wagner beat Worthington Christian's Joel Montgomery.
I went to the Gahanna vs. Pickerington North match last night and their pictures are online.
Members can submit aces if the coach is not submitting them, but no later than the same day as the match takes place.
The member paywall is now "up" (in some places, but not all - yet). Please login (to the right) to obtain all of the previous match history, List of Upcoming Matches, and Same Day Match Results.
April 14, 2011: Finally we had nice weather. There were 24 matches played and there were several great match-ups. They included: Northland beat Eastmoor Academy, Thomas Worthington beat Olentangy Liberty, Westerville South beat Reynoldsburg, and Dublin Scioto beat Pickerington North.
Among the top players, Watterson's Chris Diaz beat New Albany's Stephen Miller, Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre beat Olentangy Liberty's Alexander Hathaway, Wellington's Ian Wagner beat St. Charles' Weston Niermeyer, and Bexley's Matt Wareti beat Granville's Dan Gardner.
Watterson's Chris Diaz announced that he will be playing college tennis at Ohio State. This article from TennisRecruiting.net provides more details. It may not be widely known outside of the tennis community, but Chris is one of the elite players in the United States. He is ranked 26th in the nation by TennisRecruiting.net.
The paywall goes up tomorrow. Most members will want to login to the web site (to the right) when they first arrive at the site.
April 13, 2011: Much to my surprise, four coaches found dry courts someplace yesterday. Hopefully, there will be 20+ matches played tonight.
As stated on Monday, the paywall will be going up this week. I delayed it due to the rain but it will go up on Friday morning.
I had several objectives when I started this site. First and foremost, I wanted to recognize the kids who are playing tennis. Football and basketball players get a great deal of recognition (and that's fine), but I wanted the tennis players to get their just reward as well.
Another objective and intended consequence of the web site was to encourage central Ohio players to work hard on their tennis skills in order to be recognized on this site. Based on the feedback that I have received from coaches and parents, this site is definitely having the desired effect.
Because I am an intensely curious person, I will also always be testing new approaches that might improve our players and provide them with additional recognition. The Ace Report was launched at the end of the girls season and the anecdotal comments that I received from coaches was that it was working. Hopefully we can build on that for the boys season.
The price for a Gerber Analytics membership to access all of the boys' tennis data will be $15 (and $25 for coaches) this year. I know the Internet environment has conditioned people to think that all web information should be free, but please consider the cost of my site as you would any other information or entertainment source (i.e. cost of a movie/popcorn, cost of a newspaper or magazine, cost of a tennis clinic or lesson, access to TennisRecruiting.net). Personally, I think the price is a very good value for the quality and quantity of actionable information that is provided. Hopefully many of you will become members of Gerber Analytics because I really need to start covering my expenses. (Again, making my information "free" does not make my expenses disappear.) To sign-up, please click here.
Please note though that I am not requiring that everyone pay, I will continue to provide free memberships to college coaches and members of the press because they also have the ability to help our players. Hopefully, the extra exposure that our central Ohio players receive will give them an opportunity to play in college.
Congratulations to the players who are dealing with this spring's wind and rain. While these early weeks are tough, your reward is that you are learning a sport that you will be able to play the rest of your life. Best of luck during the rest of the season. Scott Gerber
April 12, 2011: With all of the tennis matches rained out, it is time for a poll. If New Albany beats Big Walnut in the rat tail this week, they will have to face Upper Arlington later in the week in the Ohio Tennis Coaches' Association (OTCA) tournament. Who wins - UA or NA?
<
Having Dublin Jerome, UA, and NA in the same quarter-final bracket eliminates two high quality teams too early in the process. Many would argue that it is better for tennis, the fans, and the schools to have some type of seeding process used. Hopefully this will be addressed next year.
Click for the Division 1 and Division 2 OTCA draws.
The pictures for the Worthington Christian and Watterson teams were added.
April 11, 2011: New Albany traveled to Cincinnati yesterday and played St. Xavier at the ATP-Lindner Family Tennis Center. St. Xavier won in a tightly contested match.
Numerous boys on my top list played in the match. St. Xavier's Devin Bostick beat New Albany's Sean Yun, St. Xavier's Matt Duma beat New Albany's Stephen Miller, and New Albany's John Hendrix beat St. Xavier's Matt Santen.
There are a large number of matches scheduled over the next three days. Let's hope that the weather cooperates.
April 10, 2011: It was field trip day as several Central Ohio teams went on the road. Three of our teams (Watterson, DeSales, and Thomas Worthington) played two matches apiece.
The top players were active. Watterson's Chris Diaz beat Cuyahoga Valley Christian's Alex Aleman (a Duquesne recruit) and Thomas Worthington's Casey Cempre beat Shaker Heights' David Gabriel. DeSales' John Acomb was defeated twice.
New Albany is slated to play St. Xavier today.
Pictures for Hilliard Bradley and Wellington are now available.
The paywall goes up this week. Please click Sign-up to become a member of Gerber Analytics.
April 9, 2011: Upper Arlington defeated Toledo's St. John's Jesuit, 3-2, yesterday. Other close matches included Briggs over Marion-Franklin and Jonathan Alder over Marysville.
In my top group, Watterson's Chris Diaz defeated Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama and Billy Weldon beat St. John's Jesuit's Jorgensen .
There will be a few great matches over the weekend. They are listed on the Upcoming Matches report.
April 8, 2011: Tightly contested matches included: West Holmes over Granville, Bloom-Carroll over Teays Valley, Circleville over Westland, Columbus Academy over Watterson, Centennial over Ready, and Briggs over Beechcroft.
Watterson's Chris Diaz beat St. Charles' Weston Niermeyer.
Please check out the Upcoming Matches report. It shows all of the matches that will be played within the next few days. It was driving me crazy trying to figure out what matches that I wanted to watch so this will hopefully help me (and everyone else). Please note that this will be a members-only report in a few days. Also note that I am awaiting schedule information from a few coaches so not all schools are included.
April 7, 2011: There were 19 matches played last night with numerous, tightly contested matches. The close matches included West over Hartley, Dublin Jerome over Watterson, Groveport Madison over Westerville South, Pickerington Central over Westerville Central, Hillard Darby over Jonathan Alder, Watkins Memorial over Bloom-Carroll, and Hamilton Township over Whitehall. In attempt to blow up my database, Independence and South tied, 2-2.
Among the top players, Watterson's Chris Diaz defeated Dublin Jerome's Sean Stein and Dublin Coffman's Hiromi Nakayama beat New Albany's Sean Yun.
The season kickoff articles from ThisWeekSports.com are now posted for many teams. Links to these articles are on the various Team Results pages. These articles provide great overviews of the various teams.
April 6, 2011: Despite reports of snow delays, 23 matches were played last night. Close contests included: Northland over Whetstone, Pickerington North over Pickerington Central, Columbus Academy over Lexington, Granville over Upper Arlington-B, and Grove City over Groveport Madison.
Among the top players, Wellington's Ian Wagner beat DeSales' John Acomb.
April 5, 2011: The season is off to a slow start with the combination of spring breaks and poor weather. There have been 40 matches played thus far. However, the situation is not too far off last year's pace which had 51 matches within the same time period.
It is difficult to make changes to the order of the Top Players list when several players have not even played yet. Rather than make changes to the ranking order, please note that there have been changes made to the report format. Each player's Ace total is now presented and readers may also click on the Ace total to see how many were earned in each match.
April 4, 2011: Other sports have free-throw percentages, strike-outs, passes completed, batting percentages, etc. to recognize their top performers. Tennis is rich with statistics but nothing is reported other than the score. It is time to do something that will be press worthy and fun with tennis.
Near the end of the girls season, the Ace Report was launched. The idea behind the report was to recognize the players who could hit aces and to encourage all of them to practice more on their serves. Feedback was positive from the coaches who entered aces for their players.
Now the report is being launched for the boys. The report is in its early stages but hopefully most of the coaches will participate. (If your coach does not want to participate, members of Gerber Analytics may submit their aces directly to me.)
Please note that just as other coaches may not want their 6' 10" centers to be shooting 3-pointers or their batters to use a "home-run" swing when the situation calls for a base hit, tennis coaches may want to throttle back the boys who are going for aces on their second serves. Note that there is a limit of ten aces that will be recorded for any match.
Why not keep track of return percentages, unforced errors, etc., too? Many tennis stats are too unwieldy and up to interpretation. Aces are a statistic that players can easily keep track of without the use of a statistician.
Please send me a Feedback with any questions or comments.
Have fun with it.
April 3, 2011: New Albany blanked Toledo Central Catholic, and Upper Arlington beat Sycamore, 3-2, yesterday in Cincinnati.
Among the top players, New Albany's Miller beat TCC's Delp in a close contest while Sycamore's Reinhart beat UA's Billy Weldon in three sets.
April 2, 2011: There were two close matches yesterday with Eastmoor Academy beating Hamilton Township and Ready beating Bloom-Carroll, both with 3-2 scores.
April 1, 2011: Many hardy teams played yesterday. (Others, who were less hardy, did not.) There were nine matches with Cincinnati Sycamore beating Columbus Academy in a close, "3-2" match.
My Top Players List is in the same order as last season. The order will change in a few days. Among the top players, Bexley's Wareti defeated DeSales' Acomb last night.
For a limited time only, if you act now, you can see the Same Day Match Results report. These same-day match results are displayed when coaches enter their results online via Gerber Analytics. This report will be a bit hit-or-miss based on the number of coaches who submit online scores. Please note that it also contains the full names of the players as well as their ace count. It will be a "members-only" report in the near future. There will be more information about the Ace Report tomorrow.
There are new pictures for Bexley and DeSales online.
March 31, 2011: Central Ohio's own Steven Ryuse has written a book, titled "I Didn't Know I Was Black: Growing Up Black in the White World of Tennis". Click on the above link for more information about the book. Ryuse is a tennis professional at Olympic Indoor during the indoor season and Worthington Hills Country Club during the summer. He was a major contributor to the Ohio State tennis team in the late 70s, becoming a champion in 1978 when he was a junior. You may have noticed that he still wears his championship ring.
In the age-old debate of which gender has the worst weather during their season -- girls or boys? Note that all of the boys' matches were snowed out yesterday.
March 30, 2011: Nine matches were played last night with Whetstone edging Bloom-Carroll, Dublin Scioto 'B' over Briggs, and Bishop Ready over Westland.
The rosters and schedules are slowly coming online as they become available.
March 29, 2011: The season is underway with seven teams playing last night. The closer, "3-2" matches included: Hamilton Township over Westland, Columbus Academy over Dayton Chaminade-Julienne, and St. Charles over Westerville North.
Beechcroft is the first team with all of its information online, including its picture.
March 26, 2011: New information for the following teams is now online: Marysville, New Albany, Bloom-Carroll, Watterson, and Upper Arlington. As was done for the girls season, you need to sign-in to view each player's first name, class year, and interest in playing college tennis; otherwise, only the players' last names are displayed.
March 24, 2011: All central Ohio coaches have been given free, temporary access to this site to enter their schedules and rosters. Please watch for this information in the next few days.
For those of you who live outside of central Ohio who would like to have your high school tennis team's statistics online, the site is now setup to accept any Ohio tennis team's information. Please submit a Feedback if you are interested.
Matches start on Monday!
March 22, 2011: There is a nice article about New Albany's Meghan Buell at TennisRecruiting.net today. Click article to read the story.
March 13, 2011: Welcome to the coaches who received my email today. Many of the benefits that I have added for coaches are now live. The boys' rosters have been seeded with players from last year. Please feel free to edit the online roster as you see fit. Coaches may also add their schedules for this year.
As long as I do not have any technical snafus, all central Ohio boys coaches will receive an email this week that highlights the new benefits of the website.
March 2, 2011: Thanks to all who participated in the Easter Seals Tennithon held by Olympic Indoor Tennis Club. It raised $3,050 for children and adults with disabilities in the Central Ohio area.
February 22, 2011: The Olympic Indoor Tennis Club is having their 26th annual Easter Seals Tennithon this weekend. This worthy cause will raise money to support programs and services for children and adults with disabilities and their families in Central Ohio. The fundraiser is a tennis event where junior tennis players between ages 10 and 18 play tennis for 30-40 minutes per hour during the event.
This event will take place at Olympic on Saturday, February 26 from 6 pm until midnight. There will be plenty of food, pizza, pop, and door prizes. The entry fee is $8.00 and at least $50.00 in donations. If you raise more than $75.00 to donate, then you can receive extra prizes.
To obtain more information go to the Olympic website. To register call Olympic Indoor Tennis Club at 267-1213.
February 10, 2011: Changes will be coming fast and furious as preparations are made for the boys season. Please note that you may now Sign In on this page via the right navigation bar. The coaches tab is showing but it is non-functioning (except for those with test accounts).
February 2, 2011: The college season is underway. Most teams have started posting statistics and there are now links to those statistics from the College Players page.
The Top Girls and Top Boys lists are now updated to reflect USTA tournament activity and college choices. Recent college choices include Billy Weldon to Butler, Madison Morton to Redlands (CA), Olivia Ott to Loyola (MD), and Lydia Utkin to Carnegie Mellon.
January 19, 2011: The March of Dimes' team youth organization is having their 3rd annual fundraiser to raise money to benefit Children's Hospital to help premature babies. The fundraiser is a tennis event where people of all ages and skill levels can come and play doubles.
This event will take place at Elysium Tennis on Saturday, January 22 at 5 pm. There are 3 divisions: novice doubles, parent/adult & child doubles, and junior doubles (open). There will be plenty of food and a silent auction.
January 17, 2011: The www.gerberanalytics.com/tennis/tennis.html page will soon be phased out. Please change your bookmarks to www.gerberanalytics.com/tennis/tennis.php.
There are significant changes coming, but one of the first you may notice is a new menu bar. "MORE STATS / INFO" has been changed to make it easier to navigate to the Top High School Players and to the College Players.
January 12, 2011: Substantial infrastructure changes were made to the tennis web site over the past few days. You should not notice any changes (except perhaps faster loading web pages). If you encounter any problems or issues, please send me an email or submit a Feedback message.
January 3, 2011: The list of central Ohio high school players now playing college tennis has been updated. It is available here. Please note that many college sites do not have statistics listed for the fall season.
Note that I still need high school pictures for many of the players. Please send the picture to me via email if you would like one to be included online.
December 29, 2010: Here are a few items of interest for central Ohio tennis fans and players.
The Midwest Indoor Championships tournament is underway. It includes many male and female college players who competed in high school in the central Ohio area. There are also a few high school players participating. The draws are here.
Here is a nice Dispatch article about Neal Newman. Mr. Newman is a a senior tennis player who resides in Bexley and is well known by many tennis players in the central Ohio area.
Lauren Davis, who was the Ohio Girls State D2 Champion in 2008, won a spot in the Australian Open main draw. More information is available from Zoo Tennis.
December 17, 2010: The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) has four equal qualifying areas (or Districts) for wrestling for the State Wrestling Tournament. 
This approach has been very successful in wrestling. The OHSAA has created a committee of coaches and school officials to determine what direction tennis should take.
In an effort to encourage the tennis community and the OHSAA to use the same approach for tennis as is done for wrestling, I just completed an analysis project that goes into a great level of depth.
The report is here.
Please be aware that every map is hyper-linked to a Google map. Unfortunately, some browsers (i.e. Apple iPad) do not support this capability.
December 12, 2010: A tournament supporting the Ohio Wesleyan tennis team will be held December 17-19. Matches will be played on the newly renovated indoor facility in the Branch Rickey Center at the Ohio Wesleyan University. On Friday and Saturday evenings, there will be pizza and pop from Donatos for players and spectators. Each participant will receive a tournament T-shirt. Preferred registration is via the www.cogp.com (Central Ohio Grand Prix) web site, which also offers a discount.
December 2, 2010: Please welcome Tennis ltd as a new advertiser. Tennis ltd is Central Ohio's only complete tennis specialty store, serving tennis players for over 30 years. Thank you for supporting your small local businesses!
November 15, 2010: Who are the best high school coaches? It is very difficult to determine this because of the wide disparity of talent that the various teams have. Of course, that does not stop me from trying.
| School | Won |
Lost |
Total 3 Setters |
Winning % |
| Dublin Jerome | 10 | 2 | 12 | 83% |
| Pickerington North | 12 | 3 | 15 | 80% |
| Marion-Franklin | 7 | 3 | 10 | 70% |
| Upper Arlington | 7 | 3 | 10 | 70% |
| Lancaster | 8 | 4 | 12 | 67% |
| Hilliard Bradley | 6 | 3 | 9 | 67% |
| New Albany - B | 6 | 3 | 9 | 67% |
| Reynoldsburg | 12 | 8 | 20 | 60% |
| Pickerington Central | 9 | 6 | 15 | 60% |
| Worthington Christian | 10 | 7 | 17 | 59% |
| Worthington Kilbourne | 10 | 7 | 17 | 59% |
| Bexley | 8 | 6 | 14 | 57% |
| New Albany | 8 | 6 | 14 | 57% |
| Grandview | 5 | 4 | 9 | 56% |
| Dublin Coffman | 6 | 5 | 11 | 55% |
| Westerville South | 6 | 5 | 11 | 55% |
| Columbus Academy | 7 | 6 | 13 | 54% |
Here is the rational behind the approach that I use. Matches that are extended to three sets must have reasonably equal opponents. Those teams with the best coaches likely have an advantage because the coach has had an opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent(s) and share that information along with strategy with his/her players.
Listed to the right are the teams that had a winning record in three-set matches this season. Only those teams with nine or more three-setters are included.
Obviously, there are other factors that come into play, such as player match experience (i.e. Seniors), but this is one way to measure a coach's effectiveness.
As many of you know, my other interest is education and that is what I have been working feverishly on for the last 23 days. The education data was delivered to me almost a month later than last year and that left me in a massive catch-up mode. I finally finished the league academic data this morning and it is available here. My report on the top academic high schools will be available in a few days.
April 11, 2010: Welcome to the remodeled, Gerber Analytics, LLC, tennis site. The goal for this site is to recognize the local players and teams and to increase the awareness of high school tennis in the Central Ohio area. For many local teams, you will find:
- team picture
- team schedule / results
- match results for every match reported to the Dispatch (plus others that are reported directly to me)
- map and directions to courts
- links to other news sources
- high school graduates playing tennis in college
This information is obtainable using the navigation bar list above.
High school coaches and fans will find this site to be useful to "scout" upcoming opponents. College coaches will hopefully use the site to identify prospects.
The data will be updated daily during the work-week and generally once during the weekends.
It also contains the data for all of the Girls 2009 season.
Hopefully this site will increase the number of fans attending high school matches and increase the level of interest in high school tennis.
The other purpose for this site is to generate revenue so that I can justify continuing with this project. There was substantial effort spent on creating this site and more time will be spent to keep it updated. There are four ways in which websites make money: impose membership fees (i.e. Wall Street Journal or JJHuddle), sell a product or service (Amazon or E*Trade), sell sponsorships, and / or generate "click-thrus" on ads.
It is a common misconception that websites generate money from simply posting ads. That's not the case. Please visit the sponsors of interest.
The goal is to provide this information to the widest group of users, including friends and relatives. Please share this site with your friends and family.
Disclaimer: All opinions and commentary expressed by Gerber Analytics, LLC are solely Gerber Analytics, LLC's and they do not reflect the opinions of advertisers presented on the Gerber Analytics, LLC website.
While care is used in entering and maintaining the tennis-related data, errors will occur. These errors could originate from Gerber Analytics, LLC or from one of the providers of the data. If you identify an error, please contact Gerber Analytics, LLC via a Feedback message or ask your high school coach to contact Gerber Analytics, LLC in order to have the error corrected.
Privacy-Related Information:
Google and Amazon ads are included on this site. They use "cookies" to identify your browser for use in serving ads and tracking your activity. For more information, please visit their respective sites. Please refer to your browser's help files if you wish to alter your privacy settings.
